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      Trump is pushing 50-year mortgages. Talk about short-term thinking | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Would you like to buy a crumbling shack for $2m? Well then, you’re in luck, because that just about sums up the state of the housing market right now. Housing, particularly in places with a decent job market, has become increasingly unaffordable in the US. That’s partly thanks to quantitative easing during the pandemic, which supercharged housing inflation. The median American home price in January was $418,000, about a 45% increase from $289,000 five years ago, per Redfin data. Wages haven’t gone up at the same rate, and housing prices compared to income have reached an all-time high.In post-pandemic America, there are three groups of people. First, there are those who own their home outright and those who bought a house before the pandemic, then refinanced during the historically low interest rates we saw in 2020 and 2021. Many of those homeowners are now sitting on large piles of equity.Then you’ve got the people who bought their first home during the pandemic, with super-low interest rates. They’re not quite as fortunate as group one, but having a 30-year-mortgage that is under the rate of inflation (currently about 3%) means they are also in a very privileged position.Finally, you’ve got group three: people who are completely and utterly screwed. Unless you’re earning big bucks, have generous parents, or want to live in the middle of nowhere, good luck buying a first home right now. Indeed, nearly a quarter of millennials say they expect to rent forever. Prices are historically high and mortgage rates, while still far lower than they have been in the past, are about 6.3%. The difference between buying a $500,000 home with a 6.3% mortgage v a 2.5% interest rate (which some lucky people got during the pandemic) is about $900 a month. And things will only get worse; Trump’s tariffs, including a 50% tariff on steel, could raise the cost of building and renovating a home.But don’t worry. You’re not going to have to rent a $700 sleeping pod (yes, these are a thing in San Francisco) for the rest of your life. Our great president is on it. Donald Trump has a plan – or perhaps more accurately, “concepts of a plan” – to fix housing affordability: 50-year mortgages. The Federal Housing Finance Agency director, Bill Pulte, who reportedly promoted this genius idea to Trump, called the proposal “a complete gamechanger”. You know what else is a complete gamechanger, Bill? Jumping in a pile of toxic waste.Even many of Trump’s allies are said to be aghast at the idea of a 50-year mortgage. This week, Politico reported that the White House was furious Pulte planted the idea in Trump’s head. Per Politico, “one of the two people familiar [with the situation] said there is more fallout from this idea than almost any other policy proposal of the second term, including from the MAGA base.” Another source told Politico: “During Trump 2.0, the last time anything got as much pushback as this was over the ‘Epstein Files’.”The problem with a 50-year mortgage, to be clear, is that it does nothing to solve the root issues. Yes, you’ll have a lower monthly payment since the timeline is longer, but it’ll take you longer to build equity and you’ll pay double the amount of interest as someone with a 30-year mortgage, according to one analysis. Fifty-year mortgages could also increase housing prices in the long run by encouraging people to buy more expensive homes.If you’re reading this from somewhere that isn’t the US, even the idea of a 30-year mortgage might seem odd. The US is an outlier when it comes to mortgages. In most countries you can only get a fixed rate for a few years before it adjusts according to current interest rates.President Franklin D Roosevelt helped usher in 30-year mortgages after the Great Depression, when about 50% of mortgages, which were then only fixed for a short term, were in default. The Roosevelt administration wanted to ensure this didn’t happen again in the future by helping people become homeowners via more predictable repayment plans with reduced risk. Trump, it would seem, fancies himself another Roosevelt. Over the weekend he floated his new housing idea with a Truth Social post titled “Great American Presidents”, which included the words “50-year mortgage” above a photo of himself and “30-year mortgage” over a photo of Roosevelt.Thirty-year mortgages have worked out very well for a lot of individual homeowners in the US. However, many experts believe they exacerbate inequality by creating a system of winners and losers. Lock in a low interest rate for 30 years and you are, to a large degree, insulated from many economic headwinds. If you’ve got a low interest rate, it’s also hard to give it up when rates are rising. That means people who might otherwise downsize will stay in place. Or they might rent out a house they would normally sell in order to keep their interest rate. Long-term fixed-rate loans help contribute to a frozen housing market, which helps erode housing affordability. A 50-year mortgage would make these issues even worse.It’s unclear whether the 50-year-mortgage idea will ever progress to more than just a social media post. However, the fact that we’re even discussing it says a lot about the short-term thinking that plagues modern politics. And it speaks volumes about Trump’s focus on flashy bandages rather than long-term solutions.You can see all the same issues, for example, in Trump’s recent plan to send Americans tariff rebate checks. “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.” Like 50-year mortgages, this would be a quick fix that might give people some immediate relief while exacerbating higher prices in the long term. Trump has also brainstormed sending Americans money to help with health insurance rather than doing anything substantial to fix the US’s broken healthcare system. Turns out that electing a showman whose companies have filed for bankruptcies multiple times might not have been the best idea.Anyway, since hare-brained ideas seem to be all the rage in American politics right now, let me take the opportunity to introduce my own plan to increase housing affordability: we kick Trump out of the White House and we turn it into condos.

