Welcome Back, Oracle! Charles Cooper Covers the Midterm Countdown and Congressional Chaos

This week on The GovNavigators Show, Robert and Adam welcome back Charles Cooper, Managing Director at Brumidi Group and GovNavigators' resident oracle of all things Capitol Hill. With six months until the midterms and a staggering legislative to-do list full of reconciliation, the farm bill, the surface transportation bill, 12 appropriations bills, the NDAA, FISA, and more, Charles breaks down why Congress is already fracturing along election-year fault lines. He explains why the White House and rank-and-file members are increasingly operating on different frequencies, makes his signature bold prediction on a government shutdown, and offers a candid look at what savvy clients are doing right now to position themselves for the lame duck and beyond. He also weighs in on the bipartisan fraud prevention push out of House Oversight and whether momentum can survive the politics. As always, the oracle has spoken.

Show Notes:

House Oversight Committee: Markup Sweeping Legislation to Stop Fraud in Federal Programs

OPM: Draft Rule Eliminating Time-in-Grade Requirement

OMB: Cybersecurity Incident Logging Update

NDAA: House Armed Services Committee Markup

What's on the GovNavigator's Radar?

June 3rd: 

• House Oversight Committee Hearing on Medicaid Fraud 

June 5th:

•  Data Foundation 2026 Data Summit 

June 10-11th:

• Government Service Delivery 2026 Conference 

June 11th:

• GovExec 35th Annual Government Procurement Conference 

June 16th:

• VeeamOn Tour DC 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:08

Welcome everyone to the Gov Navigator Show, a government-focused program that won't make you seasick. We're the Gov Navigators. I'm Robert Check. And I'm Adam Hughes. We hope to enlighten and enliven your week with news and insightful entertaining guests, all on the topic of government management.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Enjoy today's episode of Gov Navigators, brought to you by the creative geniuses behind the award-winning podcast FedEx. Adam, why do short weeks seem longer than regular weeks?

SPEAKER_03 0:48

I was thinking that this week, this past week. I don't know, but it is a fact of the universe that is true. Was it the rain? I mean, it I thought we needed to build an arc. It rained every day for like two weeks. Welcome to Oregon. Hey, and this is first of the month recording. First of the month, we're June 1st on a Monday. It's a magic day. The calendar. It is a magic day in the calendar. We should probably just get this out of the way up front. Today is your birthday. It is. Well, happy birthday.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

No, we're thank you. No, we're celebrating. It's just the regular old not worth it. I am just back from my 35th college reunion. Wow. And we've all gotten older. It's the fun one. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Some of us more than others.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Well, we're going to the same pace. We're going at the same pace.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

You're taking them today off, obviously, because it's your birthday. So kidding, kidding. We never take days off here at Gov Navigators.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

But we spoke about what happened last week. Federal employees, uh, you know, the Congress was away, but federal employees uh didn't miss getting a little action. And let's start with the Supreme Court that handled a case, a long-standing case, well, well before the Trump administration, on whether an employee had to go to the Marriage Systems Protection Board first before going to federal court, or whether they could bypass it and go straight to court. And the Supreme Court said, no, you have to go to the MSPB. The reason it was by before the Supreme Court is because the appeals court said that's fine under regular circumstances, but today the MSPB is a shell of its former self and really doesn't have the capacity to handle these things. Well, Supreme Court didn't see that logic.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Yeah. Well, and it's also in statute that this is required. So that's that seems defensible from the Supreme Court that you should follow the law as written. But this is making me remember that we covered something related to this a while a long time ago now about a case that took 19 years to resolve because of appeals and and the fact that they did not have a full quorum to be able to decide cases for a long time. So I think the understaffed and utilized. He won't won at the end, took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. So, but it does argue that these sorts of institutions should be staffed and resourced appropriately because they are important and they should be functioning.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

And I hope no employees are complaining improperly about that because they're about to be required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Yeah, I saw that too. But can we is this just the most is this the most ridiculous thing that we've ever seen? Well, not just in the Trump administration, just period.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

In one side of the coin, you could call it intimidation. But on the other, it's really just codifying what we know to be true.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

I mean, I feel like there's already provisions that require things not to be disclosed. Why do we need to sign another document that, according to most lawyers that I've talked to, is also not even enforceable in most courts, where federal government or otherwise? So it seems like a like a complete waste of time.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

I knew I could have gotten fired for all those surreptitious calls to Jason Miller back in the day. Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

You know, you you know what the risk is, and you yeah. And now and now, look, and now we're required to call them.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

I'm sorry, you've been terminated because you talked inappropriately with the government management press.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

