Donald Trump had the Washington stage to himself while Congress took a summer sojourn, but lawmakers return to a thick playbill — largely written by the president. White House officials said in July, after Trump signed Republicans' massive tax and domestic policy measure on Independence Day, that the president had not refilled his to-do list for Congress. In the weeks after Trump made the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” the law of the land, he pivoted to his global trade war, Texas flood relief efforts and a list of thorny foreign conflicts as he seeks the Nobel Peace Prize. But Trump’s congressional wish list has filled out as lawmakers return this week from their annual summer recess. And to be sure, members will find a GOP president riding high after, in his own words, a number of victories since they left the capital city. “We're having a lot of victories,” Trump said on Aug. 21 while visiting law enforcement officers and National Guard troops carrying out his federal policing takeover in the District of Columbia. “We're going to make Washington, D.C., great again. We're making our country great again. The country is very close to being great. When they say it's the hottest country in the world, they mean it,” he said. “And this capital is … at a level that you haven't seen in a long time.” One GOP source close to Trump world said there are a number of things the president "definitely wants to get done this year because he knows 2026 will be about the state of the economy come that time — and he desperately wants to keep control of the House.” G. William Hoagland, a former GOP aide to then-Senate Majority Bill Frist of Tennessee, noted Congress will quickly become consumed with trying to craft a compromise spending measure that would avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month. From there, “with this POTUS, his agenda is impossible to determine one month ahead let alone three months ahead,” Hoagland said in an email of Trump’s unpredictability. Trump on Monday, however, signaled that he intends to continue his breakneck pace of taking actions without worrying too much about how the GOP-controlled House and Senate might react when he announced he intends soon to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War. “We’re just going to do it. I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don’t think we even need that,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “Defense is too defensive. We want to be defensive. But we want to be offensive, too — if we have to be,” the anti-war president added. The president’s end-of-year to-do list for lawmakers, sources noted, could still change, depending on the mercurial Trump’s priorities — which typically are tied to his own perceptions about his political standing. Shutdown showdown Trump took the blame in the polls during and following a first-term shutdown that spanned late 2018 and early 2019. Aides at that time said he had learned a tough lesson about voters typically seeing one of the main functions of a sitting president as keeping their government running. Fast forward six years and Trump again is expected to have to negotiate with House and Senate Democratic leaders to secure enough votes for some kind of shutdown-averting measure. “He wants to fund the government,” the GOP source said. “This president feels like he’s got the economy humming, and a shutdown could change that — or make people feel like it has. And because we know it takes seven or eight months for voters to actually feel things that affect the economy, a shutdown right now could hurt Republicans in 2026.” Hoagland said he sees “Congress entangled in a continuing resolution, appropriations, and a shutdown” threat for much of the fall-winter session. That annual spending drama could have multiple acts, if lawmakers and the White House punt funding a few weeks or a month at a time before passing a longer-term measure before or after the holidays. Trump could have some work to do with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., whom he said on Aug. 13 he would meet with to discuss the funding deadline. “I’m hearing some Democrats, particularly in the House, talking about holding up funding because the president is fighting crime in D.C.,” the GOP source said. “The Dems don’t seem to get that Trump is winning whenever he’s out there talking about security. The fact is, the country is much more in line with him on all these security issues than they are with the Democrats.” D.C. crime bill Speaking of crime and Washington: Trump used lawmakers’ absence to take over policing inside D.C., even though violent crime levels have returned to pre-spike levels. “I wonder if the president will ask for an extension of the 30 days federal takeover of D.C. police and security,” Hoagland said, noting doing so could take up valuable floor time and distract lawmakers from other issues: “That would create a lot of attention — and further complications for the legislative calendar.” Train passengers wait for their rides in front of Union Station with National Guard troops stationed outside on Aug. 18. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) Trump said during recess he wants Congress to send him a D.C. “crime bill” that revokes some policies, like so-called cashless bail, and provides the executive branch $2 billion to fight crime and make the District “clean.” “We [will] have no problem getting that money. That money will come out of Congress. I think it'll be even bipartisan. I would imagine Democrats would vote for that one,” Trump said Aug. 22. Security measures Expect the White House to push for the annual Pentagon policy bill, likely a full-year Defense appropriations measure and possibly more funding for Trump’s hardline immigration policies. “If you look at everything the president ran on in 2024, and really in 2016, they can be boiled down to two things: prosperity and security,” said the GOP source, granted anonymity to be candid. “So that means he’s going to be really insistent that Congress doesn’t play games and funds the military, funds more border security and funds immigration enforcement.” Should lawmaker action be required to codify any security guarantees for Ukraine that might be part of a Kyiv-Moscow peace pact, such language could ride on a defense or spending measure. Trump’s picks “Confirmations, confirmations and confirmations.” That is how the GOP source put it when asked about the bulk of the year’s remaining Senate floor time: “Trump is pissed Republicans are not being allowed to do more confirmations by voice vote, which has been the custom.” Hoagland said as leaves begin turning colors in the coming weeks, “the Senate will still be tied up with nominations throughout the fall.” The White House did not respond to an email with a detailed list of questions about Trump’s fall-winter congressional to-do list.
