On The Hill: November 01, 2026

I can say what I've observed in this term, especially, is Donald Trump has no interest in negotiating with Congress. Didn't want to negotiate even when Republicans controlled Congress, so I'm not sure that he'll do that, but our job is going to be to put the bills on his desk. He is known as a dealmaker, and he didn't want to deal with you in the minority. Could a majority position going to the president change that? Yeah, he wrote a book, Art of the Deal, you know, it's looking more like that was fiction. I'm not sure he wrote it. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a fiction book. I mean, I haven't seen him in either term, quite frankly, succeeding in making deals. Yeah, people criticize that book, though, but I've read that book. And one of the things in the book... was about fighting all the time. It's a theme throughout the book about how he was able to get what he wants just by wearing his opponent down. Are Democrats in a position right now, do they feel a position of strength as they would go in these negotiations, or in a position of having to deal with a president that could put the kibosh on some of these plans? Look, obviously in a situation where Democrats win a big victory in the House and or Senate on Tuesday, I think we will feel appropriately like the voters have given us a mandate to address those issues. The voters will have chosen the platform we laid out for them. Here's what we're going to do to drive down costs. So we're going to fight for those things. One of the things that you are particularly unique in your position in the Congress right now is you hold seats on two very important committees right now, Homeland Security and Oversight. Oversight is a committee that, you know, for want of a better description, is kind of the detective of the Congress. You kind of look into and investigate different parts of how the federal government is working or not working. What would be job one for Democrats on House Oversight should you take the majority? In job one, we'll be working to expose and root out the corruption. And we know that there's corruption in the Oval Office that's now trickled down throughout the administration. You've got Kimberly Guilfoyle. You've got Corey Lewandowski taking money under the table. I fear those things we know about are the tip of the iceberg. So we want to expose all of that corruption, make sure there's some accountability for it, and I think this is important. Work to put in place reform so that they can't happen in the future, so that the next Corey Lewandowski, who's a special government employee, can't use that position to line his own pockets. So let's talk about the word accountability and exactly what that means. Are we talking about? referrals of criminal charges? Are we talking about hearings? What would be your view of what accountability means? Well, we have to follow the facts and the evidence in each situation. In some cases, you might have a referral to the Department of Justice. Unfortunately, we don't have an independent Department of Justice. That would likely be a dead end. I think that would be a dead end, at least in this administration. Doesn't mean it wouldn't have some. Traction in the future, if the evidence supports it. We can work with state attorneys general if there are state laws violated. We can also push to make sure that the corrupt actors inside this administration are pushed out, and we've had some success in doing that already, even in the minority. Um, DOGE. DOGE was a program that was instituted very early on in the Trump administration. It's the Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk. Slashed untold number of federal jobs, especially in your district. How much of that would you look to reinstate? And could you get any of those or most of those federal workers back, the ones that have been cut loose? Well, well. We're going to work to undo the damage of DOGE. We've already had some success in blocking additional firings. The administration has already had to hire back a lot of people. They realized they needed them. When the VA secretary, Doug Collins, was on this program, he had said that they were in the process of bringing in 80,000 people to deal with phone calls from veterans as well. I think when you look at agencies that have been completely dismantled or effectively dismantled, USAID, Department of Education, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, we're going to be looking to reinstate funding for those programs and those agencies. Will President Trump go along with that? I doubt it, but I think that will be an area of negotiation, something we'll certainly be fighting for. You're campaigning for re-election yourself right now. You won this seat through a special election following the death of former Congressman Jerry Connolly. You served as chief of staff for This is, you know, your first. Full term, a campaign. What has this been like and what is it like campaigning for the United States Congress in 2026? Yeah, well, one, it's a great honor to represent Virginia's 11th District. I wake up every day excited to fight for my constituents in Washington. I'm proud of the work that we have done fighting for federal workers, pushing back against illegal firings, calling out and highlighting some of the corruption and abuses that we've seen. I want to continue doing that work and I'm hopeful Before my constituents will give me a full term to To carry that work on. What are folks like right now? Because, you know, when we'll talk to them in the press, they'll talk about gas prices, and they'll talk about, you know, the economy and how they wish things would cost less. But they know reporters and the media aren't the ones that are actually going to do anything to change that directly. You're a member of Congress. Did they come at? With a certain edge about it, you know, we want you to do A, B, and C. Yeah, I think people are hurting right now. And in our region, in the D.C. region, you absolutely have the cost of living challenges that are true across the country. In our region, in some cases worse, right, with housing costs and other things. And then you have the DOGE impact layered on top of that. So a lot of folks who are still out of work, still looking for work, frustrated by the The treatment they face from this administration and they want to see. Not just somebody fighting for them, but somebody getting results. That's what I've done in my first year. That's what I want to continue to do in my first full term. What's been interesting about the trajectory of your career is I first met you when you were a congressional staffer. You went on to become a local county official. You served on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for a number of years. You are now in Congress. What has that linked