House leaders do not plan to hold a vote to extend President Donald Trump’s temporary takeover of the D.C. police before it expires next week, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal planning.

Speaker Mike Johnson said as he left the House floor Thursday that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s announcement this week that she would coordinate with federal law enforcement on an indefinite basis going forward seemingly “resolved some of” the issues.

The decision not to act on the police takeover guarantees that Trump’s 30-day emergency order will expire Sept. 10. While Senate Democrats have vowed for weeks to block the bill in the Senate using their filibuster powers, House leaders might have called a vote anyway to force vulnerable Democrats to take a position on urban crime.

Senate Republicans aren’t expected to give an extension a vote, either. A senator could try to clear it by unanimous consent, but such a request could be easily blocked on the floor.

Bowser on Wednesday called for the end of the police takeover, which Trump invoked under a provision of the 52-year-old law granting limited local autonomy to the District government. She has also been critical of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and ICE agents within the capital — but has welcomed a surge of other federal law enforcement, such as FBI agents and U.S. Park Police.

“I want the message to be clear to the Congress: We have a framework to request or use federal resources in our city,” Bowser said. “We don’t need a presidential emergency.”

The House could vote within weeks, however, on other D.C.-related measures. An Oversight Committee markup is set for Wednesday on legislation dealing with youth crime in the city, the D.C. education system and restrictions on law enforcement, according to a person granted anonymity to disclose details ahead of a public announcement.

A list of bills under consideration, obtained by POLITICO, includes a number of provisions that would heighten the federal government’s control of the D.C. government. One bill would eliminate the elected D.C. attorney general and fill the job with a presidential appointee. Others would reverse a D.C. policy against police auto pursuits and lower the age at which minors can be considered adults for some violent crimes.

Johnson was also asked Thursday about $2 billion in D.C. beautification funding Trump has said he wants Congress to deliver. He replied he was “not sure the current status of it” and was “awaiting further details on the request.”

Johnson also said Thursday that a nationwide crime bill was “on the table,” while Senate Majority Leader John Thune said it was “yet to be determined” what such a bill might look like.

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is involved in preliminary talks with House and Senate Republicans as well as the Justice Department about a broader crime bill.

“My expectation is again that the House, the Senate, the speaker and I at some point will have that conversation,” Thune said. “Figure out exactly what [Trump] envisions that looking like and what we can accomplish and get through the Senate and the House.”

Jordain Carney, Hailey Fuchs and Michael Schaffer contributed to this report.

As Republicans in Missouri push forward with their plan to draw Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver out of his Kansas City seat, a new poll of voters in the state is against the mid-cycle redistricting effort.

Nearly half, or 48 percent, of Missouri voters oppose the move, according to a new Change Research survey commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee obtained by POLITICO. Meanwhile, 37 percent of the 1,242 registered voters surveyed support the move, with 19 percent undecided. The poll was conducted from Aug. 29-31 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

On Wednesday, Missouri legislative Republicans introduced their redrawn map, which GOP Gov. Mike Kehoe has asked to pass as quickly as possible. The effort in the Show Me State follows a similar effort in Texas, which may ultimately net five new GOP-leaning seats for Republicans as they work to cling to their narrow House majority.

The state would gain one new Republican-leaning seat with the proposed map, leaving just one blue seat out of eight total districts.

The new map is likely to pass. Republicans hold a supermajority in the state’s Legislature, and Kehoe has been a strong proponent of the move.

The poll also asked voters whether they would vote for a ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission in the state, and 52 percent of voters in the state said they would, with 22 percent opposed. (Though the state Legislature is taking aim at the ballot measure process, too.)

A federal judge has declared President Donald Trump’s move to cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid without approval from Congress to be illegal.

“There is not a plausible interpretation of the statutes that would justify the billions of dollars they plan to withhold,” U.S. District Judge Amir Ali wrote in a ruling late Wednesday that is likely to trigger a rush to the Supreme Court. The judge issued an injunction requiring the administration to spend $11.5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid by the end of the month.

The ruling comes just days after White House budget chief Russ Vought announced a plan to withhold about $5 billion in aid despite an Oct. 1 deadline to spend the congressionally appropriate funds. It’s a maneuver he has labeled a “pocket rescission” — an attempt to circumvent Congress’ power of the purse by declaring his intent to cut spending with limited time for lawmakers to respond.