      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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      This Palestinian human rights group was sanctioned by Trump. Its chief wishes US allies would take a stand

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      Al-Haq, a leading Palestinian human rights organization based in the West Bank, is not new to adversity. But since the group was sanctioned by the Trump administration in September, its world has shrunk.Today, staff work without pay because their banks closed their accounts. US-based funders have pulled away. YouTube has pulled hundreds of the group’s videos documenting Israeli forces’ human rights abuses against Palestinians. Perhaps most upsetting, US-based groups that had long collaborated have gone quiet, fearful that communications with Al-Haq may draw the attention of an administration that has made clear they are a target.“I feel a deep, deep pain in my heart,” said Shawan Jabarin, Al-Haq’s director, of the silence from US-based organizations in the human rights and social justice sector. “Most of them – if not all – they stopped working with us or engaging with us formally and openly.”Speaking to the Guardian, Jabarin called on US-based rights groups to take a more defiant stance against the Trump administration. “Standing on the side of human rights and justice doesn’t mean that you have to respect draconian orders or laws,” he said. “You have to fight back with all means.”The Trump administration announced sanctions against Al-Haq over the group’s support for investigation of Israeli crimes in Palestine by the international criminal court (ICC). The sanctions marked an early strike in a broader campaign against civil society, a campaign disproportionately focused on groups championing Palestinian rights that also threatens to sweep up climate, democracy and racial justice groups.View image in fullscreenIn a statement announcing the sanctions, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that “the United States will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to protect our troops, our sovereignty, and our allies from the ICC’s disregard for sovereignty, and to punish entities that are complicit in its overreach”.Israel and the US – which are not members of the ICC – have long attacked the court and maintain that it has no jurisdiction over them. But the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian groups is hardly limited to their connection to the ICC.Last month, the administration instructed US attorneys across the country to investigate the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the philanthropic network founded by liberal billionaire George Soros, over unfounded allegations that it has sponsored groups promoting political unrest and suggesting charges as severe as material support for “terrorism”. In a presidential memorandum signed in September, Trump also instructed law enforcement to “disband and uproot” organizations and networks that the administration says promote “domestic terrorism” and “organized political violence”.Groups and individuals critical of Israel, both in the US and abroad, are under particular scrutiny. The Trump administration has also detained foreign nationals for pro-Palestinian speech and sanctioned the UN special rapporteur for the occupied territories and senior ICC officials.Palestine-based groups like Al-Haq, which do not enjoy the constitutional protections their US-based peers do, are among the easiest targets. But as a Palestinian, Jabarin said, he knows something about standing in defiance of a repressive regime.“Maybe it’s our nature and our essence as Palestinians, because we are fighting for every aspect of our life,” he said. “Our culture is not to give up, and to continue fighting for justice. Maybe other societies haven’t reached this point yet.”But the group’s continued advocacy has come at a steep price.Since the sanctions were announced, Al-Haq and its roughly 45 staffers have lost access to their bank accounts as three banks the group works with dissolved their accounts in October. (Even banks overseas not explicitly affected by sanctions are often jittery about working with people and groups sanctioned by the US.) The group is currently unable to receive donations or pay its employees, and two American funders have stopped their donations. US staff had to resign. Other staff have continued to work for free, Jabarin said, aided by former colleagues and supporters abroad. In addition to YouTube, Meta and Mailchimp have