In our latest edition, we have an interview with Richard Hunt about attacks on your credit card rewards miles, an expose on one of the military’s health care providers, op-eds from incoming Rep. Julie Fedorchak, Bonnie Glick, Dan Eberhart, and much more!
By: Matthew Foldi
Even though Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) may not run for reelection in 2026, he may be gunning for Americans’ credit card rewards, Richard Hunt, the executive chairman of the Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC), told the Washington Reporter in an interview.
Hunt is a well-known advocate and giant in the D.C. financial services space who is deeply respected across the aisle. He has a reputation for being tenacious and a brawler on policy issues; he is detail-oriented, but also, in a complimenting description from a Hill staffer, “down-to-earth and doesn’t take himself too seriously.”
Durbin has pushed for the Durbin-Marshall Act alongside Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kansas) for years. If it becomes law, Americans would move the current “safe and secure” payment system “that provides access to credit,” to one “that would increase fraud, limit credit cards, and eliminate all your valuable reward miles,” Hunt said.
Hunt’s EPC is a “coalition made up of financial institutions, large and small, a group of airports, airlines and small businesses across the country, making sure that payment for American consumers are safe and secure” and leads the opposition to the Durbin-Marshall bill, which Hunt called “draconian.”
Click HERE to read more from our interview with Richard Hunt, who is leading the fight to protect Americans’ credit card rewards.
What’s your favorite job you’ve ever had?
Matthew Foldi
Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Reporter
My first job out of college was as a driver for a member of Congress in a very competitive district. So it was all out campaigning every single day for two years, and that went on for around four years. And by being a driver, you’re privy to conversations that ordinarily you would not be privy to for years within an office. Well, I got to learn the secret workings, if you will, of both the campaign and congressional staff and priorities right away, right out of college.
Richard Hunt
Executive Chairman of the Electronic Payments Coalition
What we’re hearing from people we trust on and around the Hill – please send us more tips!
Tricare, one of the health insurance providers for military families, allows children as young as 12 years old to opt out of sharing health information with their parents, a group of military spouses told the Washington Reporter.
“If we had a 12+ year old kid, we’d be unable to access their records if our child opted us out,” one military wife said. “They could feasibly get insurance-covered gender transition procedures done without our ability to see what their doctors are doing paperwork wise.”
TriCare policies obtained by the Reporter confirm that “dependents 12-18 must give authorization for anyone (even the parent!) to access their medical records.”
Two generations ago, Mark Uyeda’s grandfather lost everything when he was sent to an internment camp in Arkansas for Japanese-Americans. Following his release after World War II, he started a small business that delivered fresh produce to local franchises, including the then-new Mexican restaurant Taco Bell.
His grandson Mark, now a Republican commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), spoke to the Congressional Asian Pacific American Staff Association (CAPASA) last week about his journey to the top ranks of financial regulators.
“Despite the unjust internment of Commissioner Uyeda’s family during World War II, the Commissioner emphasized that his proudest moments as a public servant have been representing the United States overseas,” an attendee of his speech told the Reporter. “His story exemplifies the resilience of the American spirit. We are fortunate to have dedicated public servants like Commissioner Uyeda.”
Former Rep. Jim Nussle, who left the Republican Party almost four years ago, is sounding a new tune following President Donald Trump’s decisive victory.
Nussle, who said in 2021 that “the GOP is NO more and left me and others behind,” is the president and CEO of America’s Credit Unions. Nussle is now “trying to suck up to Trump like a cheap straw,” a Republican strategist told the Washington Reporter. Nussle wrote to Trump urging him “to resist any calls for eliminating the credit union tax exemption just as you did during the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017.”
Microsoft could find itself in MAGA crosshairs as the incoming Trump administration seeks to slash government with the help of Elon Musk, who has longstanding rivalry with Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Microsoft board member Reid Hoffman and Gates spent tens of millions of dollars in 2024 between the two of them on efforts to defeat President Donald Trump, which could leave them on the outside looking in next year.
