Welcome to The Drain Pipe, your guide to the week ahead in Washington.
Nothing Ever Happens: Forty trillion dollars of debt, ideological rot causing the Ivory Tower to crumble, and a potential energy crisis hanging like the Sword of Damocles over President Donald Trump’s head.
The country faces many challenges. But drive past Capitol Hill in your Indy car, and you’re liable to see a tumbleweed.
You’re not supposed to notice that members of Congress spend their languid late summers at sleepaway camp. But instead of taking a canoe onto the lake and braiding friendship bracelets, lawmakers are eating aged gruyère tartlets with the head of legislative affairs for the pharmaceutical lobby. That’s because every August lawmakers jet to luxury resorts in some of the wealthiest corners of the country to collect campaign cash. Their social calendars this August include junkets in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, Alaska, and Aspen, Colorado, according to longtime lobbying reporter Kate Ackley of Bloomberg.
The House is adjourned for another week, and most senators won’t begin arriving at Washington’s Reagan National Airport until mid-September.
The more politics becomes dominated by recesses, pro-forma sideshows, and purity tests rather than bold moves, the more society becomes desensitized to inaction.
THE EXECUTIVE
President Donald Trump attended the Freedom 250 Grand Prix on Sunday. “Freedom doesn’t ring, it revs,” declared one sign along the seven-turn, 1.7-mile-long track a couple blocks from Congress. D.C. officials had to weld more than 200 manhole covers shut before the event. Kyle Kirkwood won the historic race.
But the fun is over. Today, Trump will host a 2:30 p.m. Rose Garden event just moments after Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent is set to address a major escalation in the Iran War.
Bessent Threatens To Drag China To Hell
Bessent will host a press conference today at 2 p.m. amid a major escalation in the Iran War, “an economic D-Day,” that he said began at dawn.
It’s easy to miss, because he invoked French philosophy to do it, but Bessent threatened to widen the Iran War into a global conflagration by ratcheting up economic sanctions against Iran’s trading partners like China in a Financial Times op-ed Sunday night.
Bessent alluded to Pascal’s famous wager: If God is real, and you believe in Him, you gain infinity. If He is not, you lose finite earthly pleasures. If you doubt God is real, you risk infinite hell.
Pascal “understood that uncertainty does not absolve men or nations of divine judgment. In fact, it demands a more exacting appraisal of risk and imposes a higher price for error,” Bessent wrote.
The op-ed does not call out any single country by name, but does not exclude any either. And China is Iran’s biggest trading partner. China buys over 80% of Iran’s total exported crude oil. Russia and the United Arab Emirates also conduct trade with Iran.
Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaee in turn threatened the American tankers evading Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz and our allies: “Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war.”
Bessent said military escalation remains on the table if Iran attacks its Gulf neighbors.
The commander in chief first previewed the strategy last week of transitioning from a less militaristic strategy to a more economic one as the war approaches its sixth month.
Defense Priorities policy expert Rosemary Kelanic warned that this strategy could invite a painful tit-for-tat from Beijing in a Sunday podcast.
“China can retaliate against the United States in major ways. They are a major trading partner of us, and they’re a major trading partner of the rest of the world,” she said.
VP Takes Aim At Wall Street Journal For Being Wrong 17 Years In A Row
Ottawa backed out of last-ditch negotiations with Washington on tariffs Friday. The collapse of a deal affects 5% of Canada’s southern exports, including automobiles, aluminum, and steel. Prime Minister Mark Carney has vowed dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs, and said the rupture reflects that “America has changed.”
Meanwhile Vice President JD Vance gave a full throated defense of trade protectionism paired with an immigration crackdown Friday in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, at the steel mill where his grandfather worked for 40 years, Cleveland-Cliffs, formerly Armco Steel.