restricted or pulled their services. (The three companies did not immediately respond to request for comment.)Al-Haq has lost allies, too.Among the organizations now fearing Trump’s crackdown are scores of US-based non-profits. While more draconian efforts to silence civil society with so-called “non-profit killer” legislation have so far failed, and experts say Trump’s efforts against Soros will struggle to stand up in court, such groups have for months been on high alert, fearing attacks on their tax-exempt status and the prospect of costly litigation.US-based human rights and Palestinian advocacy groups that have collaborated with Al-Haq in the past are now afraid to do so. (Jabarin declined to name them.) The sanctions the US imposed on Palestinian rights groups – one of the only measures available to the administration in the absence of congressional action – make working with them a liability for their US peers. US-based organizations that worked with Al-Haq in the past declined to speak on the record about their relationship with the group when contacted by the Guardian, but some noted that maintaining professional communications with a sanctioned organization exposed them to significant risk.Coordinated advocacy with sanctioned organizations could expose US groups to civil and criminal enforcement, some noted, with possible consequences ranging from loss of fiscal benefits to jail time. Some US non-profits are so risk-averse they avoided public criticism of the sanctions altogether.Leena Barakat, a co-founder of the Block and Build Funder Coalition, a network of funders she described as “committed to resisting authoritarianism”, said that US-based groups and donors who support the work of sanctioned Palestinian organizations find themselves in a “devastating” position.“We should be fighting back and I think right now there’s absolutely the desire and the will to do it. The question on the table is what is the best and the most strategic fight,” she said. “We’re thinking about that every day.”Al-Haq has documented Israel’s human rights abuses in Palestine for half a century. Alongside other organizations that the US has also sanctioned – Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and Addameer, which is focused on the rights of Palestinian prisoners and detainees – the group played a key role in demanding and later supporting the ICC’s investigation.In 2021, Israel designated Al-Haq and five other Palestinian rights groups as “terrorist organizations”, alleging links between the groups and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftwing political party the US and other countries consider a terrorist organization. Reporting at the time revealed that Israel had no concrete evidence to back the designations, and the CIA was unable to corroborate Israel’s claims about the groups. Months later, Israeli soldiers raided Al-Haq’s office.View image in fullscreenThe designations and raids were widely condemned by international rights groups and the Biden administration distanced itself from them. But Jabarin always feared the possibility the US might at some point follow Israel’s lead and seek to punish the group.Jabarin dismissed the latest US sanctions as a “political attack” and pledged that Al-Haq would continue its documentation of human rights violations and its work with the ICC.“They want to silence any voice calling for accountability, calling for ending the culture of impunity, anyone speaking about the rights of Palestinians and justice for Palestine,” he said. “We will continue doing our work, we will continue fighting for justice and for human rights, and we will continue going after the criminals and holding the criminals accountable.” Al-Haq’s submissions to the court, he added, are “legal” and “peaceful”.Jabarin says he understands the constraints imposed on his US colleagues but is frustrated by what he views as a reluctance to more openly defy Trump beyond issuing statements. What Trump wants is for organizations to comply without putting up a fight, and how global civil society responds to this moment will have lasting implications, Jabarin added.“Palestine is the test” for all people of conscience, he said.“The US administration, they are supporting the rule of the jungle, not the rule of law,” he said. “And what’s going on, globally speaking, is a war between the rule of the jungle and the rule of law.” More

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      Ultra-rich media owners are tightening their grip on democracy. It’s time to wrest our power back