Due to a variety of factors, including what experts call “vendor lock,” the federal government has given Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars in minimally-competitive contracts. “In one prime example of vendor-lock, the government spent $112 million more to buy Microsoft Office than Google Workspace in order to avoid perceived costs to switch,” government procurement expert Michael Garland wrote in a report.
America should use different levers of power to wage irregular, or “sneaky,” warfare, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R., Wis.) said during a Special Operations Association of America (SOAA) talk last week. Joined by a small group of national security professionals, including strategy expert Dr. Sean McFate, the talk illuminated several real-world examples of how the United States can emphasize America’s constitutional strengths relative to authoritarian states.
“One example the United States could have conflated in the information environment was in the fall of 2022 when Chinese citizens watched the World Cup broadcast where a stadium of fans gathered without masks for COVID and weren’t sick, or being castigated for congregating,” David Cook, SOAA’s executive director, told the Washington Reporter. “This put the Chinese authoritarian government on its heels for lying to a nation about the dangers of COVID. The United States could have fanned those flames with truth.”
As a lifelong North Dakotan, I am proud of our state’s history that is grounded in resilience, innovation, and grit. Ours is a story about harnessing our abundant natural resources while protecting our land for future generations.
This is the approach Americans want in all their leaders, and it is the record of my governor, Doug Burgum, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Chairman of the National Energy Council.
As part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping electoral victory, he won in regions once thought unattainable for the Republican Party. The GOP has also regained control of the Senate and maintains its hold on the House. While countless analyses will attempt to dissect how Democrats arrived at this juncture, one underlying truth is clear: they have fundamentally lost touch with the American people.
To understand how we got here, we need to look back to the Obama administration. Although many Democrats fondly recall the Obama era, others remember it differently. To these voters, President Obama’s tenure was marked by an attitude that he alone knew what was best for the average American. Few have been as convinced of their own vision as Barack Obama, and many of his political proteges inherited that same belief: they knew better than the public.
The issue today is that these individuals now hold highly influential roles within the Democratic Party and American cultural institutions including businesses and education.
While President Donald Trump won the presidency in an historic landslide election and is now preparing for his second term, the 2028 Democratic primary for president is already underway — and it’s not looking promising.
At the forefront of the Democrats doing anything in their power for airtime and attention is Gov. JB Pritzker (D., Ill.). A serial tax-and-spend Democrat who has driven business and families out of Illinois, Pritzker is looking to propel himself away from the state he helped drive into the ground toward federal office, twisting himself into a pretzel to praise Joe Biden and get in the good graces of Kamala Harris in 2024.
Now that she’s failed, Pritzker is already pivoting towards 2028.
President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet selections to run federal energy policy signal his intent to extend America’s “energy dominance” during his second term in office. While some argue that the United States, which has been the world’s largest oil and gas producer since 2018, has already achieved that impressive feat, thanks largely to the shale boom of the past 15 years, more can be done to unleash U.S. energy production.
After four years of the Biden administration, which prioritized alternative energy and tackling climate change while treating traditional fossil fuels as an unfortunate necessity, there is ample room for Trump to elevate America’s standing in global energy markets further.
Trump named Gov. Doug Burgum (R., N.D.) as both his Interior Secretary and as his “energy czar,” handing him sweeping authority to open federal lands to frackers and to deregulate agencies to boost U.S. oil and gas output. He later picked as his Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a shale executive who had been promoted by shale pioneer and Trump energy advisor Harold Hamm for months.
President Donald J. Trump announced this week that his transition co-chair, long-time friend, and billionaire entrepreneur Howard Lutnick will serve as his Secretary of Commerce, a key role to help carry out the president’s historic economic and trade agenda. By selecting Lutnick, President Trump is delivering an early win on his commitment to advance America First policies and push back on nefarious trade practices from countries like China.
