DEBANKING POLL: Americans for Free Markets (AFFM) released polling that shows broad bipartisan support for President Donald Trump’s executive order to end government-driven debanking. Among AFFM’s findings are that “91% agree federal regulators should enforce banking laws using objective standards, not political or reputational considerations.”
COTTON VICTORY DINNER: Sources tell us Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and his finance team — led by The Morning Group’s Annie Baker and Mackenzie Dolan — hosted a dinner for major contributors in D.C. to celebrate his 72-point primary victory in the Arkansas primary election. The group discussed Cotton’s plan to help his colleagues across the country and ensure Republicans hold the Senate.
BIPARTISAN MOMENTUM ON HOUSING: Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), the Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, discussed the progress on the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, telling Squawk Box that “when President Trump and Elizabeth Warren and Senate Republicans can all come to the same place on a housing bill, it shows that if you put partisan politics aside and focus on the issues impacting the American people, you can get results.”
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Editorials
President Donald Trump made a strong choice in selecting Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.) to serve as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary. The Senate should move quickly to confirm him.
Mullin has earned enormous respect in the Republican conference, and for good reason. He is hardworking, direct, and deeply committed to protecting the country. Just as important, he is an exceptionally effective communicator who can explain complicated issues clearly and rally support for action.
As former Senate leadership staff, we have seen his effectiveness firsthand. Mullin is the kind of senator colleagues trust. When he speaks in conference meetings or on the floor, people listen. He brings energy, clarity, and a practical focus on results. He also has the reputation for hiring an extremely smart and effective team.
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Exclusives
Republicans are scrutinizing Scranton, Pennsylvania’s Democratic mayor Paige Cognetti’s track record with a new microsite.
The microsite, details of which were obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, is from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and dubs Cognetti “Machete Cognetti,” referencing a series of high-profile violent crimes that have taken place under her watch.
The NRCC hones in on a tragic incident in which a man murdered two women and a service dog with a machete in Scranton in December 2025. Cognetti, in a recent interview, downplayed Scranton’s rise in crime, saying that it is “relatively low compared to what, unfortunately, some cities suffer.”
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Exclusives
After Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.) recently demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi resign, a senior Trump administration official told the Washington Reporter that the administration relishes the conflict with Lieu, given how “genuinely insane he is, especially on the anti-Semitism front.”
Lieu has for years maintained close ties to both the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and to activists like Linda Sarsour.
CAIR is a controversial advocacy group; lawmakers like Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have long demanded investigations into CAIR “due to the group’s ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and the organization’s leadership repeatedly voicing support for terrorism.”
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Scoops
Jeff Gunter, the former U.S. Ambassador to Iceland appointed by President Donald Trump, has officially filed to run for Congress in Nevada’s 3rd District, kicking off a bid to oust one of the most vulnerable Democrats in Congress.
As Ambassador to Iceland from 2019 to 2021, Gunter oversaw the completion of a new $69.9 million U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik and managed operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When he filed to challenge Rep. Susie Lee (D., Nev.), Gunter was joined by a group of supporters waving American flags and holding signs that read “Ambassador Gunter U.S. Congress — 100% Pro Trump Always.” Trump narrowly carried the district in 2024.
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Scoops
Sources tell the Washington Reporter that a report on a disagreement about President Donald Trump’s housing policy agenda between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Republicans in the Republican Study Committee (RSC) is inaccurate.
Bessent joined the RSC lawmakers for a meeting recently to cover everything from the Trump Accounts that Bessent has helped create, to how Republicans should address affordability issues facing Americans, to the wins they aim to deliver via legislation like the Working Families Tax Cut (WFTC).
“As the largest conservative coalition in Congress, the RSC deserves enormous credit for the passage of President Trump’s working families’ tax cuts through the House, helping American taxpayers and Main Street businesses to secure tax code permanence,” Bessent said after the meeting.
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Scoops
A new economic analysis from a former Trump administration official confirms President Donald Trump’s reported preference for an open banking rule without hidden fees. The Trump administration is currently preparing to release its final Open Banking rule.
Jay Ezrielev, an antitrust expert who served in the first Trump administration as the former economic advisor to Federal Trade Commission Chairman (FTC) Joseph Simons, released an analysis highlighting the damage that new bank fees could have on Trump’s affordability agenda. This analysis comes as several large financial institutions, many of which were involved in the debanking of Trump and his family, have voiced plans to introduce new access charges, which some conservatives and consumer protection experts have called a “toll on your data.”
