Democratic Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw defeated Republican Stewart Whitson easily on Tuesday, with The Associated Press calling the race at 7:36 p.m. Eastern time.

The race for the seat in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District was widely expected to be won by Walkinshaw, who will replace his former boss. The late Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, who had represented the district for over 15 years, died in May.

Not long before passing away, Connolly wrote a letter endorsing Walkinshaw to succeed him in Congress. Connolly’s campaign transferred $1.8 million to a PAC backing Walkinshaw in the primary, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Walkinshaw’s victory in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington is significant. As Republicans on Capitol Hill navigate their tight majority with a funding deadline looming, every additional Democratic vote poses a problem for Speaker Mike Johnson.

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez is scheduled to testify about her high-profile firing from the agency at a hearing next Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said the hearing will allow lawmakers on the committee to directly learn about the circumstances surrounding Monarez’s ouster and the resignations of other top officials at the CDC. Cassidy said his committee plans another hearing where current HHS officials will be invited to respond.

“To protect children’s health, Americans need to know what has happened and is happening at the CDC,” Cassidy said in a press release. “They need to be reassured that their child’s health is given priority. Radical transparency is the only way to do that.”

Monarez will be joined by former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, who resigned from the CDC the same day Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump pushed Monarez out of her job.

Two other health officials, Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, also resigned.

Background: Monarez was fired by the White House late last month, following pressure led by Kennedy to force her to resign.

Monarez, in an opinion piece, said she was fired after she refused a request by Kennedy that she pre-approve recommendations made by the CDC’s external panel of vaccine advisers — which Kennedy recently fired and replaced with his own picks. Several new panel members have expressed skepticism in vaccines widely considered safe by medical experts.

Kennedy, at a Senate Finance hearing last week, said he had not asked Monarez to rubber-stamp the recommendations, contradicting Monarez and the reporting of several news outlets, including POLITICO. Kennedy said he pushed Monarez out because of integrity concerns.

Lawyers for Monarez have said she is willing to testify under oath about her dismissal.

FBI Director Kash Patel will testify before Senate Judiciary on Sept. 16.

The committee noticed an annual hearing on oversight of the FBI Tuesday, and a spokesperson confirmed Patel would appear for questioning from lawmakers.

The hearing comes as leaders of the FBI and the Department of Justice face renewed scrutiny over their handling of the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In July, DOJ and FBI announced they would not release further information on the matter, prompting a sweeping campaign uniting Republicans and Democrats to compel greater transparency in the case.

Patel is also slated to appear for questioning before the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 17.

Chief Justice John Roberts has revived President Donald Trump’s bid to slash $4 billion in foreign-aid funding without Congress’ approval, adding new urgency to a legal clash over the power of the purse.

In a one-page order Tuesday, Roberts granted the Trump administration’s request for a temporary hold on a lower court’s directive that officials prepare to spend the money by the end of the month — when the current budget cycle comes to a close. Aid groups sued earlier this year to force the administration to formally “obligate” the funds, amid signs that Trump intended to gut the congressionally approved foreign aid budget.

Roberts did not provide any explanation for his ruling, but it is likely to remain in place while the full court considers how to handle the emergency appeal the Justice Department filed Monday. That appeal seeks to set aside U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s most recent ruling that the administration is acting illegally by refusing to ensure the money can be allocated by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Roberts did, however, nod to the potential for lawmakers to resolve the matter, noting that Trump’s announced cut is “currently pending before Congress.”

Trump is testing the limits of the presidential power of “impoundment,” a unilateral decision to withhold funds approved by Congress. A 1974 law known as the Impoundment Control Act requires the president to seek congressional approval for any such “rescissions” from the approved budget. Congress typically has 45 days to act on such a proposal. If Congress does not act, the funds must still be spent.

But last month, Trump informed Congress that he intended to cut nearly $5 billion through an unprecedented “pocket rescission,” a tactic through which Trump has claimed the power to slash congressional spending with fewer than 45 days before the end of the budget cycle. (The nearly $5 billion cut Trump initiated includes $4 billion in foreign-aid spending at issue in the lawsuits that have reached the high court, as well as about $900 billion that had been slated for the United Nations and related organizations but is not at issue in the litigation.)

Since the timing hamstrings Congress’ power to respond, Trump and his aides say the cuts will automatically take effect.

Ali, however, ruled that Trump’s tactic was an illegal usurpation of the power of the purse, which the Constitution gives to Congress.