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      The richest man on earth owns X.The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS, and could soon own Warner Bros, which owns CNN.The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.The fourth-richest man owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.Another billionaire owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic – some might say sinister – reason.If you’re a multibillionaire, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth. Control over a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets would enable you to effectively hedge against democracy by suppressing criticism of you and other plutocrats, and discouraging any attempt to – for example – tax away your wealth.You also have Donald Trump to contend with. In his second term of office, Trump has brazenly and illegally used the power of the presidency to punish his enemies and reward those who lavish him with praise and profits.So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that the editorial board of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post defended the razing of the East Wing of the White House to build Trump his giant ballroom – without disclosing that Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon is a major corporate contributor to the ballroom’s funding. The Post’s editorial board also applauded Trump’s defense department’s decision to obtain a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors, but failed to mention Amazon’s stake in X-energy, a company that’s developing small nuclear reactors. And it criticized Washington DC’s refusal to accept self-driving cars without disclosing that Amazon’s self-driving car company was trying to get into the Washington DC market.These breaches are inexcusable.It’s much the same with the family of Larry Ellison, founder of the software firm Oracle and the second-richest person in the world. Ellison is a longtime Trump donor who also, according to court records, participated in a phone call to discuss how his 2020 election defeat could be contested.In June 2025, Ellison and Oracle were co-sponsors of Trump’s military parade in Washington. At the time, Larry and his son David, founder of Skydance Media, were waiting for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve their $8bn merger with Paramount Global, owner of CBS News.In the run-up to the sale, some top brass at CBS News and its flagship 60 Minutes resigned, citing concerns over the network’s ability to maintain its editorial independence, and revealing pressure by Paramount to tamp down stories critical of Trump. No matter. Too much money was at stake.In July, Paramount paid $16m to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against CBS and canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, much to Trump’s delight. Three weeks after the settlement was announced, Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, chair of the FCC, approved the Ellisons’ deal, making David chief executive of the new media giant Paramount Skydance and giving him control of CBS News.In October, David made the anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss the CBS News editor-in-chief, despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or news. Earlier this month, it was revealed that CBS News heavily edited Trump’s latest 60 Minutes interview, cutting his boast that the network “paid me a lotta money”.I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. But that was when CBS News – the home of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite – was independent of the rest of CBS, and when the top management of CBS had independent responsibilities to the American public.It is impossible to know the full extent to which criticism of Trump and his administration has been chilled by the media-owning billionaires, or what fawning coverage has been elicited.But what we do know is that billionaire media owners like Musk, Bezos, Ellison and Murdoch are businessmen first and foremost. Their highest goal is not to inform the public but to make money. They know Trump can wreak havoc on their businesses by imposing unfriendly FCC rulings, enforcing labor laws against them or denying them lucrative government contracts.And in an era when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who have bought up key media, with a thin-skinned president who is willing and able to violate laws and norms to punish or reward, there is a growing danger that the public will not be getting the truth it needs to function in this democracy.What to do about this?At the least, media outlets should inform their readers about any and all potential conflicts of interest, and media watchdogs and professional associations should ensure they do.A second suggestion (if and when the US has a saner government) is that anti-monopoly authorities not approve the purchase of a major media outlet by someone with extensive businesses that could pose conflicts of interest.Acquisition of a media company should be treated differently than the acquisition of, say, a company developing self-driving cars or one developing small nuclear reactors, because of the media’s central role in our democracy.A third suggestion is to read and support media such as the Guardian, which is not beholden to a wealthy owner or powerful advertiser and does not compromise its integrity to curry favor with the powerful.To the contrary, the Guardian aims to do what every great source of news and views should be doing, especially in these dark times: illuminate, enlighten and elucidate. This is why I avidly read each day’s edition and why I write a column for it.As the Washington Post’s slogan still says, democracy dies in darkness. Today, darkness is closing in because a demagogue sits in the Oval Office and so much of the US’s wealth and media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few people easily manipulated by that demagogue.We must fight to get our democracy back. Supporting the Guardian is one good place to begin.You can support the Guardian’s year-end appeal here. All gifts are gratefully received, but a recurring contribution – even a small monthly amount – is most impactful, helping sustain our work throughout the year ahead. It takes just 37 seconds to give. Thank you. More

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      US government reopens after shutdown with House to vote on Epstein files next week – politics live

