Photo illustration by Emma Spainhoward with photograph by Getty Images.
Good morning. Windy and cool today with a high around 50. Freezing temperatures overnight, with a low near 29—get your delicate plants indoors! The Wizards visit Detroit tonight. You can find me on Bluesky, I’m @abeaujon.87 on Signal, and there’s a link to my email address below.
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I can’t stop listening to:
Sex Faces, “Just Like Johnny and Morrissey.” This fun DC band makes a hometown stop tonight before they head off to a show in Kenya later this month. Sex Facesplay Rhizome tonight withGenre Is Death andKrime Slugs.
Take Washingtonian Today with you! I’ve made a playlist on Spotify and on Apple Music of my daily music recommendations this year.
Here’s some administration news you might have blocked out:
Shutshow: The US Senate passed legislation Sunday that could end the 41-day-long government shutdown. Eight moderate Democrats joined Republicans to vote for a deal that would fund some agencies until next October and others through January. They’ll get “a commitment from the Trump administration to rehire government workers fired at the start of the funding lapse, and the promise of a Senate floor vote in December on legislation to extend expiring Obamacare tax credits”in exchange. President Trump participated in closed-door negotiations with Dems to craft the deal. (Politico) Many Senate Democrats were furious about the agreement. The breakaway senators believed “The party’s shutdown strategy wasn’t working, and there was no evidence that prolonging the impasse would force Republicans to the table.”(Punchbowl News) The package would also guarantee furloughed workers would receive back pay, even though Congress already passed a law guaranteeing back pay during a shutdown and Trump signed it. (Government Executive) “All of the Democrats who backed it are either retiring or not facing reelection until 2028, insulating them from political pressure.”(HuffPost) Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted against the deal. (Politico) House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he opposed it as well. (The Hill) Here are some takeaways from the shutdown. (NYT)
Shutdown pain grows: The White House ordered states not to pay full SNAP benefits during the shutdown following a Supreme Court stay favorable for the administration. (Politico) Still, an appeals court Sunday “denied the Trump administration’s efforts to stop the release of full funding”as ordered by another judge. (Washington Post) Around 3,000 flights were canceled Sunday, and this week looks to get worse for travelers. (Washington Post) “The FAA last week ordered flight cuts at the nation’s busiest airports as some air traffic controllers, who have gone unpaid for nearly a month, have stopped showing up for work.”(AP) A sign on the control tower at National read “Will Vector for Food.”(Spencer Allan Brooks/X) The FAA also began to limit private jet flights at affected airports. (WSJ)
Meanwhile, in the states: Federal agents in Chicago fired pepper spray into a car with a one-year-old child inside Saturday. She and her family were headed to a Sam’s Club to buy diapers and groceries. (Chicago Tribune) ICE agents ruined a Girl Scouts food drive. (Chicago Sun-Times) Chicago could get up to ten inches of snow before noon today. (Tribune) An Arizona high school suffered a weekend of threats after right-wing activists seized on a photo of some math teachers and claimed they were celebrating the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. They were celebrating “a ‘zombie run’activity the student council had organized.”(NBC News) Some Republicans in Congress have made noise about revoking New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani‘s US citizenship. (Al Jazeera) Republicans in Virginia say Democrats “wiped us off the map” in last week’s off-year elections. (Politico)
Political football: Trump got booed by fans when he attended the Washington Commanders–Detroit Lions game at Northwest Stadium yesterday. (AP) He wants the Commanders to name their new stadium after him. (ESPN) The White House said, “That would surely be a beautiful name.”(AP)