The case has led to complex tangles in the lower courts. Last month, a three-judge panel ruled, 2-1, that the aid groups and grant recipients could not challenge Trump’s effort to impound the money because only a legislative branch auditor, the comptroller general, has the legal power to do so.

The aid groups asked the full bench of the D.C. Circuit to take up the issue. That apparently prompted the original panel to revise its opinion late last month in a way that left a door open for the aid groups to challenge the Trump administration’s inaction under a 1946 federal law, the Administrative Procedure Act.

Ali granted the groups’ request and a different D.C. Circuit panel declined to block his order, leading to the administration’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he met on Monday with Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor.

“We had a good meeting,” Schumer told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday. “We know each other well, and we’re going to keep talking.”

He did not endorse Mamdani.

Schumer and other Democratic leaders have come under pressure from the party’s left flank to publicly back the 33-year-old Democratic socialist, who is the front-runner in the four-person race for the mayor’s office.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) last week criticized her fellow Democrats who have yet to endorse Mamdani, calling on her peers to “put our differences aside” to support Mamdani “for the good of the party.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has also met twice with Mamdani, but an endorsement has yet to materialize.

“Zohran has known Senator Schumer for years, and has been proud to work with him while in the Assembly, from securing $450 million in debt relief for thousands of taxi drivers to halting the construction of a fracked gas power plant in Astoria,” Mamdani campaign spokesperson Jeffrey Lerner said.

Schumer and Jeffries are not only both New Yorkers, they would both be Mamdani’s constituents should he win in November. Both congressional leaders are Brooklyn natives.

Mamdani was well ahead of his mayoral rivals in a poll released earlier Tuesday, holding a strong lead over incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

The pressure to support Mamdani comes as President Donald Trump and his allies have attempted to clear the field for Cuomo by offering Adams a job in the Trump administration.

But Adams said Friday afternoon he would continue with his campaign, dispelling rumors that his exit from the race was imminent. Trump also denied offering Adams the role of ambassador to Saudi Arabia while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.

The White House on Tuesday sent Capitol Hill a 21-page list of so-called funding anomalies — the programs the administration wants Congress to fund at different spending levels under a stopgap funding bill later this month.

The document, obtained by POLITICO and authenticated by a source who received it directly, will serve as guidance as congressional leaders decide how to fund the government beyond the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

Assuming Congress resorts to some kind of short-term measure that keeps federal agencies running on current funding levels for a few more weeks or months, the White House is asking lawmakers for special exceptions. That includes higher funding for the SNAP nutrition assistance program.

The White House is also asking Congress to make the District of Columbia financially whole. The so-called “D.C. fix” would allow the capital city’s government to spend more than $1 billion of its own funding raised through local taxes.

Congress blocked that authority in mid-March by leaving out routine language in the stopgap funding bill at that time. The Senate took swift action to restore that authority, but House leaders never took action.

Legislation to address the D.C. funding shortfall would likely have had the votes to pass the House on a bipartisan basis, but the most conservative flank of the GOP conference was poised to revolt and take procedural steps to block the chamber from considering the bill.

The District’s funding and government operations are under a new spotlight with President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and a wide array of federal law enforcement agencies across the city, picking up trash and spreading mulch in parks. Homeless encampments have been cleared and the White House says its operation in D.C. has yielded at least 2,120 arrests and 214 gun seizures.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

House Republicans are planning a vote to repeal two laws that authorized military force in the Middle East, amid broader concerns by Democrats and some in the GOP that President Donald Trump is using U.S. troops in inappropriate ways.

The House Rules Committee voted Tuesday to allow debate on an amendment to annual defense policy legislation rescinding the congressional authorizations that in 1991 green-lit military operations against Iraq in the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion that deposed the regime of Saddam Hussein. Critics of the laws argue they rob Congress of its war-declaring authority and allow abuses by the president.

Democrats, especially, point to Trump’s use of the Iraq War authorization to justify a 2020 drone strike that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.

Votes to repeal the authorizations for long-ended wars would prove a small but decisive win for advocates of more congressional control. The move comes as Trump expands the military’s role at home and abroad, including bombing Iranian nuclear facilities, striking an alleged “drug-carrying” boat near the Caribbean and deploying National Guard troops to Washington.

The measure, sponsored by Republicans Chip Roy of Texas and top House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York, has backing from both parties.

“Our bipartisan coalition represents the American people who are tired of forever wars and dropping bombs on other countries without public debate, strategy, or congressional authorization,” Jacobs posted on X about the effort. “We’re on the right side of history and we won’t stop until we repeal these outdated” laws.