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      Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, said on Wednesday he would put the bill compelling the release of government files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the House floor next week.“We are gonna put that on the floor for [a] full vote next week, [as] soon as we get back,” Johnson told reporters, as the chamber gathered to debate legislation to reopen the government.Johnson, who opposes the bill, made the announcement just hours after swearing in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who took her oath of office seven weeks after she won a late September special election to succeed her father, the longtime representative Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.Grijalva’s swearing-in cleared the path for the vote to release the Epstein files, as she became the 218th and final signature on a discharge petition that automatically triggers a House floor vote on legislation demanding the justice department release the files. In her floor remarks on Wednesday, Grijalva said:
      Justice cannot wait another day. Adelante.
      Under the rules governing discharge petitions, Johnson would not have been mandated to require a vote until early December, so his announcement that the vote would take place next week is earlier than expected.Even if the bill passes the House, it still needs to get through the Senate and be signed by Trump. Senate leaders have shown no indication they will bring it up for a vote, and Trump has decried the effort as a “Democrat hoax”.More on this story in a moment, but first here are some other key developments in US politics:

      A tranche of documents released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday revealed that Jeffrey Epstein’s staff kept him apprised of Donald Trump’s air travel as it related to his own transportation – and that the late sex trafficker kept up with news about his former friend years after their relationship soured. This disclosure of about 20,000 pages from Republican members of the committee related to Epstein comes as Trump continues to battle with the political fallout related to their past friendship – and his justice department’s failure to release documents as he had long promised on the campaign trail.

      The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. Trump signed the bill into law on Wednesday night. The legislation comes in the wake of a Senate-brokered compromise in which a handful of Democrats voted to forego the extension of expiring healthcare subsidies, which have been at the heart of the long impasse.

      Trump has said he feels he has “an obligation” to sue the BBC over its editing of one of his speeches, as a deadline looms for the corporation to respond to his billion-dollar legal threat. The US president accused the broadcaster of having “defrauded the public” with an edition of Panorama last year that spliced together two parts of a speech he made on 6 January 2021 and has given it until Friday to respond.

      Trump has repeated a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases. The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. No rulings have been delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated.
      After 42-day standoff, government is back open – and the minority party won no concessions from the party in power, writes Guardian US’ senior politics reporter Chris Stein in this analysis piece:The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. You can see how lawmakers voted via this interactive:The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators. The legislation restarts federal operations but does not include the healthcare funding the minority party demanded.You can watch the Guardian’s video report on it here:The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators.The compromise sets the stage for government operations to return to normal through January, while leaving unresolved the issue of expiring tax credits for Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare health plans, which most Democrats demanded be extended in any deal to reopen the government.After it was unveiled over the weekend, the Senate approved the compromise on Monday, and the House followed suit two days later by a margin of 222 in favor and 209 against, with two not voting. Donald Trump signed the bill on Wednesday night, saying “we’re sending a clear message that we will never give in to extortion, because that’s what it was … the Democrats tried to extort our country”.Six Democrats broke with their party to vote for the bill: Adam Gray of California, Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Jared Golden of Maine. Two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida, voted against it.House Republican leadership said in a statement:
      The Democrat shutdown is finally over thanks to House and Senate Republicans.
      There is absolutely no question now that Democrats are responsible for millions of American families going hungry, millions of travelers left stranded in airports, and our troops left wondering if they would receive their next paycheck.
      In remarks on the House floor shortly before the vote, the Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had pledged to continue to press for the subsidies’ extensions.He said:
      This fight is not over. We’re just getting started.
      Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year, or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J Trump once and for all. That’s how this fight ends.
      The spending standoff was the biggest battle between congressional Democrats and Republicans since Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. It resulted in unprecedented disruptions to government services, with the Trump administration ordering cuts to commercial air travel across the country, and the first-ever halt to the largest federal food aid program.Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, said on Wednesday he would put the bill compelling the release of government files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the House floor next week.“We are gonna put that on the floor for [a] full vote next week, [as] soon as we get back,” Johnson told reporters, as the chamber gathered to debate legislation to reopen the government.Johnson, who opposes the bill, made the announcement just hours after swearing in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who took her oath of office seven weeks after she won a late September special election to succeed her father, the longtime representative Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.Grijalva’s swearing-in cleared the path for the vote to release the Epstein files, as she became the 218th and final signature on a discharge petition that automatically triggers a House floor vote on legislation demanding the justice department release the files. In her floor remarks on Wednesday, Grijalva said:
      Justice cannot wait another day. Adelante.
      Under the rules governing discharge petitions, Johnson would not have been mandated to require a vote until early December, so his announcement that the vote would take place next week is earlier than expected.Even if the bill passes the House, it still needs to get through the Senate and be signed by Trump. Senate leaders have shown no indication they will bring it up for a vote, and Trump has decried the effort as a “Democrat hoax”.More on this story in a moment, but first here are some other key developments in US politics:

