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      Chuck Schumer Postpones Book Tour Amid Spending Bill Vote Backlash

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      Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, on Monday postponed a multicity tour to promote his forthcoming book, citing security concerns amid backlash to his decision to vote with Republicans for a stopgap spending bill to stave off a government shutdown.Mr. Schumer was scheduled to participate in promotional events in Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, as well as a few stops in California, for his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” Many Democratic activists, desperate for their leaders to stand up to President Trump, have been staging protests outside of Mr. Schumer’s Brooklyn home and calling for his resignation. Online, they have been organizing protests for every stop on his book tour.A spokeswoman for Mr. Schumer said that the tour was being rescheduled because of “security concerns.” But the move was immediately criticized by both the right and the left, who accused Mr. Schumer of being unwilling to face a restive public.Since voting on Friday for the stopgap bill, Mr. Schumer has been defending his decision to stave off a government shutdown, which he has said was the less devastating of two bad options that Senate Democrats were presented with. “I’ll take some of the bullets,” Mr. Schumer said of the vitriol directed at him.“There is no off-ramp,” for a government shutdown, Mr. Schumer said in an interview Friday from his office just off the Senate floor. “The off-ramp is in the hands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE. We could be in a shutdown for six months or nine months,” he said, referring to Mr. Musk’s cost-cutting team, the Department of Government Efficiency.Mr. Schumer said that a shutdown would have allowed Mr. Trump to decide which programs were essential, and which were not. “The day after the shutdown, they can say all of SNAP is not essential, we’re not funding it,” Mr. Schumer said, referring to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “In a shutdown, it is solely the executive branch that determines what is essential and what is nonessential. There is no court check.”Still, the backlash has been unrelenting.Over the weekend, Mr. Schumer met with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, in Brooklyn. The meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News. Mr. Jeffries and House Democrats, who stuck together to oppose the government funding bill in the House, have criticized Mr. Schumer’s decision. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Mr. Schumer’s decision “unacceptable.” And Mr. Jeffries has avoided expressing any confidence in Mr. Schumer’s leadership since the vote.On Friday, asked at a news conference whether it was time for new leadership in the Senate, Mr. Jeffries responded curtly.“Next question,” he said. More

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      Trump Signs Spending Bill to Fund Government

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      President Trump on Saturday signed the government funding bill passed by the Senate on Friday. The bill was passed just hours before a midnight deadline to avoid a lapse in funding, which would have shut down the government.The signing of the bill ended a week of drama on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, the House passed the legislation, which funds the government through Sept. 30, in a mostly party-line vote that reflected how Republican fiscal hawks have swallowed their concerns about spending in deference to Mr. Trump. The vote was 217 to 213, with only one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voting against the legislation. One Democrat, Representative Jared Golden of Maine, voted yes.That sent the measure to the Senate, which spent the rest of the week deliberating whether to accept the Republican bill from the House, or send it back and shut down the government at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.The key vote came on Friday afternoon, after days of Democratic agonizing that divided the party. That procedural vote, which ended debate and moved the bill to a final vote, needed the support of some Democrats. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, and nine other members of his caucus supplied the votes needed to effectively thwart a filibuster by their own party and prevent a shutdown.The final vote to pass the spending measure and send it to Mr. Trump to sign was 54 to 46, nearly along party lines.Carl Hulse More

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      What Thom Tillis’s Surrender to Trump Says About the Trump G.O.P.