And oh, but that would only be enforceable if you signed some piece of paper, obviously. Yeah. So I did I have seen a lot of reaction to it. And should you sign it, shouldn't you sign it, don't sign it, you know. And it's it's probably just detracting from actually trying to improve the mission of the government.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

And we don't give legal advice here on the governorship. That is we're gonna run that disclaimer at the end.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

Don't worry, yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

OPM also issued a draft regulation eliminating the requirement that you spend time and grade before being promoted.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Now, this I feel like is a good change.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

So I think it the statute requiring this expired in something like 1975 or 1978.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

I think it was I think it expired before I was born.

unknown 5:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

And I'm I'm no spring chicken.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

So it backs the question why they didn't do it sooner. And there's debate over whether can I grade is an important requirement, but opium thinks otherwise, that there are controls in place and management being strengthened that can manage promotions without this mandatory waiting period.

unknown 5:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

No, I think it's a overall, I think it's a positive change. We'll have to see how the implementation goes and see what types of maybe unforeseen circumstances come up because of it, but uh but it's good. So two other items, real quick. I saw the there's reporting from Wired that Department of Labor employees were got communications last week about how to rat out their coworkers for engaging in DEI. I mostly say this because I haven't seen a lot of this in the last few months. It hasn't really been a huge topic in 2026, so but it's still out there, still moving forward. And apparently, according to the terms of what they received, you can report employees who were engaged in DEI activities during the Biden administration. It goes back three years. So for all you folks out that there were just following administration directions, watch your back. Uh but more substantive, OMB put out a new memo, uh 2131, improving the federal government's investigative and remediation capabilities related to cybersecurity incidents. And no, I did not practice saying that. It is. But what this does basically is just change the event logging requirements that were put in place a few years ago after the solar winds cyber incident to allow agencies and chief information security officers to make risk-based decisions about how much information they save from these incidents rather than every incident being treated the same. So, overall, this is a good change. We'll alleviate some of the burden on agencies for keeping and storing this information when it's not actually useful, but will still require the reporting and the and retention of information when it can be useful and when other agencies can learn from it.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

So a lot can happen in a short week.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

It is. A lot has been going on.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yeah. Let's talk about something else. Okay, I said let's change the subject, and we're sort of doing that. Yeah, this is our regular touch point with the Gov Navigators Oracle, Charles Cooper of Remedi Group. Welcome back. Hey, thanks. Good to be back. We were debating whether you've uh ever been wrong about anything. By my count, I haven't. I mean, as it relates to this here, I'm sure. Yeah, we'll be back to you on that.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

We're fact-checking, we're auditing. It there's reviews in place.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

You are a fantastic grubby lobbyist. Everybody seeks your advice. So tell us what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Well, it's a great introduction, thank you. The big thing that's going on, I think, is the members are out for a little bit now. They come back, and we're within six months of the election. There's a massive agenda that Congress is trying to do surface transportation bill, farm bill, reconciliation bill, 12 appropriations bills, national defense authorization act, FISA, and a host of other things. And of course, as we get close to the election, that's every one of those is going to become more difficult. So they'll have to pick and choose. And while all of that's happening, you're starting to see a divide between the White House and the president. I think you'll soon start seeing a divide in among within Congress of in both parties' leadership and sort of rank and file members of where they're going. People are getting nervous about the election, etc. So we're in it, I think, for somewhat of an interesting ride with a lot going on. And at the end of the day, like nothing could happen or a lot could happen. It's just hard to tell. But the certainly the election on the horizon will push members into wanting to get a lot done. Whether that translates to members on both parties coming together to get it done is a big question.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

So speaking of not getting things done, let's spend a little bit of time about the meltdown at the end before Memorial Day. Just walk us through that a little bit. They were on the verge of moving reconciliation forward to fund ICE and CBP for three years, but then it went off the rails. What happened?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, so I think from a first from like a 20,000-foot perspective, and you all remember this. When we get close to an election, people act differently, and people get nervous about things, and people start viewing things through an election lens. And it was very clear that things the president wanted to do, the Republicans in the Senate clearly didn't want to do or had a lot of concerns about, and to the point where they decided just to sort of call it a week and go home. But one thing I would say about that is I don't think that's actually all that unusual. The issues themselves may be unusual, but you always see this sort of in the second term around an election. And the second part of it is think about how different the goals are here. The White House, no one's running for re-election in the White House. All of these members are hoping to stay in the majority. So not that they don't have a similar idea to maintain the majority, but they have very different goals. The president is off doing his thing. He's got a lot going on with Iran, potential tariffs coming out, a number of other things. Congress really wants to start chalking up some wins here so that they can go talk about on the campaign trail. They're almost narrowly focused on what can we do to get re-elected. Democrats are narrowly focused on what we can do to take over the majority. And the White House is sort of just on a different page, not that they don't support that, but they are they're they have a lot going on within the White House and they're trying to get it done. And so you put all that together, and it's a little bit of a confusing and complex and difficult to unwind situation. And I think we're going to see more of this. People in elections don't generally come together, even though that's the intent. Yeah, they sort of separate.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Well, and we've we've seen what you said too about the president himself said after the Memorial Day holiday that he doesn't care about the midterms, and that's not driving his calculus and decision making. And he says a lot of stuff, but there's some truth to that, I think, in some of the things he's trying to get through Congress right now.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

