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    Top House Democrats vow to oppose shutdown bill over healthcare funding

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    As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the US government, top Democrats vowed on Tuesday to oppose the bill for not addressing their demand for more healthcare funding.Democrats have for weeks insisted 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 on Monday evening, and the House of Representatives is expected to vote on it on Wednesday afternoon. The House rules committee will consider the bill on Tuesday evening, setting the stage for it to come to the House floor on Wednesday.Top House Democrats oppose it, with the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, calling it a “partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people.“It’s our expectation that the House will vote at some point tomorrow and House Democrats will strongly oppose any legislation that does not decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis,” Jeffries told CNN on Tuesday.The House’s largest ideological caucus, the centrist New Democrat Coalition, has announced its 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 the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, who has kept the House out of session for more than 50 days inan attempt to pressure Senate Democrats into caving to the GOP’s demands.With a 219-member majority assuming full attendance, Johnson can only afford to lose two votes on the bill, and the 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.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBoth lawmakers’ offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how they would vote on the Senate’s compromise.The compromise bill cleared the Senate on Monday evening by 60 votes, the minimum it needed to overcome the chamber’s thresholds for advancement. All Republicans supported the measure’s passage except for Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with eight moderate members of the Democratic caucus, several of whom were recently re-elected, or serving their final terms in office.That group was composed of Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the party.While they did not win an extension of the tax credits, the group claimed credit for getting the Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, to agree to hold a vote by mid-December on extending the subsidies. However, it remains to be seen if enough Republicans will support its passage, and Johnson has not agreed to put the issue to a vote in the House.Though the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, did not back the bill publicly, Shaheen told Fox News on Monday that the group “kept leadership informed throughout” their talks. Progressive organizations who backed Schumer’s strategy during the shutdown have now turned on him, for allowing the compromise to come together.Indivisible announced plans to support Democratic candidates in primaries who oppose Schumer remaining as the party’s leader, and MoveOn joined in the calls for him to bow out.“It is time for Senator Schumer to step aside as minority leader to make room for those who are willing to fight fire with fire when the basic needs of working people are on the line,” MoveOn Political Action’s executive director, Katie Bethell, said. More

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      Fetterman defends decision to break with Democrats to end government shutdown: ‘My party crossed a line’ – live

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      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

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      I’m an American relying on food stamps. This country has turned us into lab rats