“My papaw was a welder in this place for forty years, and today his grandson stands here as the vice president of these United States. It’s an amazing thing,” he said alongside Ohio Sen. Jon Husted and gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
The speech echoed many themes of his latest book Communion, which veers in its final chapters from a religious conversion story into an economic and spiritual vision for the country.
In what may amount to a preview of the Vance ‘28 campaign, the VP criticizes technocrats’ fetish with economic metrics like GDP that cannot measure the quality of a life, only its productivity. His grandfather’s job provided a ladder to the middle class and a way to provide for his family, the most important thing in his life. It was only after his death that he experienced real poverty, Vance writes.
In his speech Friday, Vance took aim at the Wall Street Journal editorial board, perhaps the media’s most influential advocate for unfettered free trade and cheap foreign labor.
A July 4, 1984, editorial advocated for a “five word amendment to the Constitution: There shall be open borders.” The paper repeated its case for free flowing immigration each year on Independence Day for the next 17 years.
The editorial tradition shows that “being replaced with foreign workers in other words, it was not an accident my friends, it was the desired outcome of a generation of American elites,” Vance said.
Where’s The Beef? Here, But From Everywhere Else.
Trump announced Friday that he plans to temporarily lift beef tariffs to alleviate high beef prices ahead of the midterms.
“[...] for the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Friday.
However, multiple Republican lawmakers warned against this apparent reversal.
“I’ve advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them - most of whom are MAGA Republicans,” Republican Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy wrote in an X post Friday.
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (eloquently) posted on X that same day: “After Tyson closure in Illinois last wk I’m concerned for the cattle markets +now Pres Trump’s decision to temporarily open up subsidized beef imports USA cattlemen shld always be put 1st thru America 1st policies Need 2keep up progress fighting screwworm+ expanding domestic herd.”
It’s not immediately clear if the Great Burrito Debate of 2026 is responsible for this decision.
THE LEGISLATIVE
The House and Senate are adjourned until Aug. 31 and Sept. 14, respectively.
A Better Question: Where Are The Recess Appointments?
At least eleven Republican senators will travel to Washington to host “pro-forma” sessions, POLITICO reported Wednesday. The purpose of such sessions are to prevent the president from filling vacancies without securing a Senate confirmation.
West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice will preside. He follows Arkansas Sen. John Boozman and Indiana Sen. Jim Banks.
This has led some people on the internet to accuse Justice of being a “traitor” or intent on “BLOCKING the America First Agenda.”
However, Banks told POLITICO that they’re during this for procedural reasons.
“The House left town without approving a resolution that would allow recess appointments. Due to their inaction, the Senate is constitutionally-required to gavel-in every 3 days,” Banks said.
To the senator’s credit, SCOTUS ruled in 2014 that the president needs to set ground rules with the House before making recess appointments.
Regardless, Trump posted on Truth Social last month a graphic labeled, “Where is John Thune?” It showed that President Ronald Reagan had over 240 recess appointments, President George W. Bush had over 171, and President George H.W. Bush had 77. Trump has zero.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116988306182862172
Congress Pretends To Act Bipartisan Over $40 Trillion Debt It Raised
After the Department of Treasury reported last week that the United States’ budget deficit surpassed $40 trillion, members of Congress of both sides of the aisle were quick to weigh in.
“Both parties talk a big game on fiscal responsibility — until they’re the ones who have to govern,” reads a press release by the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum, which includes Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga of Michigan, and Democratic Rep. Scott Peters of California. “It’s worth remembering: the last time we actually balanced the budget, Republicans controlled Congress and a Democrat sat in the White House. Absent bipartisan legislation, it’s only a matter of time before one of the two parties is left holding the bag.”
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky in an X post last Thursday took a swipe at Trump’s signature legislation, despite its provisions to claw back Medicaid fraud.
“If you voted for the Big Beautiful Bill, please don’t get on here and express righteous indignation that the debt is now $40 trillion. Anyone with a room temperature IQ knew that cutting taxes and increasing spending was going to balloon the deficit,” Massie wrote.