But I think he desperately cares about the midterms. I think to put a finer point on Charles's uh the way he described it, they want to get more as much as they can possibly get done before the midterms in case one or two of the bodies flips, and the members are just simply trying to save their butts, if you'll pardon the expression.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

But everybody has their own idea on how to get across that finish line. And some people think it's hey, let's get together, let's pass this the voting bill. Some people think, hey, let's pass the housing bill. And those are reaching out to two very different constituencies. Some people think that let's follow the president. Some people think, hey, maybe this is a good time to separate from the president. Some people are excited about the tariffs that they want to announce soon. Some people are running from the tariffs as fast as they can. So I think this is a time where like it's a little bit of every person for themselves to some degree. And I think that happens on both the both parties. People think about messaging differently, people think about priorities differently. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? And I remember when I worked on the Hill, after we lost the big election, the conservatives would come back and say, Oh, we lost because you didn't double down on conservative initiatives. The moderates would come back and say, We lost because all you did is double down on the conservative initiatives. There's everybody's sort of in their own world. And when you have a couple hundred people that are having a political stake in the game here in each party, it becomes pretty complicated.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Sounds like a Democratic Party election autopsy. Could be. So tell us about the budget. We've got three months now, four months until the end of the fiscal year. Nobody expects anything but a CR. But how do you see the end of the fiscal year playing out? And your it's your chance to make another prediction, Trust.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

I am boldly gonna predict right now that they will not shut down. And for those of you keeping track, that is a perfect target. I would say, look, the House is gonna work quickly to try to get as many of these over the finish line as possible. I think the Senate turns to that at some point too. It's performative, obviously, because the numbers aren't going to be the same as what they are when they're signed into law, and obviously they're not gonna be able to get them done before the end of September. So I think one thing you have to look at is we're looking really beyond the election. What is really realistically going to happen in the latter part of November and December? And if you assume that some of the things on the agenda now move, it's not going to be it's not gonna be the appropriations bills. So will there be enough interest in both sides of the aisle to pass appropriations bills after a consequential election? I don't know. I guess it depends on who wins and how many people lose in the other party. It's tough to say. But my thought process around it is there's not as many seats as people think that are flippable, and even with sort of redistricting. So, what we're gonna see in November, my opinion, is somebody's gonna win, obviously, somebody's gonna lose. But oh, they're the ball direction. It's you knew that was coming.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

You just that was appreciated.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

We both we both couldn't wait, we both wanted to jump on it so fast.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

It's brutal. Hopefully that'll be edited up. But but we I don't think this is gonna be a time when you know 50 or 60, 70 members lose, and because of that, it's hard to it's hard to think how even in a lame duck, how people turn around and say, Okay, let's get a bunch of stuff done now and move forward. I think people are gonna be frustrated. I think they're gonna be tired. I think they're gonna look to the next year and say, if it's Republicans, great, business as usual, let's knock out the rest of the stuff. If it's Democrats, I would think they want to sort of start fresh and say, we're gonna do our own thing, and we're not we'll be in a better position in January than we are now, so we'll just wait till January.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

So, and that's gonna impact some of those other things that you rattled off at the top. A long list of major legislation, uh, maybe to the top of that list for at least members of Congress is gonna be the National Defense Authorization Act, which has never not passed in what 50 something years.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

And the House, I believe, put their mark out last week before Memorial Day. I think that's all.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

They did, yeah. And I think they're gonna mark it up early June. And the Senate, I'm sure, will follow quickly thereafter. And that is something we know will get done. And I think the ones that are in question are the ones that are most politically beneficial. Like I think for parts of the country, getting a farm bill done is huge. I think for some districts and states where you really need new infrastructure, being able to talk about a surface transportation bill passing is huge. But you know, because of that, they're also a lot harder to get across the finish line when they can easily put them till next year.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Well, and I yeah, and true. And I think some of those other more controversial items that are coming up now, the ones that have delayed reconciliation, I think if they don't get passed, they're gonna get put on that, especially if Democrats take back the House or the Senate. I think there's gonna be more impetus from the president to say, no, you have to pass this in whatever vehicle you need to pass it in. So I feel that can complicate end of your year more so than usual.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

