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Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. In today’s edition, we report on a newly released batch of Jeffrey Epstein emails that mention President Donald Trump. Plus, Andrea Mitchell digs into the behind-the-scenes talks at today’s G7 meeting in Canada. Sign up to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday here. — Adam Wollner Epstein saga re-emerges as the House returns to Washington The House is set to vote to end the government shutdown this evening, but it was the Jeffrey Epstein saga that again took over the spotlight in Washington today. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released emails from Epstein, the late convicted sex offender, to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell and journalist Michael Wolff that referenced President Donald Trump, Megan Lebowitz reports. In one 2019 email, Epstein wrote in reference to Trump: “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.” The top Democrat on the House committee, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, said in a statement that the released emails “raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President.” In a Truth Social post, Trump called the Epstein story a “hoax” and accused Democrats of releasing the documents to distract from news about the government shutdown. He urged Republicans not to “fall into that trap.” Trump has long denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes, though he has acknowledged they crossed paths in the 1990s. A spokesperson for the GOP-led committee accused Democrats in a statement of aiming to “carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate click-bait that is not grounded in the facts.” Republicans on the panel later released what they say are 20,000 additional pages from Epstein’s estate, in which Trump is referenced repeatedly. Epstein vote: On top of the newly released emails, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., whom he had refused to seat when the House was out of town during the shutdown after her Sept. 23 special election victory. One of Grijalva’s first moves was to provide the 218th signature on a bipartisan discharge petition that would allow rank-and-file lawmakers to bypass Johnson and force a floor vote to release the Justice Department files from its Epstein investigation. The measure is expected to pass the House in the coming weeks, though it would face long odds in the Republican-led Senate. But it will keep the issue in the conversation when Trump and Johnson would rather shift the focus elsewhere. Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina were the four Republicans who signed the discharge petition. Shutdown vote: Meanwhile, the House plans to vote in the coming hours on legislation to reopen the government and bring a close to the longest shutdown in U.S. history. Democrats have taken plenty of heat from members of their party in the last few days for failing to secure an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies as part of the funding deal. But some Democrats see a silver lining in the 43-day standoff, Scott Wong, Ryan Nobles and Lillie Boudreaux report. The eight Senate Democrats who negotiated the bipartisan agreement said it protects federal workers who had been laid off during the shutdown — at least temporarily. More importantly, they said, the showdown “crystallized” the battle lines in the next major political fight over health care that is sure to spill into the 2026 midterm elections. And they said it painted the White House in a negative light on the issue of food stamps. One other issue that has caused bipartisan consternation: a provision that was tucked into the funding package would allow senators to sue the federal government for potentially millions of dollars if their data is obtained without their notification. That would uniquely benefit eight Republican senators who were recently found to have had their phone records — but not the contents of their calls or messages — accessed as a part of the investigation that led to former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Frank Thorp V notes. Johnson said House Republicans will introduce a stand-alone bill to repeal the provision. U.S policy dominates behind-the-scenes talk at G7 meeting By Andrea Mitchell Niagara Falls may be an iconic romantic setting, but romance was not in the air today for diplomatic leaders of the world’s major economic powers. At a meeting of G7 foreign ministers on Canada’s side of the falls, Canada announced more sanctions on Russia, while Britain called for more support for Ukraine as Russia bombards its critical energy infrastructure. But all the talk behind the scenes was about how to deal with the biggest power of them all: the United States.Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign affairs and security representative at the G7 meeting, told NBC News in an interview that the ministers have discussed an issue that wasn’t on the official agenda: the legality of the U.S. strikes against ships in the Caribbean. Kallas said there are two justifications under international law for such strikes: self-defense or under the authority of a United Nations resolution. Since neither of those conditions would justify the U.S. military operation, she said, “looking forward,” the ministers are discussing changing international law because “the countries are all struggling” with the drug gangs. “It affects us all.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told me that the ministers did not raise the strikes with him directly at the G7 meeting while defending the administration’s moves. “I don’t think that the European Union gets to determine what international law is. What they certainly don’t get to determine is how the United States defends its national security, Rubio said. “The United States is under attack from organized criminal narco-terrorists in our hemisphere, and the president is responding in the defense of our country.” Kallas also said in the past they could “follow the money” to get at the cartels, but that the rise of cryptocurrency has made that more difficult. She did not disagree when it was noted that the Trump administration’s endorsement of crypto has led to its growing legitimacy in international finance. And she said they have discussed the importance of freedom of navigation in international waters. Another point of contention at the G7 was trade. Canada took steps to hedge its bets on trade because of the Trump administration’s erratic tariff policy by inviting India, Brazil and other countries to attend today’s meeting, hoping to broaden its trading relationships beyond its closest neighbor. That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Owen Auston-Babcock. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