      A tranche of documents released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday revealed that Jeffrey Epstein’s staff kept him apprised of Donald Trump’s air travel as it related to his own transportation – and that the late sex trafficker kept up with news about his former friend years after their relationship soured. This disclosure of about 20,000 pages from Republican members of the committee related to Epstein comes as Trump continues to battle with the political fallout related to their past friendship – and his justice department’s failure to release documents as he had long promised on the campaign trail.

      The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. Trump signed the bill into law on Wednesday night. The legislation comes in the wake of a Senate-brokered compromise in which a handful of Democrats voted to forego the extension of expiring healthcare subsidies, which have been at the heart of the long impasse.

      Trump has said he feels he has “an obligation” to sue the BBC over its editing of one of his speeches, as a deadline looms for the corporation to respond to his billion-dollar legal threat. The US president accused the broadcaster of having “defrauded the public” with an edition of Panorama last year that spliced together two parts of a speech he made on 6 January 2021 and has given it until Friday to respond.

      Trump has repeated a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases. The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. No rulings have been delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated. More

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      Trump signs funding bill to end longest US government shutdown

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      The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators.The compromise sets the stage for government operations to return to normal through January, while leaving unresolved the issue of expiring tax credits for Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare health plans, which most Democrats demanded be extended in any deal to reopen the government.After it was unveiled over the weekend, the Senate approved the compromise on Monday, and the House followed suit two days later by a margin of 222 in favor and 209 against, with two not voting. Donald Trump signed the bill on Wednesday night, saying “we’re sending a clear message that we will never give in to extortion, because that’s what it was … the Democrats tried to extort our country”.Six Democrats broke with their party to vote for the bill: Adam Gray of California, Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Jared Golden of Maine. Two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida, voted against it.“The Democrat shutdown is finally over thanks to House and Senate Republicans,” House Republican leadership said in a statement.“There is absolutely no question now that Democrats are responsible for millions of American families going hungry, millions of travelers left stranded in airports, and our troops left wondering if they would receive their next paycheck.”In remarks on the House floor shortly before the vote, the Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had pledged to continue to press for the subsidies’ extensions.“This fight is not over. We’re just getting started,” he said. “Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year, or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J Trump once and for all. That’s how this fight ends.”The spending standoff was the biggest battle between congressional Democrats and Republicans since Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. It resulted in unprecedented disruptions to government services, with the Trump administration ordering cuts to commercial air travel across the country, and the first-ever halt to the largest federal food aid program.Reeling from their election defeats last year, Democrats had seized on an end-of-September expiration of government funding to make a stand on healthcare, a signature issue of the party over the past decade and a half. The Obamacare tax credits were created during Joe Biden’s presidency, and lowered premiums for enrollers of plans bought under the law.Democrats wanted them extended as part of any deal to continue government funding. The