It can, yeah. And I I also think that Democrats have to play ball for any of these things to move. And at some point, I don't think the point's right now, but at some point, Democrats are gonna look at the year ahead and wonder like when do we just focus on next year? Yeah, and and not necessarily do it this year. And we see that with both parties. If people feel like they may be in a better position next year, they may uh sort of stop negotiating, stop helping, etc. We'll have to see if that actually happens.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Charles, one of the areas that's gotten a lot of attention, and an area that we've been focusing on are whole careers, but suddenly as the government's whole attention is fraud, the House Oversight Committee voted a number of bills out on a pretty bipartisan basis.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

But I think most of them were unanimous except for like two, and I think those only two people voted against it, so it was overwhelming.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Yeah, one of them, one of them I think didn't get quite that level of support. Any in any case, the question is it fraud's been a little politicized lately. So is it do you see movement in this arena, or do you think we miss the chance because it has been so politicized?

SPEAKER_01 18:40

I personally see movement, I think there's real opportunity here, and there has been some have made it more political than others, and I think that's is what it is. But we also live in DC, and what issue isn't political? And I think that this is an issue where if you're a policymaker who thinks we're spending too much money and that we're not we don't have the oversight that we should, I think you're gonna be interested in this. And if you're not interested in it, you're probably gonna act as though you're interested in it because it aligns with what you're messaging as. So I think there is an opportunity here. The one thing I would say is I don't think it gets the full uh impact unless both parties embrace it. And I I feel that regardless of who's in the majority, but I think if both parties embrace it, you move forward. If you remember back to the early stages of Doge, some reason some Democrats got involved in that. Now, that sort of didn't necessarily work out as expected. But I do think over time, if this if this is an issue that's going to stay, because frankly, they're not gonna solve all the fraud between now and the election or now the end of the year, if this is an issue that people really want to put the mechanisms in place that will make a difference, it's gonna have to get both sides linked. And I think that's that's not just for the issue of fraud, it's for all these other issues that they're working on as well. And in the areas where you're seeing some slowdown, I think that it's because both sides are not linked together on it.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

Okay, so not gonna ask you to give away anything, right? Because your clients pay you to tell them what to do. But given all the complexities that you've just kind of run through leading up to a midterm election, how are you helping clients to understand this environment and what they how they should be working in their policy at lanes for this? Is this a time to get aggressive? Should you just sort of keep your powder dry for a while? Like what I don't even know how you begin to approach this given the level of uncertainty that's going on right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah, that is a good question. I think there's three or four things that I point to. One goes without saying, but this is not the time to pick winners and losers and side with one party and hope that it works out for you. This is the time where you embrace bipartisanship and make sure that you're getting bipartisan support. The second is right now, yes, there's a game to be played between now and the next six months, but the real game is after that. So spend time now working on whatever your project is, whatever your priorities are, whatever belly you care about. Spend time now working on that so it's well positioned to move, should a big package move at the end of the year. Third is start thinking about scenario planning. Like all of your clients, all of our clients, they're very into thinking about what's around the corner, war gaming things out, what could happen that we don't know about? And for next year, with political uncertainty out there, I think people need to spend time really thinking about that. If the Senate doesn't flip but the House flips, what does that mean for our issues going forward? If the opposite happens, what does that mean for issues going forward? If right after this coming election people start announcing they're running for president, Does that mean for issues going forward? And I think it's that thought process that really modeling various scenarios on what could happen. This is the time to do that. Because when you get to next year, you're going to be too late. And if you have an active bill that you think could go now, it's probably more likely to go in the lame duck. But you need to be working it now. You need champions ready to come back after the election and say this is a must-do for me. And you also have to consider one last thing, which is politics are over after the first week of November. And so all of the things that people think about now, which is so-and-so is running. So they'll be much more motivated to work on our issue and get it across the finish line and push for it and get their colleagues involved because they want to talk about the win back home. Well, what happens when the election's over? What's motivating them? And I think there's going to be a need to put the work in now and in the months ahead to really think about what is the best strategy, not only for November, December, but for next year, given the various possibilities and outcomes that may happen.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