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      It is 10 November, and my refrigerator is almost empty.I am, in fact, hungry as I write this. It is not that I do not have food at all; it is that I do not have the inclination to eat a can of tuna for breakfast, nor do I have the time to cook the winter squash my neighbor gave me.I am one of 41 million Americans who rely on Snap to make ends meet. When I offered to write about my experience during the government shutdown, it looked like we were not going to get any food assistance at all. And then we were. And then we weren’t.For weeks, the administration has been using our precarious survival as a bargaining block. Will they eat, or won’t they?This is what life is in Mapleton, Oregon, population 527. One white-spired church, one general store, one diner, one bar, one food bank where people line up two hours before the doors open.Roughly one in six Oregonians rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) to buy groceries, but it it worse here in the sticks. Our 22% poverty rate is double the state average, and even higher for young families: 44% of the kids in this school district live below the poverty level.I am not writing this with self pity. I do not have kids and my rent is very low, due to the generosity of friends. I understand that my version of poverty – the kind where you are down to canned tuna and raisins – is not the same as starvation. I feel fortunate to live in one of the states with a governor who has stood up to the federal government. That was heartening – especially after weeks of stress.But it still seems to me that we, America’s low-income people, have been treated like lab animals in a sick political experiment. Oh good, they’re giving us food! Oh wait, they’re not.When I say “giving us food”, it makes it sound like we do not work or do for ourselves. That is simply not true. Even with a regular allotment of Snap benefits and a handout from the food bank, it takes true ingenuity to get through the month. And while we are cooking beans from scratch, we are also working or hustling to find work.Take for instance, my cousin’s daughter Alissa, 24, who pays $1,000 a month to live in what she describes as “a roach-infested” slum in a nearby town, where it is slightly easier to find work.Her partner was a fisher but now works at a fishing supply store in order to spend more time with his family. Alissa used to be a full-time barista, but her $13.50 an hour did not make sense if it all went to daycare. She still hustles jobs in the so-called gig economy, but it is not enough. After taxes and rent, there is barely enough to cover their bills. She is reliant on Snap for their food.When I talked to her a week ago, she was stressed.“I’m really worried,” she said. “Not just about my family but the whole town. There’s not a lot of food banks to begin with and their funding was already cut earlier in the year.”The problem is that most people who get Snap benefits are like me: we were already running low on food before the end of October. We have been scrambling for weeks. And out here in rural Oregon, we make do with what is in front of us. “It’s hunting season so he’s out in his spare time,” Alissa said of her partner. They also forage for wild food.All this hunting, foraging and cooking from scratch might sound romantic, but less so when you consider she is living in a crap apartment and breaking Instacart rules by bringing her daughter on the job.“There’s too many people that simply don’t have the insight into what life is really like for the majority of us,” she said.For decades, I survived without relying on the government safety net that our tax dollars fund. But in recent years, everything has been getting harder. AI ate up most of my contract work. Competition is stiff so I cannot raise my rates – I make the same amount per hour that I did five years ago, but it has about half the buying power. I began racking up credit card debt to pay my bills.Last fall, I was awarded $250 in Snap benefits. It was not enough to survive the month. Then my Snap benefits were reduced, first because I found meager part-time work and then again for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, grocery prices soared.I quit being choosy at the food bank, and started picking up stuff I would not normally eat – AKA stockpiling food. Off-brand mac and cheese, a can of peaches. The thing about food insecurity is that you are always worrying. You are always doing mental math, figuring out how to substitute key ingredients or spruce up the pot of lentils you have been eating all week.And then there’s shame. At first, I refused to go to the food bank because I worried I would run into someone I knew. Now I realize the fallacy of that: if I run into someone at the food bank, it’s because we’re in the same boat – or they are there to help. I don’t feel shame any more. I feel solidarity and anger.I am angry there are so many of us. That I cannot make a living from hard work at a job I am good at. That I have been writing about my own food insecurity for 15 years.I am angry that I have worked so hard to get here, and I am angry for all the people who have had it worse. The furloughed workers who have not been paid. My friend Kevin who is unable to work because an insurance agency has denied him back surgery for an injury he got on the job. My friend Mel, who has been working for a hotel chain for seven years, and lost her Snap and healthcare assistance because she got a minuscule raise. All the people with toothaches they cannot treat, all of us with overdue electric bills.Every month the lines are longer at our food bank while rich people scheme ways to avoid taxes and blame us for the problems their policies create. Now it looks like some Democrats at the federal level are willing to play nice with the Republicans for political gain – at the expense of essential healthcare subsidies for the working poor and middle class? That doesn’t strike me as moral, either.I am not alone in my anger. I am part of a rising tide.“The amount of propaganda and gaslighting the government has been doing is sickening,” Alissa said. “Any amount of either is a sign of a failed system in my book. I mean truly imagine having to trick someone into agreeing with you because you knew they’d be against your policies if you were upfront.”She is part of a family group chat where they discuss health, parenting, and politics. “My Maga grandma definitely thinks I’m a dumb liberal, even though I’m not a liberal,” she said with a laugh. “What more people need to understand is it’s never me versus you, Democrat versus Republican, or Maga versus lib. It’s the people versus exploitation.”Here is your report from rural America: the stress, frustration and disgust are off the charts. Conspiracy theories swirl and some don’t sound that crazy to me. Two I heard this week: either they want to push people to rebel so they can invoke the Insurrection Act, or they want us all so broken that we do not have the energy to defend our rights, or even be there for one other.It’s hard to speak up when your teeth hurt. It’s hard to stand up when you are hungry. It’s hard to show up when you can’t afford gas. More

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      Senate approves package that would end the longest government shutdown in US history – as it happened

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      Our live coverage is ending for the day. Thanks for reading along with us. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:

      The US Senate approved a package on Monday that would end the longest government shutdown in US history. The 60-40 vote passed with the support of nearly all of the chamber’s Republicans and eight Democrats, who unsuccessfully sought to tie government funding to health subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year. The bill now passes to the House, which is expected to vote on the measure on Wednesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to start returning to Washington “right now,” given shutdown-related travel delays.

      The House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, said that Chuck Schumer should stay in place as leader of the party – despite calls from progressive members of the caucus for him to step down. When asked by a reporter at a press conference today if the Jeffries viewed Schumer “as effective and should he keep his job”, the congressman from New York responded with “yes and yes”. More here.

      Donald Trump said he returned to the supreme court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) frozen during the government shutdown, bringing uncertainty to the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on the food aid. The move comes after a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration needs to fully fund Snap food aid payments.

      Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, both close former political allies of Donald Trump, are among scores of people pardoned by the president over the weekend for their roles in a plot to steal the 2020 election. The maneuver is in effect symbolic, given it only applies in the federal justice system and not in state courts, where Giuliani, Meadows and the others continue facing legal peril. More here.

      Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate and co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, is reportedly preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration to review, according to new allegations from a whistleblower shared with House Democrats. Democrats on the House judiciary committee announced on Monday that they had received information from a whistleblower that indicates that the British former socialite, 63, is working on filing a commutation application. More here.

      Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC and welcomed the resignations of two of its most senior figures after a campaign against the broadcaster that reached fever pitch over criticism that its flagship documentary programme in 2024 used a misleading edit of a Trump speech. Lawyers for the US president said that the BBC must retract the Panorama documentary by Friday or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1bn (£760m), according to US media outlets who cited the letter. The BBC has confirmed it had received a letter and said it will respond in due course. More here.

      Donald Trump asked the US Supreme Court on Monday to throw out a jury’s finding in a civil lawsuit that he sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her. Trump’s lawyers argued in a lengthy filing with the high court that allegations leading to the $5 million verdict were “propped up” by a “series of indefensible evidentiary rulings” that allowed Carroll’s lawyers to present “highly inflammatory propensity evidence” against him.
      The US Senate approved a compromise on Monday that would end the longest government shutdown in US history.The 60-40 vote passed with the support of nearly all of the chamber’s Republicans and eight Democrats, who unsuccessfully sought to tie government funding to health subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year.The bill now passes to the House, which is expected to vote on the measure on Wednesday.House Speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to start returning to Washington “right now,” given shutdown-related travel delays.“We have to do this as quickly as possible,” said Johnson, who has kept the House out of session since mid-September, when the House passed a bill to continue government funding.The Senate is advancing a plan to reopen the government through January, which would bring the longest shutdown in history to a close after a small group of Democrats struck a deal with Republicans.Should the plan pass, the shutdown could last a few more days as members of the House, which has been in recess since mid-September, return to Washington to vote on the legislation.Democratic senators Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Jackie Rosen and Jeanne Shaheen again voted in favor. Senator Angus King, an independent who votes with Democrats, also voted yes.The Senate will soon finalize its vote on a bill to end the government shutdown after a series of procedural votes and votes related to amendments.If the bill is approved, the measure will then head to the House for a vote before it is sent to Donald Trump’s desk to be signed.Democratic senators Catherine Cortez Masto, John Fetterman, Dick Durbin, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Angus King (an independent), Jackie Rosen and Jeanne Shaheen voted with Republicans to advance the bill.MoveOn, a liberal group that has encouraged Democrats to hold firm in their demands, is calling on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down from his role after some Democrats joined with Republicans to work to end the government shutdown, according to a statement sent to The Guardian.“With Donald Trump and the Republican Party doubling health care premiums, weaponizing our military against us, and ripping food away from children, MoveOn members cannot accept weak leadership at the helm of the Democratic Party,” said MoveOn political action executive director Katie Bethell.“Americans showed a growing surge of support for Democrats who fought back—both at the ballot box last week and peacefully in the streets last month,” Bethell added. “Inexplicably, some Senate Democrats, under Leader Schumer’s watch, decided to surrender. It is time for Senator Schumer to step aside as minority leader to make room for those who are willing to fight fire with fire when the basic needs of working people are on the line.”The Senate has blocked a Democratic effort to extend the expiring tax credits that make health insurance coverage more affordable for millions of Americans.Senator Tammy Baldwin led an effort to try and extend current law for one year. It was blocked as part of a party-line vote.“My Republican colleagues are refusing to act to stop health care premiums from doubling for over 20 million Americans,” the senator from Wisconsin said. “I just can’t stand by without a fight.”No Republican spoke against her failed effort, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, has promised a Senate vote later this year on a tax credit extension.Donald Trump criticized Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer during an interview with Fox News, saying he “went too far” in trying to challenge Republicans.“He thought he could break the Republicans, and the Republicans broke him,” Trump said.Schumer led the Democrats’ weeks-long stand against reopening the government without an extension of tax credits that lower premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.“We have good policy, they [Democrats] have bad policy,” Trump said.The Senate is currently taking a series of procedural votes to finalize the deal between Republicans and some Democrats that would end the government shutdown.After Donald Trump criticized air traffic controllers for refusing to work without pay during the 41-day government shutdown and promised $10,000 bonuses to those who did not take time off, he was asked where the funds would come from.“I don’t know,” Trump said during an interview on Fox News. “I’ll get it from someplace.”“I always get the money from someplace,” he added. “Regardless, it doesn’t matter.”During an interview on Fox News that aired Monday, Donald Trump criticized Obamacare, calling it “horrible health insurance at a very high price.”The president said he wants to replace it with a system where government funds go directly into individual accounts for people to buy their own plans. He said this system could be called “Trumpcare.”