Lawmakers plan to begin debating the annual National Defense Authorization Act on Tuesday. The Rules Committee granted nearly 300 amendments, including the proposal.

The House is expected to adopt the measure, which has won bipartisan support in previous sessions. It could also win approval in the Senate, which passed the measure in 2023. But the provision would likely face tougher odds with the upper chamber as it has seen less bipartisan agreement on war powers.

The provision may also complicate negotiations on a final defense bill, which has become law each year for more than six decades. The House could choose to drop the measure in negotiations with the Senate, if the upper chamber pushes back hard on the proposal.

Previous Democratic House majorities voted to repeal both war laws several times, including as part of broader defense bills. But no such measure has cleared the House and Senate to become law.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer said a next phase in his panel’s investigation into the Jeffery Epstein case could involve interviewing potential associates of the late, convicted sex offender.

“We were given some names by some of the victims when we met privately, and we’re trying to figure out who they are and how we can interview them,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters Tuesday.

Comer was referring to last week’s meeting on Capitol Hill between Epstein’s victims and members of Congress.

Congressional Republicans say they don’t believe that the materials from the estate of the late Jeffrey Epstein demonstrate close ties between the convicted sex offender and Donald Trump — caught between the president’s furor and a base clamoring for answers around the Justice Department’s handling of the case.

The White House has continued to deny that Trump wrote a note in the so-called birthday book celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday, which was subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and released in full Monday. The image in the book, bearing what appears to be Trump’s signature, resembles the outline of a woman’s body and includes the text, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, when asked if he believed the letter was indeed written by Trump, replied, “I don’t. They say it’s not.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune similarly dodged the question: “There’s a dispute about whether that’s really his signature,” he said. “So it’s just going to be argued back-and-forth.”

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that the committee had not brought in handwriting experts to verify Trump’s signature on the letter, nor was that an important issue for his committee.

“The focus, again, is on trying to provide justice to the victims,” he told reporters.

Trump has, for years, been dogged by questions about his connections to the disgraced financier. He has insisted the two men ended their friendship long before Epstein’s subsequent arrest in 2019 on additional sex trafficking charges, and continues to call the campaign for answers in the Epstein case a “hoax.”

The White House also has been lobbying against a separate, bipartisan measure that would force a floor vote to compel the Justice Department to release materials in the Epstein case within 30 days.

At the same time, GOP leadership has championed the House Oversight probe into the Justice Department’s handling of the case, which has already resulted in some document production but not much that hasn’t already been previously disclosed.

Meredith Lee Hill and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

The White House asked Congress on Tuesday to kick the upcoming government shutdown deadline to Jan. 31, a four-month punt Democrats and many Republican lawmakers oppose.

That suggested date was conveyed as part of a wishlist the White House sent Tuesday morning laying out special exceptions it wants lawmakers to include in any stopgap to keep agencies open past the Sept. 30 expiration of current government funding.

President Donald Trump’s stated preference for keeping federal agencies running on autopilot funding levels into the new year immediately sparked backlash from lawmakers who want a shorter-term punt in order to strike a broader funding deal.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, said in a statement that Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought are trying back Congress “into a corner.”

The request for a four-month patch “makes it clear the White House wants to be able to continue stealing from American communities for another four months,” DeLauro said, referring to Vought’s moves to hold back spending approved by lawmakers.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise emphasized Tuesday that Jan. 31 is a suggestion from the White House and that an exact date for a funding punt is still under discussion.

The move to send the “anomalies” was confirmed by four congressional officials granted anonymity to describe the private transmittal as well as by Rachel Cauley, an aide to Vought.

Now three weeks out from the deadline, GOP leaders and top appropriators on Capitol Hill have been waiting on the request, which was not immediately made public. That guidance from Trump is crucial to writing any short-term spending bill that continues current funding levels, since it informs lawmakers about what funding and authority the White House wants Congress to alter.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said in a brief interview early Tuesday morning that lawmakers were still “waiting” to see the list, which could determine how contentious funding negotiations get in the coming weeks. Trump administration requests for more immigration funding or federal law enforcement resources, for instance, could spark a partisan confrontation with Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune urged Monday that any funding patch should be kept relatively “clean” and slim on special exceptions in order to maximize the odds of a bipartisan spending compromise in the coming months.

A top Treasury Department official shared a schedule for the implementation of new tax cuts in a meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday morning.

In a private briefing with GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee, Ken Kies, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for tax policy, discussed how the agency would regulate various provisions in the freshly-enacted megabill, according to attendees.