How do you see the dynamic of these lame duck senators who've lost primary elections?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Well, early lame duck.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yeah, I mean, if you if you base it on the first week, I'd say it's going to be very interesting. But look, I think these senators are going to have some freedoms in votes and messaging that they didn't have before. And I think um I think we're gonna see that. You know this is just a time where there's a lot of frustration and there's a lot of uncertainty and there's a lot of political risk out there. And so if you're the senators that know you're not coming back, I think they are gonna be louder than their colleagues, and I think they are gonna make the most out of their last six months here or eight months, and uh it'll be interesting to watch. But there's a lot of other primaries going on. We may see more. There's more in redistricting to be seen. What's amazing to me, and I we've all talked about this before, is if you look right now, it's roughly 13% of the House that started in the beginning of this Congress, 13% of the House and Senate are not coming back next year. We haven't really had elections yet. We've had a few here and there. But before all that, it was 13%. And I always think to myself, if you walk into your company and so the first day on the first day of the new year, 13% of your company is gone. Like imagine the impact that alone will have on next year's policy making and appropriations and relationships with the president and elections in the future, it's gonna be enormous. And that's before the election, really. So I think we're going to we're gonna have our hands full next year. So better to prepare now than hope for a miracle come January.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Well, it's and really doubling down on that congressional education part of lobbying, right? Where when you're gonna have new staff and new members who don't even know how Congress works a lot of the time, and when you have such a large percentage of them, I think that'll that can slow things down a lot.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yep, it took it it can, it also can be a big opportunity because for you're bringing in new people that that maybe have maybe there's a handful of people there that are that came to Congress on a campaign to end fraud and they're going to be huge champions for fraud. Maybe they're huge champions for housing or anything else. And so there it will the change in dynamic of who's in Congress matters, and we'll see some opportunities emerge from that.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Well, Charles, this has been fantastic as usual. We've got a few more predictions to put up on the big board to keep track of for the rest of this year, too.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Uh so thanks so much for the intern to do something for the intern to track.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

Gov Navigator's intern will be on it next week. Uh thanks so much for spending time with us. We always appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah, thanks, guys. You're the best. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

The man is always right. It's never been wrong on the Gov Navigator show.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Isn't it true?

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Have we audited that? We did well, we haven't our friends at RSM on that. We I was gonna say we have an intern for the summer, too. Riley. Riley, you need to go back and look at the tapes of this. What's going on this week? Well, this week our friends at the Data Foundation have their 2026 data summit this Thursday. All day event, packed lineup, looks really great. Uh, Gov Navigators team will be there. Uh still time to sign up if you haven't yet. That's local to DC. They're doing it at Convene, so it should be a nice space. Beautiful. Yeah. So uh check it out. Links in the show notes for that. Encourage you to sign up.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Is there a post-event drink at the Hamilton in order?

SPEAKER_03 26:48

I would say almost absolutely yes. Yeah. If the answer is no, we're not doing it right now. What are you looking for? What else? You said there's another fraud oversight hearing.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

That's right. House oversight is a hearing on fraud in Medicare. I'm sorry, Medicaid. Medicaid, all right. And there's a lot, so it's gonna be a long hearing.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

I was gonna say it's a target-rich environment.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

So uh that's on that's on June 3rd.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

June 3rd. Wednesday, June 3rd. So we got two events the following week, June 11th. Uh, Gov Exec has their 35th annual government procurement conference. 35th annual? 35th annual.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

I just celebrated my 35th college reunion. So they were doing this when I was graduating from college in 1991.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

That that is the information that I've been given. That's another thing for the intern to audit. It's pretty amazing. June 11th, that's a great time for government buyers, prime contractors, small businesses, everybody to talk about the multitude of changes in government procurement that have happened over the last year. So make sure you check that out too. Also on June 11th, there's the government service delivery 2026 conference at the Washington Convention Center. They've got a packed lineup of heavy hitters from the administration, CIOs, the deputy administrator from GSA, the federal CIO, the acting administrator of the U.S. Doge Service. Oh, lots of pretty cool topics, too, a little bit of a different bent to the typical uh conference topics that I've seen at least. So that's also worth checking out also on June 11th in DC. And then finally, we've got the Veeam on Tour DC 2026 conference on June 16th. Uh GovNavigators is actively involved in this conference, working with our friends at Government Executive, uh, shaping up to be a great event. So encourage you to check that out as well. Have a good week, everybody. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Gov Navigator Show, brought to you by GovNavigators. We sure hope you enjoyed it and learned something in the process. And didn't get ticked. Right, of course. If you want to know more about us and what we're up to, please follow us on social media or visit govnavigators.com. Ahoy!