The Washington Reporter has covered the debate over the Open Banking rule extensively, including publishing a recent breakdown by legal experts and Trump alumni, as well as warnings from crypto leaders about what new fees might mean for Trump’s vision for American crypto leadership, and more.
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Scoops
Dozens of guests that House Republicans brought to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address represented the GOP’s top agenda items, namely small businesses, workers, farmers, law enforcement officers, veterans, health care workers, and more, a Washington Reporter analysis found.
The GOP’s guests stood in contrast to some brought by their Democratic counterparts. Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.), for example, invited an illegal immigrant as his guest; Moulton’s guest, “is referenced in two police reports that Massachusetts authorities have declined to release, citing exemptions involving ‘sexual assault and juveniles,’” as Fox News reported.
Republicans, on the other hand, brought guests who spotlighted their policy goals.
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Op-Eds
When I became Labor Secretary one year ago today, I promised to deliver on President Donald Trump’s mission to put American workers first — and that began by getting out of the Washington, D.C. bubble and meeting directly with workers where they’re at.
I hit the ground running to have meaningful conversations directly with our workforce, visiting communities in all 50 states on my America at Work listening tour.
Kicking off last April in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I met local union leaders and elected officials to discuss challenges faced by everyday hardworking Americans.
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Op-Eds
So far, the headlines in 2026 have been dominated by U.S. foreign policy. The strikes by the United States and Israel against the evil Iranian regime this last weekend have understandably been a major focus of national news coverage and attention. Rightly so. This bold strike has the potential to protect America’s national interest by eliminating Iran’s nuclear capacity and taking out an Iranian regime hostile to global peace and security.
Camp Buehring, an U.S. Army installation where I was spent time my deployment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, is one of the American bases in the Middle East hit by a retaliatory strike by the Iranians. I, like many Americans, am praying for our brave service men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our country and our freedoms. At the same time, there is a different, recent development in a foreign country that also deserves attention — the Mexican government’s killing of notorious drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho.”
The elimination of a major kingpin of the global drug trade is another hallmark success of the Trump administration’s “Don-roe Doctrine” and an example of how the administration’s decisive commitment to a strong U.S. presence in the Western Hemisphere is making Americans safer at home.
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Op-Eds
We are accustomed to viewing wars in the Middle East from the West — through the lens of Washington, Brussels, or Jerusalem. Seen from the Indo-Pacific, the picture looks different. The U.S.–Israel war with Iran is being assessed across Asia not primarily as a regional confrontation, but as a strategic event with global implications — affecting energy markets, revealing the operational depth of American alliances, and informing China’s assessment of U.S. military reach in a period of intensifying great-power rivalry.
Over the past weeks I have been in the Indo-Pacific — traveling from Tokyo to Seoul to Manila and now to New Delhi for policy discussions as the war unfolded. In each capital the conflict surfaced quickly in conversation. Officials, analysts, and journalists are asking many of the same questions: What does this war reveal about American power? What does it demonstrate about alliance coordination? And what might it mean for the stability of global energy supplies?
I am writing these lines from the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, one of the Indo-Pacific’s major policy conferences. Even here, thousands of kilometers from the battlefield, the effects of the war are visible. Organizers report that roughly 1,200 of the expected participants had to cancel their attendance as the conflict disrupted aviation routes across the Gulf. With airspace around major regional hubs such as Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi closed or restricted following Iranian missile strikes, flights across the region have been rerouted or suspended. What appears geographically distant quickly becomes logistically immediate.
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Op-Eds
Early in the morning on February 28, 2026, the United States initiated a historic operation dubbed Operation Epic Fury, a once-in-a-decade chance to end the half-century war waged by the Iranian regime against the American people. Operation Epic Fury delivers on a priority President Donald Trump has emphasized repeatedly — to protect the American people from the Iranian regime’s threats. Not only has Iran threatened and claimed thousands of American lives, but it continues to seek to harm to us.
Operating alongside Israel, whose own operation has been dubbed Operation Roaring Lion, Epic Fury’s achievements in the first several days have been breathtaking: the decimation of Iran’s missiles and military infrastructure, the elimination of the Supreme Leader and of several layers of the regime’s military leadership, and the obliteration of Iran’s navy, to name a few.
Although there is close coordination with Israel and shared operational objectives, the United States has its own clear goals and interests at stake. Previous U.S.-Israel operations such as Operation Midnight Hammer and the Twelve-Day War demonstrated that both countries can operate in parallel while still achieving their own military aims.