you as far as how people deal with their government? Because it can get very personal on the county level, but it's also very important on the federal level as well. I think having the local government experience has really helped me be better at this job. A, you recognize that passing a bill in and of itself doesn't solve a problem, right? There's the on-the-ground implementation that's critical. Uh, you're, you're close in touch with the communities you, you represent, and you're the first call when there's a pothole or a street light that's out. I take that same approach to my work today. I want to solve problems each and every day for my constituents. But in your viewpoint, like the difference between being a member of Congress and being, you know, a county board supervisor, is it. easier to get things done on the county level than it is in the federal process where you have to go through long committees and you have to go through both houses of Congress? Yeah, no question. I was one of 10 on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and you can move things along a little bit faster in that kind of setting and situation. Obviously, in Congress, there are 535 of us and the President of the United States, and it takes longer to move the needle. in the right direction, but when you move that needle, you can have a much bigger impact on a much broader scale. In addition to the congressional races and the Senate race in Virginia, voters are being asked on a couple of ballot questions this year, very important ones, and one is even kind of surprising as to why it's necessary. There is one right now that's going to ask Virginia voters whether or not, through a ballot question, that a provision in the state constitution of the commonwealth be removed Which prevented same-sex marriage. It was surprising to a lot of people, even though it's been 15 years since the Supreme Court ruling that that was even still in the Virginia Constitution. How much of a driver has that been in this election? Look, I think the constitutional amendments are really important. And in my view, we've gone through a time period nationally where we've seen some rights rolled back. Rights for immigrant communities, rights for our gay and lesbian neighbors rolled back. Rights for women rolled back with Roe v. Wade being overturned, and these three constitutional amendments around voting rights, reproductive freedom, and marriage equality will expand rights and secure rights for Virginians against any future. Political decisions in Richmond, I'm encouraging all my constituents to vote yes on all three. Earlier throughout the year, one of the big debates in Virginia was over redistricting. Now, ultimately, the Democratic General Assembly, which had passed a law twice, it was rejected by the courts. How big of a disappointment was that for folks in your party? And have we heard the last on that? I disagreed with the Virginia Supreme Court's decision. I think they developed a novel interpretation of the state constitution and law, but what's done is done. Moving forward, I want to see, and I think Democrats in Congress, if we control the Congress, will pass a national ban on partisan gerrymandering. That's what we should do. Ban it across the country. Then you don't have to worry about a Republican state or a Democratic state doing it. To date, Republicans in Congress have not joined us in supporting that national ban on partisan gerrymandering. I hope that's what we see. We can put this whole issue to bed. And that was the door that was left open by the Supreme Court because one of the things the court looked at was they said, well, no, Congress has not spoken on this. So they did allow mid-decade redistricting, as some are calling it. Would that fix the problem? Because you know this, the situation we hear, like, say, in Maryland, right? Yeah. From Republicans, the Republicans in Maryland saying that their ballot question is wrong because they believe that's gerrymandering, it will force the only Republican in that state out of office. You go to a Republican-controlled state like Texas, and they say, well, redistricting is great here, we should do it, it will reflect our voters. Stop that. Well, a national ban on partisan gerrymandering would. And it's true that... Both parties do it. It's also true that Republicans do it more. And right now, this midterm election for the House is taking place on a playing field tilted by Donald Trump's gerrymandering demands. Welcome back to Fox 5's On The Hill here on Fox Local Streaming from Fox 5 in Washington, D.C. Rob Schroeder is the MarketWatch D.C. Bureau Chief. And as we've been talking about how the economy is a numero uno issue for voters, I want to kind of talk more about what's under the hood of this economy, what's working, and for a lot of people, what's not. Rob, thanks for being with us here on Fox Local. We hear from the administration, we hear from President Trump, that he believes the economy is doing great, says it's setting records in some areas, but when we talk to rank-and-file voters, gas prices always come up, grocery prices always come up, people's paychecks aren't going as far as they used to, although wages have increased. So what's the reality between what the president is saying about where he believes the economy is and what voters seem to be saying about where the economy is not? You know, as usual, Tom, it's a double-edged sword when you're talking about the economy. You've got growth and you've got inflation. So you've got high gas prices, high food prices, and so on that are caused. You can trace these back largely in part to the war in Iran. You know, those supplies of oil being cut off and so on. On the other hand, there are lots of ways to grow the economy, the stock market being one of them. The stock market, largely right now, made up of these big AI companies that we hear about so much, building data centers, powering the fund that you have on your smartphone, and so on. Those have had some issues lately, but they are certainly responsible for a lot of growth, a lot of wealth in your pocket, certainly if you're in the market, for one thing. So we've had instances in our country, you know, going back to the gas crisis in the 70s before where, you know, we'd seen gas lines, if you're old enough to remember that. And Wall Street didn't respond positively during that period of time. It drove inflation up, you know, created a recession in this country that that does not quite seem to be happening right now. Now, so. What is the difference this time with gas prices in the economy versus what we had kind of seen historically in past oil crises in the country? Yeah, I think it's a question of the threshold. How how much pain can the consumer stand? And if inflation keeps rising, as it has here in the last month. Certainly, at least the