party made other demands as well, including curbs on Trump’s use of rescissions to slash money Congress had previously authorized and an undoing of cuts to Medicaid which Republicans had approved earlier in the year. But as the battle went on, it became clear that an extension of the subsidies was the main objective.Republicans, who control both the House and the Senate, counter-offered with a bill to fund the government through the third week of November, without any spending cuts or major changes to policy. They passed the measure through the lower chamber with only a single Democrat in support, but the minority used the Senate’s filibuster to block its passage there.The shutdown began on 1 October, resulting in around 700,000 federal workers being furloughed. Hundreds of thousands of others, from active duty military to law enforcement to airport security screeners, remained on the job without pay.Russell Vought, the White House office of management and budget director known for his hostility towards the federal workforce, seized on the funding lapse to order further layoffs of government employees. He also cut funding for infrastructure projects in states that voted for Kamala Harris last year.Though Trump ordered military members be paid in a move that many experts called likely illegal, other federal workers missed paychecks. Food banks began reporting increased demand as the shutdown went on, with the need worsening after the White House halted payments under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, citing the government funding lapse.Last week, Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, ordered a cutback in flights at US airports, saying air traffic controllers were facing unprecedented strain after weeks of unpaid work. Widespread flight cancellations were reported in the days that followed.In the Senate, most Democrats remained onboard with the party’s strategy for weeks. Senate majority leader John Thune held 14 votes on the GOP funding measure, but only three members of the minority caucus ever broke ranks to support it.In early November, Democrats swept off-year elections, winning gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey by significant margins, as well as voter approval for new congressional maps in California that will help the party’s candidates.Democratic leaders said the wins vindicated their strategy in the funding fight, a statement Trump echoed, saying “the shutdown is a big factor” in the GOP’s poor performance. He began pressing Republican senators to scrap the filibuster, which would have negated the 60-vote threshold spending legislation needs to clear in the chamber, where the GOP holds 53 seats.Meanwhile, a small group of moderate members of the Senate Democratic caucus had been negotiating a compromise to end the shutdown. It ended up funding the government through January and undoing the layoffs the Trump administration had ordered after the shutdown began.But it included no additional funding for the Affordable Care Act tax credits – instead, Thune agreed to allow a vote on the issue by mid-December. There’s no telling if it will win the GOP support needed to pass, and Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has not said he will put any legislation up for a vote.Despite howls of outrage from both House and Senate Democrats, the Senate passed it with 60 votes on Monday: eight from lawmakers in the Democratic caucus, and the rest from Republicans.Yet the fight over the ACA subsidies is unlikely to be over. Enrollers in the plans received notices of premium increases in November because of the tax credits’ expiration. One study predicted they would rise by an average of 26%, potentially bringing them to levels unaffordable to many.With government funding expiring again at the end of January, Democrats could use the opportunity to again demand the subsidies be extended.“Dozens of House Republicans have been claiming over the last few weeks that they know that is something that needs to be addressed,” Jeffries said in a Tuesday interview with CNN.“And now we’re going to have to see some action or whether it was just talk from these House Republicans because Democrats are going to continue to stay in the arena as it relates to dealing with the healthcare crisis that Republicans have visited on the American people.” More

