John Fetterman – the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania who voted on several occasions for a continuing resolution to end the shutdown – defended his decision to break from his party and join members of his caucus to pass a new bill to reopen the government.“My party crossed a line,” the lawmaker told Fox News in an interview. “It’s only wrong to shut our government down, and I’m relieved … the people now that are going to get paid and fed.”Fetterman added that he “never got any outreach” from the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, about his vote and holding out against Republicans to ensure that they came to the table on extending Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. “People went five weeks without being paid. I mean, that’s a violation of my core values, and I think it’s our party’s as well,” Fetterman said.The US Food and Drug Administration plans to name oncology expert Richard Pazdur as the nation’s top drug regulator, the Washington Post reports, citing three people familiar with the matter.Pazdur would lead the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which regulates over-the-counter medicines and most prescription drugs. If selected, he would replace Dr George Tidmarsh, according to the Post.Tidmarsh resigned from the role last week following “serious concerns about his personal conduct”, according to a government spokesperson.The departure came the same day that a drugmaker connected to one of Tidmarsh’s former business associates filed a lawsuit alleging that he made “false and defamatory statements” during his time at the FDA.Tidmarsh, an experienced biotech executive and longtime Stanford University professor, took over as the director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research in July.A government watchdog group has asked two different bar associations to investigate Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney for Donald Trump who brought cases against James Comey and Letitia James.Halligan is currently serving as US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia after an outburst in which Trump overtly put pressure on his attorney general to more aggressively pursue his political foes.The complaint filed by the Campaign for Accountability (CFA) asks the bar in Florida and Virginia to investigate misconduct they claim violates justice department regulations.“By contacting Lawfare journalist Anna Bower to discuss and attempt to influence her coverage of the James prosecution, Ms. Halligan appears to have violated DOJ regulations, Virginia District Court rules and RPC 3.6, prohibiting pretrial publicity,” reads the statement by the group.“Ms. Halligan appears to have violated numerous rules of professional conduct for lawyers,” said CFA executive director Michelle Kuppersmith. “We are asking the Virginia and Florida Bars to investigate, making clear that a government appointment is not a hall pass for unethical behavior.”
The House is considering a short-term spending bill that passed in the Senate and would end the record long government shutdown. A small group of the Democratic caucus broke party ranks and joined Republicans to reach a 60-vote threshold in the upper chamber. Now, the House is set to cast a vote to secure its passage as early as tomorrow. Most Democrats in the lower chamber vow to vote “no” on the legislation, as it includes no extension for expiring Obamacare subsidies – the centerpiece of their negotiations throughout the shutdown. Today, the House’s largest ideological group, the centrist New Democrat Coalition, announced their opposition to the measure. The sentiment appears much the same in the congressional progressive caucus, where chair Greg Casar called the measure “a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them”.
Procedurally, before the bill heads to the House floor, it will require the rules committee to schedule a vote on the legislation. Politico is reporting, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, that this will take place at around 6pm ET today. The hope is then for an official vote on Wednesday afternoon.
For his part, Donald Trump called the bill’s progress a “very big victory”, during his remarks at Arlington National Cemetery earlier to commemorate Veterans Day in the US. The president also congratulated House speaker Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader John Thune. “We’re opening up our country. Should have never been closed, should have never been closed,” Trump added.
The justice department plans to investigate the University of California, Berkeley following altercations that occurred during a protest on Monday, outside a Turning Point USA campus event. The influential rightwing college group founded by Charlie Kirk made the final stop of its American Comeback tour at the San Francisco Bay Area university, which was met with large and sometimes rowdy protests. Demonstrators gathered outside the hall where the event was being held, chanting and carrying signs with slogans such as “We won the war, why are there still Nazis” and “No safe space for fascist scum”.
A Utah judge handed Democrats a win in the continuing national fight over voting districts by ordering a new map that creates a House seat in a Democratic-leaning area, in a state where Republicans currently control all four positions. It consolidates Salt Lake county – which includes the state’s largest city – largely within a single district, rather than dividing the Democratic-voting population center among all four seats.