“I want, instead of going to the insurance companies, I want the money to go into an account for people, where the people buy their own health insurance,” Trump told Fox’s Laura Ingraham.He added: “It’s so good, the insurance will be better. It’ll cost less. Everybody’s going to be happy. They’re going to feel like entrepreneurs, they’re actually able to go out and negotiate their own health insurance, and they can use it only for that reason.”President Donald Trump asked the US supreme court to review the $5m verdict that found he sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.In a filing, Trump’s lawyers argued that allegations leading to verdict were “propped up” by a “series of indefensible evidentiary rulings” that allowed Carroll’s lawyers to present “highly inflammatory propensity evidence” against him.Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room. Trump first denied her claim in June 2019, telling a reporter that Carroll was “not my type” and had concocted the story to sell her memoir What Do We Need Men For?He repeated his comments in an October 2022 Truth Social post, leading to the $5m verdict, though the jury did not find that Trump had raped Carroll.Trump’s supreme court petition describes Carroll’s sexual assault allegations as “facially implausible” and “politically motivated,” and calls on the justices to intervene and overturn several evidentiary rulings that he claims tainted the trial.The United States has sent $7.5m to the government of Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s most repressive and corrupt regimes, to accept noncitizen deportees from the US to the West African nation, according to a leading congressional Democrat, current and former state department officials and public government data.The money sent to Equatorial Guinea is the first taken from a fund apportioned by Congress to address international refugee crises – and sometimes to facilitate the resettlement of refugees in the US – that has instead been repurposed under the Trump administration to hasten their deportation.According to government data, the sum from the Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) emergency fund was sent directly to the government of Equatorial Guinea, whose president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been in power for the last 46 years, and who is accused along with his son, Nguema Obiang, the vice-president, of embezzling millions of dollars from the impoverished nation to fuel their lavish lifestyles.Read the full story by The Guardian’s Andrew Roth and Joseph Gedeon: Donald Trump said that Republican House member Marjorie Taylor Greene had “lost her way” with her criticism of the administration’s focus on foreign policy.“I don’t know what happened to Marjorie. She’s a nice woman, but I don’t know what happened. She’s lost her way, I think,” Trump told reporters earlier today.“But I have to view the presidency as a worldwide situation, not locally. I mean, we could have a world that’s on fire, where wars come to our shores very easily, if you had a bad president,” Trump added.“I haven’t lost my way. I’m 100% America first and only!” Greene told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, according to an X post.Earlier today, Greene criticized Trump for hosting Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, instead of focusing on domestic issues like health care.The Senate is expected to vote on the government funding bill Wednesday at around 5pm, CBS reports.Senate majority leader John Thune set up a series of six to eight votes, with the process slated to begin after remarks from top appropriators Patty Murray and Susan Collins.If approved, the House will have to return and adopt the deal before it is sent to President Trump’s desk to be signed.Earlier today, when Donald Trump was asked if he supported the Senate agreement to end the government shutdown, he said he would “abide by the deal.”“If it’s a deal I heard about, that’s certainly, you know, they want to change the deal a little bit, but I would say so,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think based on everything I’m hearing, they haven’t changed anything, and we have support from enough Democrats, and we’re going to be opening up our country.”“I’ll abide by the deal,” he added. “The deal is very good.”The Trump administration is working with Switzerland on a deal to lower tariffs, the president told reporters earlier today, but he did not provide any details.“We’re working on a deal to get their tariffs a little bit lower,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “I haven’t said any number, but we’re going to be working on something to help Switzerland along. We hit Switzerland very hard. We want Switzerland to remain successful.”On tariffs, Trump added: “We’re working on them, and some others, and we’re working on others to increase them a little bit, too.”Sources told Bloomberg that Switzerland could secure a 15% tariff on its exports to the US. The European country has been scrambling to secure a trade agreement after Swiss imports were hit by a 39% tariff rate in August, among the highest duties levied in his global trade reset.A deal may be concluded within the next two weeks, Bloomberg reports.After the US Senate secured enough votes to pass a compromise bill reopening the federal government – with seven Democrats and one independent joining Republicans in support – Democratic senator Tim Kaine defended his decision in an interview, as the agreement didn’t include guarantees to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.“There was no path to any fix on health care with the government closed,” Kaine told MSNBC’s Katy Tur. “So I supported the Democratic position in this from the very beginning until [the] middle of last week.”“We had no path forward on health care because the Republicans said, we will not talk about health care with the government shut down,” he added. “And we had Snap beneficiaries and those relying on other important services who were losing benefits because of the shutdown, so no path to a health care fix, Snap beneficiaries suffering.”Donald Trump said he returned to the supreme court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) frozen during the government shutdown, bringing uncertainty to the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on the food aid.The move comes after a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration needs to fully fund Snap food aid payments.Today’s move marks the second time administration officials have asked the federal appeals court to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits amid the federal government shutdown.The Trump administration argued that lower court orders requiring the full funding of Snap wrongly affect ongoing negotiations in Congress about ending the shutdown.The high court is expected to rule on Tuesday. 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      Democratic candidate for Congress criticizes deal to end shutdown – which her mother voted to advance