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      Nothing to see here: Trump press chief in full denial mode over Epstein

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      Donald Trump was described as “that dog that hasn’t barked” in an email by Jeffrey Epstein. Don’t tell Kristi Noem, who has a way of dealing with troublesome hounds.The US president would love nothing more than to let sleeping dogs lie, but that hope was dashed on Wednesday when Democrats released emails suggesting that Trump was aware of Epstein’s conduct and had spent hours with one of the disgraced financier’s victims.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who says a prayer before each briefing, was dispatched to the podium to defy the laws of moral physics by explaining why the true wrongdoers here were Joe Biden and the Democrats.Leavitt’s critics have compared her to M3gan, an AI-powered lifesize doll in the sci-fi horror films of the same name. She speaks uncannily fluently with barely an um or an er. There was no escaping the chill that went through the briefing room as she dismissed Epstein questions as coolly and clinically as an AI datacentre.Weijia Jiang of CBS News asked: “Did the president ever spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein’s house with a victim?”Leavitt ducked and lobbed back a double negative: “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”She went on: “And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a paedophile and he was a creep.”Up until now Trump and his spin doctors have been breaking the cardinal rule of political scandals, insisting there is nothing to see here, only for a drip, drip, drip of revelations to keep the story alive. Why not just release the full Epstein files, asked one reporter, and put the matter to rest?Leavitt fired back: “This administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever.”She claimed the justice department has “turned over thousands of documents” to the American people, and that the administration was cooperating with the House of Representatives’ oversight committee. “That’s part of the reason you are seeing these documents that were released today.”It was fabulously audacious. No matter that every Democrat in the House of Representatives wants to release the files while all but a few Republicans are opposed because of their devotion to Trump. In Leavitt’s black mirror, it’s the Republicans who are champions of transparency.“This administration has done more than any, and it just shows how this is truly a manufactured hoax by the Democrat party, for now they’re talking about it all of a sudden because President Trump is in the Oval Office,” she said, a note of indignation rising in her voice. “But when Joe Biden was sitting in there, the Democrats never brought this up. This wasn’t an issue that they cared about because they actually don’t care about the victims in these cases.”Leavitt then got philosophical. “There are no coincidences in Washington DC,” she said. “And it is not a coincidence that the Democrats leaked these emails to the fake news this morning ahead of Republicans reopening the government.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn her telling, it was all a “distraction campaign” by the Democrats and the liberal media so that Leavitt would be asked questions about Epstein instead of the government reopening thanks to Trump.She was asked about a CNN report that indicated that the White House would meet Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who has signed on to the petition to force the House to consider compelling the release of the Epstein files.“Doesn’t it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please?” she responded. “Doesn’t that show our level of transparency?”Again, you almost had to admire the chutzpah. Then Leavitt pulled a familiar tactic that is serving her and Trump well in his second term: she switched gears and took a question from Reagan Reese, White House correspondent of the Daily Caller, a rightwing website co-founded by Tucker Carlson.Reese announced: “I have a question on the government shutdown.” Leavitt responded: “Thank you. I’m glad someone does.”The playbook had worked again. When momentum among the press pack is building dangerously, Trump or Leavitt nips it in the bud by calling on a friendly face who is sure to change the tone and lighten the mood. Instead of going after the Epstein emails like a dog with a bone on Wednesday, reporters asked about a variety of subjects, including Jack Schlossberg and which Wall Street executives were coming to dinner at the White House.What might have been a wretched, career-threatening crisis for any another political leader became just another passing storm in the room. Leavitt did not break sweat. More

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      Judge orders release of hundreds arrested during Chicago immigration raids

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      A federal judge has ordered the release of hundreds of people who were arrested over the last few months in the Chicago area amid the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids across the city.On Wednesday, US district judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered the justice department to produce a list showing which of the 615 possible class members are still in custody by 19 November, the Chicago Tribune reports.According to Cummings, he would allow the members’ release on a $1,500 bond as long as they have no criminal history or prior removal order. The ACLU of Illinois said that the order will mean the immediate release of 13 people who have been detained by federal officials.As part of Wednesday’s order, Cummings also prohibited the government from pressuring detainees to agree to voluntary deportation while their cases are pending, the Chicago Tribune added.The order comes after Donald Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz launched a series of aggressive immigration raids across Chicago during which federal agents have been accused of using excessive force against protesters including deploying tear gas and pepper spray.In a statement to the Guardian, ACLU’s Illinois chapter hailed Cummings’ decision, with its deputy legal director Michelle Garcia noting the 13 immediate releases.“In addition, more than 600 additional individuals may be released in a week on bond or ankle monitoring, while the parties determine if their arrests violated the consent decree,” Garcia added, referencing a 2022 consent decree that had been previously established concerning warrantless arrests in the Chicago area.The ACLU and the National Immigrant Justice Center had filed a lawsuit over allegations that federal agents violated the 2022 agreement by issuing warrantless arrests amid the latest immigration crackdowns across the city.Garcia went on to say: “Most importantly, the court committed to enforcing our agreement with the federal government – a step that creates a pathway for even more of the hundreds of people illegally arrested and detained during Operation Midway Blitz to be released. The court is holding ICE and CBP accountable for breaking the law.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, justice department lawyer William Weiland described Cummings’ decision as “highly significant” and requested that he halt any release order so he could consult with his superiors, the Chicago Tribune reported. Weiland further noted that at least 12 of the 615 individuals posed a substantial security concern and that the government needed more time to complete their vetting, the outlet added.Cummings has directed both the plaintiffs and defendants to file a status report by 21 November.Just last month, a coalition of immigration advocates – led by the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the MacArthur Justice Center – filed a lawsuit against federal authorities, alleging “torturous” conditions at an ICE facility in the Chicago area. More