• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appeared to freeze up during a press gaggle Wednesday, following a similar occurrence just over a month ago. A McConnell aide said the senator “feels fine” but “will be consulting a physician[.]”
  
  

• A judge ruled in favor of two Georgia election workers by default in their defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani after he refused to turn over discovery.
  
  

• Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio‘s sentencing was postponed because the presiding judge in the case was sick Wednesday, a court spokesperson told The Hill.

At Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell said the agency’s personnel who are funded through the Disaster Relief Fund won’t be impacted if there’s a government shutdown later this year. Criswell said she could also designate other emergency essential personnel. 

“We have plans in place — as we have gone through this before — on how we would staff our agency,” Criswell said.

Congress has until Sept. 30 to reach some kind of government funding agreement, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pushing for a short-term continuing resolution. A small group of conservatives who want more spending cuts and policy additions are threatening to oppose the effort.

The Hill’s Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks have more on that here.

A new ADP National Employment report showed the private sector added 177,000 jobs in August, down from 371,000 in July based on ADP’s revised numbers.

Nela Richardson, chief economist with ADP, said August’s numbers “are consistent with the pace of job creation before the pandemic.”

From The Hill’s Julia Shapero: “The sharp slowdown in private sector hiring is the latest indication that the labor market could finally be cooling, after remaining unexpectedly resilient to the Federal Reserve’s repeated interest rate hikes.” Read more here.

The second GOP presidential primary debate’s moderators have been announced: Fox hosts Stuart Varney and Dana Perino and Univision’s Ilia Calderón. Learn more about them here.

The moisture released from crops, via a process called evapotranspiration, can raise humidity levels and the heat index. According to the U.S. National Weather Service Central Illinois, the state’s mature corn crops release more than 35 billions gallons of water a day. More here.

“How the Afghanistan War Commission aims to learn from our longest conflict” — Shamila N. Chaudhary and Colin F. Jackson, Ph.D., the co-chairs of the congressionally-mandated independent and bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission. (Read here)

“Time to reassess the war on terror” — Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. (Read here)