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      A Democratic congressional candidate who posted to social media criticism of the bipartisan deal that looks set to end the government shutdown omitted to mention that her mother was among the party’s rebel senators who voted to approve it.Stefany Shaheen, who is seeking to represent New Hampshire in the US House of Representatives, said in the post to X that she “cannot support this deal when [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson refuses to even allow a vote to extend health care tax credits”.Jeanne Shaheen, her mother and a US senator of New Hampshire, was one of seven Democrats to break ranks with party leadership on Sunday night and vote to advance a funding bill that will end the 40-day shutdown without securing guarantees for healthcare subsidies. Those seven were joined by an independent who caucuses with Democrats.“Clearly we had different approaches here,” Stefany Shaheen said in an interview Monday, reported by the New York Times, after questions arose over her post. “I can’t speak for her. I think she did what she believes is right.”The deal, which extends government funding until 30 January, contains only the promise of a vote on a healthcare bill in the Senate next month, not an extension of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that helps keep premiums low, which had been a key Democratic negotiating position.The elder Shaheen, a senator since 2009, said in a statement that she stood by her decision. “This was the only deal on the table. It was our best chance to reopen the government and immediately begin negotiations to extend the ACA tax credits,” she said.The post by her daughter condemning the deal but leaving out her mother’s involvement drew a swift and predictable backlash on social media, mediaite.com reported.“Your mom just ruined your career,” one user on X posted, while another said: “We don’t vote for the children of traitors”.In her post, Stefany Shaheen, a mother of four children whose campaign biography describes her as a “passionate advocate for groundbreaking medical research and a successful entrepreneur and business leader”, said improving healthcare was “the cause of my life”.In a section of her website about why she is running for Congress during the 2026 midterm elections, Shaheen wrote that she knew “it’s not enough to just get mad” when Donald Trump is “crushing medical research, and Republicans [are] slashing Medicaid, and healthcare for kids, seniors, and veterans – all to give big tax breaks to billionaires and corporations”.According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, about 15 million people will lose healthcare by 2034 because of Medicaid and ACA marketplace cuts pushed through by Republicans; an additional 4.2 million people will lose marketplace cover if premium tax credits are not extended, one possible consequence of the vote by Shaheen’s mother and the other Democratic rebel senators.Jeanne Shaheen and another Democrat who voted yes, Dick Durbin of Illinois, have already announced they will be retiring instead of fighting for re-election next year. None of the other five, Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), Margaret Wood Hassan (New Hampshire), Tim Kaine (Virginia), and Jacky Rosen (Nevada), must face voters until November 2028.Angus King (Maine) also voted yes as an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. More

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      Snap workers say Trump administration is ‘using country’s poorest as pawns’