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      Few Republican senators give a better floor speech than Thom Tillis of North Carolina does. He’s the Daniel Day-Lewis of moral outrage. He delivered a doozy last month, challenging President Trump’s revisionist history of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calling Vladimir Putin “a liar, a murderer” and “the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.”But Tulsi Gabbard is apparently no threat at all. Although she has been something of a Putin apologist, Tillis fell in line with 51 of his Republican colleagues in the Senate and voted to confirm her as director of national intelligence. Afterward, on Facebook, he proclaimed his pride in supporting her.He made impassioned remarks in the Senate about his disagreement with Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 rioters who bloodied law enforcement officers.But the following month, he voted to confirm Kash Patel, who has peddled the kinds of fictions that fueled that violence, as director of the F.B.I.Courage, capitulation — Tillis pinballs dizzyingly between the two. As he gears up for a 2026 campaign for a third term in the Senate, he seems to be at war with himself. And perhaps more poignantly than any other Republican on Capitol Hill, Tillis, 64, illustrates how hard it is to be principled, independent or any of those other bygone adjectives in Trump’s Republican Party.That’s a compliment. For most Republicans in Congress, there’s no battle between conscience and supplication. They dropped to their knees years ago. There’s no tension between what they say and what they do. They praise Trump with their every word, including the conjunctions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chuck Schumer: Trump and Musk Would Love a Shutdown. We Must Not Give Them One.

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      Over the past two months, the United States has confronted a bitter truth: The federal government has been taken over by a nihilist.President Trump has taken a blowtorch to our country and wielded chaos like a weapon. Most Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, have caved to his every whim. The Grand Old Party has devolved into a crowd of Trump sycophants and MAGA radicals who seem to want to burn everything to the ground.Now, Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to a new brink of disaster: Unless Congress acts, the federal government will shut down Friday at midnight.As I have said many times, there are no winners in a government shutdown. But there are certainly victims: the most vulnerable Americans, those who rely on federal programs to feed their families, get medical care and stay financially afloat. Communities that depend on government services to function will suffer.This week Democrats offered a way out: Fund the government for another month to give appropriators more time to do their jobs. Republicans rejected this proposal.Why? Because Mr. Trump doesn’t want the appropriators to do their job. He wants full control over government spending.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Brad Schimel, a Trump Loyalist, Aims to Flip Wisconsin’s Supreme Court

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      Brad Schimel, a judge who is so supportive of the president that he dressed up as him for Halloween, is hoping to flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court for conservatives.In October 2016, the day after the release of the “Access Hollywood” recording in which Donald J. Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, Wisconsin Republicans held a rally in the small town of Elkhorn.As the state’s top Republicans spoke at the event, they distanced themselves from Mr. Trump. Paul D. Ryan, then the House speaker, said he was “sickened.” Gov. Scott Walker declared that Mr. Trump’s remarks were “inexcusable.” Senator Ron Johnson called them “indefensible.”Just one Republican took the stage, framed by haystacks and pumpkins, and came to Mr. Trump’s defense: Brad Schimel, then the state’s attorney general and now a Waukesha County judge who is running in a high-profile, expensive race for control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.“I know that Donald Trump has said some things that are bad,” Judge Schimel said as a voice in the crowd cried out, “Get over it!” He added: “I’m the father of two daughters. My daughters look up to me, and I don’t like hearing anyone talk that way about women. But Donald Trump will appoint judges who will defend our Constitution and respect our Constitution.”Mr. Schimel during a 2016 event. Alone among top Wisconsin Republicans, Mr. Schimel spoke up in defense of Donald J. Trump at a campaign event the day after the “Access Hollywood” recording put Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential bid in jeopardy.Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via ImagnNow, as Judge Schimel aims to return a conservative majority to the court after Wisconsin liberals flipped it in 2023, he is hoping to sustain the pro-Trump energy that helped the president carry the battleground state last fall.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Republican Refers to Sarah McBride, Transgender Congress Member, as a Man