Kies will help oversee, among other things, an overhaul of a global minimum tax paid by multinational companies; establishment of a larger tax breaks for stock issued by small companies; and changes to a tax incentive program designed to facilitate investment in rural and low-income communities.

“The devil’s in the details. They went through the system,” said Ways and Means member Greg Murphy (R-N.C) of Kies’ presentation, adding that some of the provisions discussed included the larger tax deductions for seniors and tax breaks for waged tips.

Treasury has already published a list of 68 occupations that qualify for “no tax on tips,” but Murphy said Kies elaborated on how the department would go about preventing the gaming of that tax break.

“If you’ve received tips before, you qualify,” said Murphy, explaining that Treasury doesn’t want a situation where a plumber charges $10 for a service but receives a $300 tip.

Ways and Means member Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) added that members had various concerns about how other provisions in the sweeping legislation would be implemented, which Kies sought to address.

Republicans participating in the meeting also noted that part of the discussion centered on how Republicans should message the importance of the tax cuts in light of Democrats’ relentless attacks against the GOP’s new domestic policy law.

Speaker Mike Johnson, addressing House Republicans behind closed doors just three weeks before the government is set to shut down, said he and other GOP leaders are waiting on direction from the White House for next steps on government funding.

In particular, appropriators are waiting on “anomaly” requests from President Donald Trump’s budget aides, Johnson said, according to three people in the room who were granted anonymity to describe the private remarks.

That’s a reference to departures from prior-year funding levels that would need to be embedded in a stopgap measure to address current spending needs.

Johnson was conspicuously silent on one contentious aspect of an expected short-term punt: how long it would last.

Democrats and GOP appropriators are eyeing November or December, buying time for further negotiations on fiscal 2026 funding and other matters, while conservative hard-liners and some in the White House want an extension into next year — in part, to avoid what they believe could be an unsavory bipartisan deal with Democrats.

Johnson said he prefers to enter a conference negotiation with the Senate over full-year bills — three of which have already passed in each chamber. But he said he is ready to move a continuing resolution instead to avoid a shutdown, the people said.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) also spoke, telling colleagues there had been “good discussions” with Democrats and Senate counterparts on a compromise “minibus” package of three fiscal 2026 bills. That package could be attached to a CR keeping other departments and agencies open past the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

Senate Republicans are ready to “go nuclear” this week after failing to reach a deal with Democrats to clear a backlog of some 150 of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

Majority Leader John Thune filed a resolution Monday to simultaneously confirm 48 bipartisan executive branch nominees, paving the way for a Thursday vote. Republicans expect it to fail since it will be subject to 60 votes, at which point they will move to overrule the chair and invoke cloture on Thune’s resolution at a majority threshold instead.

If that’s successful, Republicans will be able to start confirming most of the president’s executive branch nominees in groups. They plan to confirm this first batch of nominees next Wednesday and clear the entire nomination backlog before a mid-October recess.

The first group includes low- and mid-level nominees — including the nominations of Kimberly Guilfoyle (Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-girlfriend) and Callista Gingrich (former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s wife) as ambassadors to Greece and Switzerland, respectively. Cabinet nominees and federal judges would not be eligible for group confirmations under the new precedent, Republicans say.

In a floor speech Tuesday, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso will argue the updated process will apply to positions “that in the past never required independent Senate floor action.”

“America needs these men and women working — not stuck in a procedural traffic jam,” Barrasso will say, according to excerpts shared exclusively with Inside Congress.

Democrats are effectively powerless to prevent the rule changes if nearly all GOP senators stick together — and their objections have been relatively muted as they deal with the upcoming shutdown and other political distractions.

It’s a change from the pitched battles around past fights over confirmation rules for judges and executive branch nominees that left a bitter cloud over the chamber.

About the strongest warning came from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who told Republicans Monday, “If you go nuclear, it’s going to be a decision you will come to regret.”

Schumer’s comments serve as a reminder that turnabout will be fair play under a Democratic president with a Democratic Senate majority. But that’s a reality Republicans seem willing to accept.

“You always think about when the shoe is on the other foot, and that is ultimately going to happen at some point,” Barrasso told reporters last week. “But we’re trying to get back to the way this has been previously.”

What else we’re watching:

— Developments in shutdown talks: Top appropriators huddled this week in the first bipartisan, bicameral meeting in pursuit of a government funding deal ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline.

— House to consider NDAA: The House will vote to begin consideration of the annual defense authorization bill at 1:30 p.m. It ran into an unexpected hiccup in Rules on Monday night regarding amendments dealing with foreign aid and federal recognition of the Lumbee tribe.

Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.