There has been a lot of exits from the White House this week...Hope Hicks announced her resignation and Jared Kushner's security clearance was downgraded. Vanity Fair's Emily Jane Fox joins The Hive to discuss what the White House will do now.
Fox says the resignation of Hope Hicks changes the tide in the White House and could possibly make Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner more palatable. However, Kushner won't emerge from this as a "success story" and he won't leave the White House until Trump tells him to.
Hope Hicks leaving opens the door for John Kelly to bring in one of his own to run the White House communication department. In Fox's opinion, President Trump has always been and will always be the Director of Communications in the White House. No matter who John Kelly brings in to replace Hicks won't really matter because Trump will do whatever he wants anyway.
House Republicans in key battleground districts are working to contain the political fallout expected when thousands of their constituents face higher bills for health insurance coverage obtained through the Affordable Care Act. For a critical sliver of the GOP majority, the impending expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits after Dec. 31 could be a major political liability as they potentially face midterm headwinds in a 2026 election critical to President Donald Trump’s agenda. For Democrats, the party’s strategy for capturing the House majority revolves around pinning higher bills for groceries, health insurance and utilities on Republicans.
President Donald Trump says a deal struck by Netflix last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. The Republican president says he will be involved in the decision about whether federal regulators should approve the deal. Trump commented Sunday when he was asked about the deal as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. The $72 billion deal would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