last month. That's going to be certainly something that drives voters to the polls, that could make voters spend less, consumers spend less, and have a sort of vicious effect, a vicious spiral on the economy, sort of writ large. The war in Iran, we've heard, may take another turn after the midterms. We'll see about that. If the U.S. and Israel mount another attack on Iran. That could produce a new wave, let's call it, of inflation in the form of higher gas prices, higher diesel prices. One of the things I've always appreciated about MarketWatch is that you take somewhat complicated economic issues and you put them into plain English for folks. But I've kind of found in talking to folks about this economy right now is that you don't need an economics degree, really, to kind of figure out what's going for. So for your correspondents in dealing with this, have they been surprised at how much people have keyed in on the driving factors that what is behind this economy right now? I think anyone can see, can feel. ...can spend, they can look at how fat or how thin their wallet is. And you don't need an economics degree to read those tea leaves, if you like. Every time you go to the gas station, every time you go to the grocery store, you think or you realize or you intuit that there are much bigger forces at work here. There's always a why, and the why largely has to do with what we've been discussing, really. And what your prior guest discussed, the congressman, that it has to do with the war and it has to do with these big decisions that are made here in Washington and that are that are just driving. I had somebody in the supermarket just the other day told me this. If you think the price of a gallon of gas is high, look at a half gallon, a half and half, which is around six dollars. You know, if you like that in your morning coffee or not. Democrats, and you just heard Virginia Congressman James Walkinshaw say that if the Democrats are successful on Tuesday in taking back the House and possibly taking back the Senate, although that's less of a sure thing, that they would immediately start launching a series of bills that they would say to fix the economy. Is it that easy? No, it is not. Congress has limited power. Certainly they can try. They should try in any situation, in any administration. Public policy is made by these men and women on the hill and they are there to serve the people about the economy and other things. But let's look at some hard realities. If Democrats want to do something on, let's say, inflation or mortgage Mortgage rates. Things like that that are very important to everyday Americans. It's not that easy because it's a numbers game. They need big majorities. Let's go the whole distance and say they would want to override a veto by the president. That's quite difficult. You need major numbers to get that. They may or may not have those numbers. You never know what's going to happen. But the president still does have veto power. Now, it'll be a question of whether he wants to make deals with Democrats or not, assuming that they do win both houses of Congress here. The president likes to think of himself as a dealmaker, I believe. So we'll see. He may indeed want to do that because no one, I would think, would want an angry electorate to have ripple effects down the road for their party. But, you know, in addition to wanting to be a dealmaker, I think one of the essence of Donald Trump throughout his entire career. Whether it was in real estate or as a reality show host or even, you know, as a politician now, is that in addition to wanting to make deals, he wants to win. Donald Trump has seen how the two terms of George W. Bush ended, mired in an economy that was in free fall. There would be an impetus for him to want to get this economy rolling. So is there a flip side to that? Is there a scenario where, on the one hand, it could be a fist fight for the next two years if Democrats were able to take control of the House? But is there a scenario that you could envision where Donald Trump would want to go for an economic, you know, John Boehner used to call it the grand bargain, you know, some version of that? Yeah. Well, I think politicians and politics, it's kind of like having a family. You want to see your kids succeed in life. And I think politicians would like to see their successors in their party succeed in politics and in public policy. So part of the midterms really is about setting up for the next presidential election. President Trump won't be president forever. He's got some people waiting in the wings, as do Democrats. So some of this... Maybe a setup for two years from now. If we haven't had enough already, we have those next two years to look forward to. So we've got a few minutes left here, less than two minutes. What are you going to be watching as far as an individual race or trend or something that you're kind of leaning into a little bit on Tuesday? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think one thing that's very key for... Uh, determining, um, the, the course of how some of these policies are going to go is the numbers and also how quickly, uh, control is going to be decided in, in both, uh, chambers of Congress. There have been a few instances here, uh, in past elections where control hasn't been decided for, I'd say as many in one recent example, uh, eight days afterwards. And, and certainly, uh, markets don't like that uncertainty. Uh, voters don't like that uncertainty. And you want to know. What's going to happen, who's going to be in charge, and what's coming down the pike. So that's something that I'm going to be watching. You know, and obviously the Senate races have been getting a lot of attention right now. Michigan has been a focal point. Is that one of the races you think that might determine control of the Senate? Absolutely. That's one of them, certainly. Michigan, Ohio, there's a number of these real high stakes, high profile races that have drawn not only President Trump to them, but Former President Obama, he's been on the campaign trail as well, making those closing arguments about affordability, about control, about those prices that you're paying, and who's going to be the best at bringing them down. And here we are, November 1st, and people roll their eyes and just start saying that the holiday shopping season starts on November 1st. But really, you know, on Tuesday, the next. The 2024 presidential election will get underway because it's about two years out from an election when people really start to make moves and really start to make their plans known or maybe not move forward with any plans at all. So it's going to be an exciting couple of years. Yes, sir. All right. Rob Schroeder is the D.C. Bureau Chief for the excellent MarketWatch, which makes sense out of a really complicated world, especially.