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      A Republican lawmaker abruptly adjourned a congressional hearing on Tuesday after being challenged for referring to Representative Sarah McBride, Democrat of Delaware and the first openly transgender lawmaker in Congress, as a man.The Europe Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs panel was in the middle of a hearing on arms control and U.S. assistance to Europe when its chairman, Representative Keith Self of Texas, introduced his colleague by calling her “Mr. McBride.”Ms. McBride, who entered Congress knowing she would present a unique target for Republicans who have politicized and attacked transgender people, has generally chosen to let such moments slide. On Tuesday, she briefly registered her displeasure by returning Mr. Self’s slight, responding, “Thank you, Madam Chair,” before proceeding with her remarks.But Representative William Keating of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, was not willing to move on. He interrupted to request that Mr. Self repeat his introduction, which he did, again referring to the Delaware Democrat as “Mr. McBride.”“Mr. Chairman, you are out of order,” Mr. Keating fired back. “Mr. Chairman, have you no decency? I mean, I’ve come to know you a little bit. But this is not decent.”Mr. Self said it was time to continue the hearing. But Mr. Keating refused to let go.“You will not continue it with me unless you introduce a duly elected representative the right way,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Pulled $400 million From Columbia. Other Schools Could Be Next.

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      The administration has circulated a list that includes nine other campuses, accusing them of failure to address antisemitism.The Trump Administration’s abrupt withdrawal of $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University cast a pall over at least nine other campuses worried they could be next.The schools, a mix that includes both public universities and Ivy League institutions, have been placed on an official administration list of schools the Department of Justice said may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty.Faculty leaders at many of the schools have pushed back strongly against claims that their campuses are hotbeds of antisemitism, noting that while some Jewish students complained that they felt unsafe, the vast majority of protesters were peaceful and many of the protest participants were themselves Jewish. The Trump administration has made targeting higher education a priority. This week, the president threatened in a social media post to punish any school that permits “illegal” protests. On Jan. 30, his 10th day in office, he signed an executive order on combating antisemitism, focusing on what he called anti-Jewish racism at “leftists” universities. Then, on Feb. 3, he announced the creation of a multiagency task force to carry out the mandate.The task force appeared to move into action quickly after a pro-Palestinian sit-in and protest at Barnard College, a partner school to Columbia, led to arrests on Feb. 26. Two days later, the administration released its list of 10 schools under scrutiny, including Columbia, the site of large pro-Palestinian encampments last year.It said it would be paying the schools a visit, part of a review process to consider “whether remedial action is warranted.” Then on Friday, it announced it would be canceling millions in grants and contracts with Columbia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      House Republicans Unveil Spending Bill to Avert Government Shutdown

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      House Republicans on Saturday unveiled a measure to fund the government through Sept. 30, boosting spending on the military and daring Democrats to oppose it and risk being blamed for a government shutdown that would begin after midnight Friday.The 99-page legislation would slightly decrease spending overall from last year’s funding levels, but would increase spending for the military by $6 billion, in a nod to the concerns of G.O.P. defense hawks that stopgap measures would hamstring the Pentagon. It would not include any funds for any earmarks for projects in lawmakers’ districts or states, saving roughly $13 billion, according to congressional aides.The bill provides a slight funding boost for Immigration and Customs Enforcement — an additional $485 million — but gives the administration more flexibility on how the agency can spend it. It also increases funding for the federal program that provides free groceries to millions of low-income women and children, known as W.I.C., by about $500 million.Speaker Mike Johnson in the Capitol this week. If Democrats are unanimously opposed to the Republicans’ spending bill, Mr. Johnson will have just a vote or two to spare to get the bill through the House next week.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIt was unclear whether the legislation could pass the Republican-controlled Congress. Speaker Mike Johnson will need to navigate the bill through his extremely narrow House majority as early as Tuesday and has just a vote or two to spare if Democrats are unanimously opposed. The pressure would shift quickly to the Senate if House Republicans can pass the legislation, raising the question of whether Democrats would mount a filibuster against the bill and trigger a shutdown.While conservative House Republicans have in the past dug in and opposed such spending bills, forcing Mr. Johnson to rely on Democrats to keep the government open, President Trump called on Republicans to unite and push this measure through so he and Republicans on Capitol Hill could focus on their new budgetary and tax-cutting plans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More