Administration perambulation: Trump claimed Americans would each receive a $2,000 cash payment from tariff revenue. (WSJ) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent walked that back pretty quickly, suggesting the payments could come in the form of “tax decreases.”(Politico) Trump also suggested Americans could soon get 50-year mortgages in a post that compared himself to FDR. Bill Pulte, who runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said the government was “working on”it, whatever that means. (The Hill) The BBC’s director general and BBC News’s chief executive resigned “following a report suggesting the public service broadcaster had misleadingly edited a speech by President Trump that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.”(NYT) Trump granted “largely symbolic”pardons to Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Boris Epshteyn, and Sidney Powell, allies in his lie-fueled campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden. (Politico) FBI Director Kash Patel hosed MI5’s leader, part of his “rocky introduction”to US allies in overseas intelligence agencies that included an ill-fated attempt to give plastic pistols to people in New Zealand. (NYT) German far-right activist Naomi Seibt is seeking asylum in the US. Seibt is living in D.C. while the application is processed. (Washington Post) Trump “spent nearly 20 minutes apparently battling to keep his eyes open”during a chaotic event in the Oval Office Thursday. (Washington Post) The White House denied that the President was sleeping when his eyes were closed. (CNN) California Governor Gavin Newsom‘s social media team dubbed Trump the “Nodfather.”(Gavin Newsom Press Office/X) The man who collapsed during the event was not a pharmaceutical executive, as many outlets, including this newsletter, reported. (Washington Post) The Justice Department is having trouble filling its many vacancies these days. (Washington Post) A US District judge in DC said administration officials “had violated the constitutional rights of furloughed federal workers by using their work email accounts to send partisan messages blaming Democrats for the government shutdown.”(NYT) Jeffrey Epstein associated Ghislaine Maxwell wants her sentence commuted by the administration. (Politico)
The best thing I ate last week, by Ann Limpert:
Photograph courtesy of LeadingDC.
It is, unsurprisingly, not hard to find a decent steak in DC. What’s less common: finding a steakhouse to actually get jazzed about. And that is just how I feel about Buenos Aires-born steakhouse Brasero Atlantico, which arrived in a converted Georgetown firehouse in early October. The Argentinian cuisine here is rustic (there’s a dramatically fiery hearth front and center in the dining room) and high on pleasure. Start with the empanadas, end with the dulce de leche-filled panqueques, but don’t miss the steak—particularly the Argentinian ribeye, which had the perfect amount of salt and fat and savor. (1066 Wisconsin Ave., NW.)
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• These local restaurants are offering free food to furloughed workers and SNAP recipients during the shutdown.
• A ban on foie gras could be on the ballot in the District soon.
• Bethesda middle-schooler Tanvee Vallemis a billiards phenom.
• You don’t have to drive far to get to some Christmas-y destinations.
• Boozy brunches around town.
• Some of the best puns we saw after Sandwich Guy got off last week.
Local news links:
• The Commanders got pounded by Detroit at yesterday’s game. They’re now 3-7. (Washington Post) Georgetown beat Maryland, the first time the Terps have lost a home opener since 1976. (Testudo Times)
• Could Virginia governor-elect Abigail Spanberger reverse the Trump administration’s wins against public universities in Virginia? “She says she’s going to depoliticize higher ed, but it’s going to be tricky to do that.” (NYT)
• A West Virginia state senator wants some Maryland and Virginia counties to join the Mountain State. Best of luck with that. (WUSA9)
• The Kennedy Center’s ticket sales are tanking after Trump’s takeover. (NYT) Washington National Opera director Francesca Zambello says the company may have to leave the center;the company is reportedly “looking at alternative venues in DC for its forthcoming season.”(The Guardian)
• Ridership on Metro has plummeted during the shutdown. (Washington Post)
• The Justice Department’s investigation into an Arlington activist who annoyed Trump adviser Stephen Miller isn’t going well. (Axios D.C.)
• US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro said DC Mayor Muriel Bowser isn’t a target of an investigation of a trip she took to Qatar in 2023. (Washington Post)
• A 19-year-old defeated his former high school government teacher in a Board of Supervisors race in Surrey County, Virginia, last week. (NYT)
• Two Montgomery County firefighters were acquitted of charges that they soaked a baseball field “in retaliation for a baseball hitting a pickup truck.”(Bethesda Today)
• Schools in the city of Manassas will be closed today “due to a cybersecurity incident.”(DC News Now)
• Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue died Sunday. He was 84 and lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland. (NYT)
• There were three homicides in the District on Saturday. (WUSA9)
• Could the Reeves Center—where Washingtonian Today likes to park for Black Cat concerts—be demolished? (UrbanTurf)
• Here’s a photo of a bald eagle near a “Free DC”sign. (PoPville)
Senior editor
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.