Ali, a Joe Biden appointee, ruled that the tactic is illegal — that until Congress acts, the Trump administration is required to spend congressionally approved funding.

On Thursday, the Trump administration quickly appealed the ruling to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is also likely to respond quickly, teeing up a potential Supreme Court petition in a matter of days.

Ali’s ruling and the quick appeal are the latest twists in a case that has already ricocheted from the District Court to the Supreme Court and back again. It’s one of the earliest and longest-running tests of Trump’s effort to remake the federal bureaucracy and balance of power.

His earlier verdicts forced the Trump administration to continue spending foreign aid funds that Elon Musk’s DOGE attempted to block. Subsequent battles focused on whether Trump’s drive to block foreign aid spending violated Congress’ power of the purse.

The Senate Finance Committee voted to advance two key health nominees on Thursday, teeing up a confirmation by the full Senate.

With a 14-13 vote along party lines, lawmakers approved the nomination of Gustav Chiarello as Health and Human Services’ assistant secretary for financial resources. Michael Stuart, the nominee for general counsel, also sailed through with a 14-13 vote.

The advancements came the same day HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced off with the committee over his federal vaccine policy overhaul and the White House’s abrupt firing of Susan Monarez from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention last week.

Chiarello would be the chief financial adviser to Kennedy, helping steer the department’s budget. He most recently served as a senior special counsel to the House Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). He previously was an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission, overseeing hospital merger cases and health care and technology antitrust investigations.

During a committee hearing in July, Chiarello repeatedly vowed to “follow the law” for federal appropriations in response to questions from Democrats about how he’d ensure HHS spends its congressionally approved budget amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to withhold appropriated funds.

However, Chiarello assured Republicans that he’s aligned with the Trump administration’s efforts to rein in government spending and signaled his support for Kennedy’s reorganization of HHS — which has led to tens of thousands of federal layoffs. Some have since been reversed.

“I support Secretary Kennedy’s efforts to focus on things like waste, fraud and abuse, and also to make sure that the funds that are being allocated by Congress are getting to the people who most need them,” Chiarello said. “And sometimes that involves reorganization or refocusing.”

Stuart would become HHS’s top lawyer, shaping the department’s legal defense against lawsuits targeting Kennedy’s most-contested moves, such as his reshaping of vaccine policy.

He’s a Republican state senator for West Virginia with a history of antivaccine skepticism and antiaborton views. Stuart has referred to himself as “unapologetically pro-life” on social media and supported state legislation that would curb school vaccine mandates.

During the same July committee hearing where Chiarello was questioned, Stuart bore the brunt of Democrats’ ire. Ranking member Ron Wyden of Oregon repeatedly questioned Stuart on how he’d enforce the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act — which ensures access to emergency medical services regardless of a patient’s ability to pay — to protect pregnant women who may need an emergency abortion.

“I believe the law is clear,” Stuart said, sidestepping the question. “Nothing in the law today prevents pregnant women from getting life-sustaining emergency treatment when they’re in the hospital.”

The Trump administration revoked Biden-era guidance in June on the law, known as EMTALA, which protected health care providers by federal law when performing abortions in emergency cases, citing conflicts with the administration’s policies.

In a submission of written answers to follow-up questions from lawmakers after the hearing, Stuart offered few specifics, repeatedly pledging to “follow the law.”

Responding to a question about Kennedy’s removal of Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women and the overhaul of the agency’s vaccine advisory panel, Stuart wrote, “the Secretary has the legal authority to review and make changes to ACIP recommendations.”

Key context: The vote happened the same day as Kennedy’s tense, three-hour long hearing with the committee, the secretary’s first face-to-face meeting with senators since May. It was dominated by questions about the growing dysfunction at the CDC, as Monarez’s ouster sparked several high-profile agency resignations and staff protests outside the agency’s Atlanta headquarters.

Monarez said she was under “pressure to compromise science itself” in a Thursday opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal. Kennedy rejected her claims during his testimony.

What’s next: The nominees now await floor consideration and a full Senate vote.

JD Vance is still in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s camp.

After senators questioned the health secretary harshly at a Finance Committee hearing Thursday, Vance accused those who lectured Kennedy of supporting “off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma” in a post on X.

Vance continued: “You’re full of shit and everyone knows it.”

Vance’s broadside seemed to be aimed at Senate Democrats, but three Republican senators earlier in the day had joined them in criticizing Kennedy’s leadership: Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Thom........

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