THE JUDICIARY
The Supreme Court of the United States is adjourned until Oct. 6.
SCOTUS Is Going To Have A Ball With This Case
SCOTUS confirmed Friday that Trump’s roughly $400 million ballroom project will be on the docket during the court’s upcoming 2026-2027 term, the DCNF reported.
In the meantime, SCOTUS also ordered that the Trump admin can continue construction of the ballroom while it awaits the ruling.
“We are grateful for the Decision of the United States Supreme Court,” Trump posted to Truth Social hours later. “The Military/Ballroom Complex being built on the hallowed grounds of the White House, which is so vital for National Security, will be THE GREATEST OF ITS KIND! It is something that Presidents have wanted for 150 years, and that the Military has been seeking for the last 100 years. Their wish will soon be fulfilled!”
Previously, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit backed another federal court’s ruling on Aug. 7 blocking Trump from building the ballroom.
This legal saga began when the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States filed a lawsuit challenging the project in December 2025.
Judicial Appointments
While America waits to see what’s on the docket during the next SCOTUS term, the Trump admin continues to reshape the judiciary’s landscape.
Among his nominees is North Dakota Solicitor General Phil Axt for the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota, who Trump praised as a “true warrior” in his Truth Social post announcing the nomination last Thursday.
As the state’s solicitor general, Axt gave the oral arguments in favor of restoring North Dakota’s abortion ban that was signed into law by former Gov. Doug Burgum in 2023, the North Dakota Monitor reported March 2025.
“Nothing in our history suggests our constitution has ever been understood to guarantee abortions unrelated to the mother’s life or health,” Axt proclaimed.
The North Dakota Supreme Court restored the abortion ban in November 2025.
Trump’s judicial nominees await a confirmation vote by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary once the upper chamber is back in session.
MISCELLANEOUS
Trump Has Even More In Common With Lincoln After His Latest Move
Liberia announced Tuesday that it agreed to accept 1,200 deportees from the United States in the next two months, Reuters reported. Most of them will be from Latin American countries like Venezuela and Cuba.
However, Trump isn’t the first president to try sending unethically sourced labor to Liberia; that title goes to none other than President Abraham Lincoln.
“My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia — to their own native land,” Lincoln stated in his 1854 Peoria speech.
However, Lincoln abandoned those plans after a disastrous trial run off the coast of Haiti proved it was logistically impossible given the government’s resources at the time.
Running Up That Hill
Some Democrats have in recent weeks attempted to keep the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) at arm’s length and memory hole “Woke 1.0.”
“I believe in a big tent. I’m more of a social Democrat, so to speak,” said Florida Senate candidate Angie Nixon in a Saturday interview when pressed on her DSA affiliation.
Then socialist streamer Hasan Piker mocked Charlie Kirk’s assassination before a theater of adoring fans over the weekend. (Relax, his fans implore. He does this all the time!) The terminally online, deliberately offensive humor about political violence becomes something more grave when Piker’s leftist cred is craved by so many Democratic candidates seeking real political power.
But Woke 1.0’s triumph might not be a bug, but a feature of the Democratic Party.
Leo Strauss noted in his essay Three Waves of Modernity that modern thought separates itself from classical thought by trying to make man the “master of all things” rather than the “measure of all things,” placing autonomy — mastery over one’s own life — at the center of many minds.
So, whether someone adheres to simple liberalism or Woke 100+, the next wave of modernists demand progress for the sake of progress. Otherwise, by not challenging the status quo, you’d be accused of backpedaling on an ever-expanding list of rights.
In a way, left-wing infighting is a lot like Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus. However, instead of being punished by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill for his entire life, Sisyphus — or any progressive politician you’d like to use as a stand-in for him — has to bear the weight of the next generation of progressives’ expectations for their entire career.
Reverting to “Woke 1.0” may simply be a matter of gravity.
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