John Fetterman – the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania who voted on several occasions for a continuing resolution to end the shutdown – defended his decision to break from his party and join members of his caucus to pass a new bill to reopen the government.“My party crossed a line,” the lawmaker told Fox News in an interview. “It’s only wrong to shut our government down, and I’m relieved … the people now that are going to get paid and fed.”Fetterman added that he “never got any outreach” from the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, about his vote and holding out against Republicans to ensure that they came to the table on extending Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. “People went five weeks without being paid. I mean, that’s a violation of my core values, and I think it’s our party’s as well,” Fetterman said.The Trump administration has launched its most direct attempt yet to shut down the top US consumer watchdog, arguing the current funding mechanism behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is unlawful.Attorneys for the administration claimed in a court filing that the agency “anticipates exhausting its currently available funds in early 2026”, setting the stage for it to be dismantled.The CFPB is legally barred from seeking additional funds from the Federal Reserve, its typical source of funding, the attorneys suggested.Donald Trump’s officials have tried persistently to close the agency, attempting to fire the vast majority of its workforce. These efforts sparked months of legal wrangling.The CFPB has returned more than $21bn to US consumers since it was set up, in the wake of the financial crisis, to shore up oversight of consumer financial firms.The justice department’s office of legal counsel issued an opinion claiming the CFPB cannot draw money from the Fed currently, claiming the “combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System” refers to profits of the Fed, which has operated at a loss since 2022.The USS Gerald R Ford, the defense department’s largest aircraft carrier, entered the Latin America region on Tuesday, according to the Navy’s Fourth fleet. The area, known as the US Southern Command (Southcom), is seeing a sizable increase in military presence amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug cartels.“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” said the department’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell. “These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations.”The Pentagon has carried out at least 19 strikes against suspected drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean and off the Pacific coasts of Latin America, killing at least 76 people.It also comes amid acrimony with Venezuela, and its leader Nicolas Maduro – who claims the military escalation is a move to oust him from power. For his part, Trump told CBS News recently that Maduro’s days are “numbered”, but downplayed the possibility of a war.Donald Trump made a surprise appearance on the Pat McAfee show, broadcast on ESPN, where he expressed confidence in the final passage of the Senate bill to reopen the federal government. “So the House is going to vote, and I think they’re going to vote positively. I think most people want to see it open,” he told the host. “Only people that hate our country want to see it not open, because our country is doing so well.”The US Department of Justice plans to investigate the University of California, Berkeley following altercations that occurred during a protest on Monday, outside a Turning Point USA campus event.The influential rightwing college group founded by Charlie Kirk made the final stop of its American Comeback tour at the San Francisco Bay Area university, which was met with large and sometimes rowdy protests.Demonstrators gathered outside the hall where the event was being held, chanting and carrying signs with slogans such as “We won the war, why are there still Nazis” and “No safe space for fascist scum”. Dozens of police officers were staged around the campus, blocking entrances and clearing a path for those with tickets to the event.The protest was marked by tense moments and sometimes violent confrontations, including scuffles between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators and some people who allegedly threw things at police officers. A UC Berkeley spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that four people were arrested, including two people who fought. Photographs from the event showed a Charlie Kirk supporter with a bloodied face.Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights division at the justice department, shared video online posted by rightwing influencers who alleged “Antifa” turned the campus into a war zone. Dhillon said she saw “issues of serious concern regarding campus and local security and Antifa’s ability to operate with impunity in CA” and that campus and the city can expect to receive correspondence from the department.“In America, we do not allow citizens to be attacked by violent thugs and shrug and turn our backs. Been there, done that, not on our watch,” she wrote.The first step – before the Senate-passed bill to reopen the government heads to the House floor – will require the Rules committee to schedule a vote on the legislation. Politico is reporting, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, that this will take place at around 6pm ET today.The hope is then for an official vote in the lower chamber on Wednesday afternoon.Jodey Arrington, the Republican congressman from Texas who also serves as chair of the House budget committee, announced that he will not seek re-election in 2026. He is now the first GOP House member to announce his decision to leave Congress at the end of his current term, ahead of the midterm elections.Arrington was one of the key architects of the president’s sweeping domestic policy bill in Congress, and called it the most “consequential piece of legislation in modern history” in his video announcement.