Washington, DC

1. GOP’s warning to Trump
2. Democrats hold out
3. Shutdown impact widens
4. Centrists study victories
5. Shapiro’s take
6. Trump hosts Orbán
7. Winning energy arguments

PDB: Judge orders full SNAP benefits paid

UMichigan releases consumer sentiment report … Israel steps up strikes on southern Lebanon … NYT: US sends attack aircraft to El Salvador

GOP warns Trump to refocus on economy

As the president continues taking meetings with foreign leaders, traveling abroad, and amping up military strikes in the Caribbean, Republicans reeling from Tuesday’s election losses are warning him: Voters care about the economy more. Semafor’s Shelby Talcott and Burgess Everett report that they’re hoping he’ll refocus on “kitchen-table issues,” as Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, put it. “I’m glad the president’s had some very good success internationally, but that’s not what motivates voters,” he added. One person close to the White House said President Donald Trump has sought to sprint to achieve his foreign policy goals, but a shift back to domestic issues “has always been in the works.” Still, another insider suggested Trump should keep focusing on moves that leave a legacy: “No one wants to visit a presidential library that has an exhibit about egg prices going down 10 cents,” the person said.

Senate’s shutdown progress stalls

Democrats are poised to block an effort to pass a new government spending bill today, holding out for more assurances on subsidies for health care premiums from Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports. That hasn’t happened yet, leaving the short-term outlook for ending the shutdown pretty dim after a few days of momentum. So what next? “Many of us, including myself, are advocating for sticking around through Veterans Day. There are people in the VA that are not getting paid,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Semafor. Leaders haven’t ruled that out, and it’s certainly possible the Senate stays in to grind it out — or cancels next week’s recess. We’re told Democrats are well short of the votes for a negotiated package of full-year funding bills. “Democrats have got to remain firm,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Shutdown disruptions set to spread

For some Americans, the government shutdown may have felt largely confined to Washington. That’s about to change. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, the FAA is expected to begin cutting flights today across 40 major airports — including those in some of the largest US cities, like Chicago and New York — to ease pressure on air traffic controllers missing their paychecks amid the shutdown. Meanwhile, the shutdown’s economic impact is still not fully understood, in part because crucial federal economic data businesses and policymakers use to make decisions has been turned off. That means a delay in the US jobs report for October, supposed to be out later today. Private data has stepped up to fill the void, including a new report spotlighting the rise in October job cuts as companies adopt artificial intelligence.

Centrist group’s take on election wins

Focus groups gathered for the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way praised how Democratic gubernatorial winners in New Jersey and Virginia talked about costs and de-emphasized social issues. In interviews from David Binder Research, shared first with Semafor, respondents, largely consisting of independent voters, said that Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger was credible when she talked about working with Republicans and didn’t wade into trans rights issues. Politicians who did were “making a mountain of a mud-pile,” one voter said. New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill benefitted from attacking GOP nominee Jack Ciattarelli’s support for and from the president. And both Sherrill and Spanberger were helped by their national security backgrounds. “The center-left now has been how candidates can demonstrate that they are a fighter in this moment, that people clearly want some fight without being extreme,” said Third Way Senior Vice President Lanae Erickson.

— David Weigel

Pennsylvania gov on Dem victories

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro took a victory lap after his party’s better-than-expected election performance, touting his own model for Democratic success as Republicans accused the party of being led by the left. House Republicans minimized the elections as blue team wins in blue states, while the president elevated New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to be leader of the opposition. “They saw how engaged I was, and chose to pick a different fight,” said Shapiro, who invested $250,000 from his campaign fund to help retain three state Supreme Court justices and secure multiple Republican-held county offices. Mamdani talked with him this summer, after Shapiro criticized him for not condemning the phrase “globalize the intifada.” Still, Shapiro credited Mamdani, as well as Sherrill and Spanberger, for “speaking specifically about how to fix everyday problems in their community.”

— David Weigel

Russian oil to dominate Orbán meet

Trump sits down in Washington today with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and the two are expected to discuss Hungary’s continued purchases of Russian oil. The meeting comes as Orbán faces more pressure to separate himself from Russia, which has continued its war with Ukraine despite increased pressure from the American president. Nevertheless, the Hungarian leader will try to convince Trump to let his country’s Russian oil purchases slide. Trump and Orbán are known to have a friendly relationship, and Hungary recently indicated it’s still willing to host a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Last month, the two world leaders agreed to sit down in Hungary, but Trump nixed the meeting as Putin showed no signs of being willing to end the war.)

— Shelby Talcott

Democrats seize the energy lane

​​Promises to fix soaring energy prices proved to be a winning message for Democrats in local and state elections across the US this week. Electricity prices are rising twice as fast as the overall rate of inflation nationwide, an issue that politicians across the spectrum have come to see as potentially decisive for cash-strapped voters. While Trump and congressional Republicans have promised their own set of solutions, Tuesday’s results suggest voters are skeptical that shutting out clean energy is an effective strategy: Spanberger and Sherrill both won their gubernatorial races after centering their campaigns on energy affordability, while Democrats also took two seats on Georgia’s Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, on promises to bring more clean power to the state.

— Tim McDonnell

Debatable: Trump’s tariffs

The conservative Supreme Court seemed skeptical this week of Trump’s sweeping tariffs, threatening a centerpiece of the White House’s economic agenda. At issue is whether Trump has the power to impose unilateral levies on US trading partners by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. It’s a law that has been used by past presidents to impose penalties like sanctions, but never tariffs — until now. “Congress has not resolved the question through explicit statutory language,” argues Nazak Nikakhtar, national security chair at law firm Wiley Rein and a former Commerce Department assistant secretary during the first Trump term. Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a former attorney general of his state, argued that Trump does have the authority to impose unilateral tariffs — under a different statute.

Will Welch is the global director of GQ, and has been the editor-in-chief of its US operation since 2019. On this week’s Mixed Signals, Welch talks to Ben and Max about how the magazine plans to address men amid the prominence of the manosphere, the value in covering niche subcultures, and how the parties thrown by the magazine operate as content creation mechanisms. Welch also talks about how he works with celebrities, praising Robert Pattinson as a more creative collaborator than he’s used to.

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said it’s possible to solve the health care debate without prolonging the shutdown: “I don’t believe in this idea of using federal workers and people who rely on federal programs as leverage.”

Playbook: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told people close to him that Vice President JD Vance is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2028 and would have his support if he chooses to run.

Axios: Palantir CEO Alex Karp on the stakes for the US in the AI race: “We are going to be the dominant player, or China’s gonna be the dominant player. And there will just be very different rules depending on who wins.”

WaPo: “By retiring — even at 85 years old — Pelosi is doing something that many older lawmakers in her party have so far refused to do: step aside for a younger generation.”

White House