“There is a time and season for everything, and this season is coming to a close,” he said. “I will be passing the torch to the next West Texan. Because I believe, as our founding fathers did, in citizen leadership, temporary service, not a career.”The lawmaker’s district, which mainly covers the Lubbock area, is a GOP safe-seat.Donald Trump has, for years, used legal threats and lawsuits to pressure news companies who put out coverage he does not like. After his return to power, a string of US broadcasters and tech firms have paid tens of millions of dollars to settle such cases.The president has now gone global with this campaign, crossing the pond to threaten the BBC with a $1bn lawsuit over an episode of the Panorama documentary program that aired more than a year ago.The saga is only the latest chapter in a campaign meant to keep media institutions that cover Trump on their toes. Often, legal letters sent to media companies on his behalf have not actually led to lawsuits – though many journalists say they have contributed to a chilling effect on coverage.But Trump has also followed through on several lawsuits, and since his re-election one year ago, a series of media and tech companies have chosen to take the easy way out by agreeing to significant settlements. Several of those companies have business before his administration.In July, Paramount, parent company of CBS News, chose to settle a case that Trump had filed in the state of Texas arguing that the company had violated consumer protection laws by misleadingly editing a 60 Minutes interview of then vice-president Kamala Harris. Many legal experts viewed the case as easily winnable for Paramount, considering the unrelated statute he sued under – and that Trump could not credibly claim to have been harmed by the segment since he defeated Harris in the election.But company leadership viewed the lawsuit as an unnecessary distraction, particularly as it sought the federal government’s approval of a merger with Skydance Media. Paramount ultimately paid $16m.Trump also won a settlement last year from ABC, owned by Disney, which he had sued over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos. ABC agreed to pay $15m.When combining Trump’s settlements with ABC, CBS and cases against both Facebook parent company Meta and YouTube, which is owned by Google, he has racked up over $80m in agreements.Now the BBC is in his sights. Unlike CBS, owned by Paramount Skydance, and ABC, owned by Disney, the BBC is not part of a complicated corporate empire: it is independent, although its unique structure as a publicly funded organization invites intense scrutiny.But if Trump chooses to sue, Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer at the firm Howard Kennedy, said the case would bring renewed attention to Trump’s comments, and any role he might have played in fomenting the violence of January 6. (Trump claims he did no such thing.)
If he sues, he opens a Pandora’s box, and in that Pandora’s box is every damning quote he’s ever uttered about January 6.
So this isn’t the hill to die on, in my view. It’s a legal cliff edge, and if he jumps, there’s a high chance he’ll fall.
As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the government, top Democrats vowed today to oppose the bill for not addressing their demand for more healthcare funding.Democrats have for weeks demanded that any measure to fund the government include an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans, which were created under Joe Biden and due to expire at the end of the year, sending premiums for enrollees higher.With Donald Trump’s encouragement, Congress’s Republican leaders refused, sparking a spending standoff that resulted in the longest government shutdown in US history. But the Democrats’ resolve cracked earlier this week, when a splinter group in the Senate joined with the GOP to craft a compromise bill that reauthorizes government funding through January, without extending the tax credits.The Senate passed that legislation yesterday evening, and the House is expected consider it beginning Wednesday afternoon. The chamber’s top Democrats oppose it, with minority leader Hakeem Jeffries yesterday calling it a “partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people”.Today, the House’s largest ideological caucus, the centrist New Democrat Coalition, announced their opposition to the measure.“While New Dems always seek common ground, our coalition remains united in opposition to legislation that sacrifices the wellbeing of the constituents we’re sworn to serve,” chair Brad Schneider said. “Unfortunately, the Senate-passed bill fails to address our constituents’ top priorities, doing nothing to protect their access to healthcare, lower their costs, or curb the administration’s extreme agenda.”The sentiment appears much the same in the congressional progressive caucus, where chair Greg Casar called the measure “a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them”.The Democratic opposition threatens to make for a tight vote for speaker Mike Johnson, who has kept the House out of session for more than 50 days in a bid to pressure Senate Democrats into caving to the GOP’s demands.With a 219-member majority with full attendance, he can only afford to lose two votes on the bill, and Kentucky representative Thomas Massie is likely to vote no.But Democrats may have their own defectors. Maine’s Jared Golden, who last week announced he would not seek another term representing a district that voted for Trump last year, was the only Democrat in September to vote for a Republican funding bill that did not extend the tax credit. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, whose Washington state district is similarly friendly to the president, also expressed her support for that bill. More