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      When Stacy Smith, a government worker, showed up to work last Monday – the first working day after food benefits lapsed, amid the ongoing federal shutdown – she found a long line outside her office door. Elderly and disabled individuals desperately wanted answers.Some had gone to buy groceries, not realizing that their usual benefits were unavailable.They quickly discovered that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) payments had been paused, after the Trump administration said it would not pay benefits because of the shutdown – crushing the largest anti-hunger program in the US.“I had a client that came in and said they were afraid they were going to have to start eating cat food again, because without Snap benefits, that’s all they can afford, because they’re on a fixed income,” said Smith, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 2882, who works as an eligibility technician for assistance programs including Snap in Providence, Rhode Island.“Those are the things that I leave my job, and I go home, and that’s what I’m thinking about,” she said.Nearly 42 million Americans rely on Snap. With benefits paused for the first time in the program’s history, workers who provide assistance to Snap recipients expressed stark fears over how the move will affect low-income families and individuals. Across the country, food banks have been scrambling to keep up with surges in demand.Following two court rulings, the Trump administration said it would only provide partial funding to Snap. Funding for the program lapsed on 1 November.Snap payments continue to be contested in the courts. On Friday, the Trump administration appealed to the supreme court against a lower court’s order compelling it to make the full aid payments. Its appeal was granted, temporarily, in an emergency ruling.A Boston-based federal appeals court late on Sunday then ruled the benefits must be paid for November. But the Trump administration was expected to appeal the ruling, which was not expected to have immediate effect after the supreme court ruling, leaving the current status of the Snap program itself uncertain.As the Trump administration fights against funding Snap, Smith said low-income families were scared. With the holidays approaching and schools due to close, breakfast and lunch meals provided during term time will not be available for their children.View image in fullscreen“Clients are coming in. They want to know when this is going to end. And we don’t have an answer for them,” said Smith. “It’s hard to look someone in the face who’s telling you they can’t feed their family, and be able to try to guide them to other avenues to try to get some food for their household. We have community food banks, and we have food pantries, and they’re they’re already maxed out.”Snap is funded by the federal government, but administered by state and local governments, already facing cuts by the Trump administration. “This is more chaos for states and their ability to manage all these other big program issues that they have, and they’re throwing all their resources in,” said a former USDA food and nutrition service employee, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, as they currently work for federal contractors. “There’s a real commitment by the states to get these benefits out there. This is a lifeline for the 42 million people that get the program. I see that commitment from them, but this really is unprecedented.”As the government shutdown drags on, Snap recipients have been reaching out to state offices in desperation for answers and relief.“At this point we have no more information, really, than they have in the news currently,” said Misha Dancing Waters, a member of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 720, who also works as an economic support specialist since the last nine years in Dane county, Wisconsin. “For Wisconsin, we haven’t even gotten partial Snap funding. We haven’t gotten anything so far.View image in fullscreen“We’re giving out a lot of resources, and they’re really just hitting all of those food pantries. Places where there’s anything to help are getting hit so hard that they just really can’t meet the need.”Pausing the scheme was “really punitive”, added Waters. “It’s another way to get people off of the benefit … It’s really scary times. There’s so many things up in the air. People really don’t have any way to plan or prepare.”Contacted for comment, the US Department of Agriculture – which oversees Snap benefits – pointed to a memo, which said that “maximum allotments” for households were being reduced to 50% during November “due to the limited availability of Federal funding” and “orders from two courts”.Should the shutdown persist, and Snap funding fail to be restored, Waters expressed fear things will get worse very quickly.“I think the next month we’re going to see things get drastically more dire if we don’t get this shutdown turned around and get our situation with health insurance and food care fixed. People need those basic things just to survive,” she said. “We are using our country’s poorest and most vulnerable as pawns in a political game, and that’s not acceptable on any level. It’s not OK for us to be denying people basic things like food and medical care.” More

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      US Senate vote marks step towards ending federal shutdown

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      The US Senate on Sunday took a key vote on a bill that would end the record-setting federal government shutdown without extending the healthcare subsidies that Democrats have demanded.Senators began voting on Sunday night to advance House-passed stopgap funding legislation that Senate majority leader John Thune said would be amended to combine another short-term spending measure with a package of three full-year appropriations bills.The package would still have to be passed by the House of Representatives and sent to Donald Trump for his signature, a process that could take several days.Senate Democrats so far have resisted efforts to reopen the government, aiming to pressure Republicans into agreeing to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans, which expire at the end of the year. Thune said that, per the deal under consideration, the Senate would agree to hold a separate vote later on the subsidies.Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, told reporters that he would vote against the funding measure but suggested there could be enough Democratic support to pass it.“I am unwilling to accept a vague promise of a vote at some indeterminate time, on some undefined measure that extends the healthcare tax credits,” Blumenthal said.“The Senate might get a vote” on the health insurance credits, Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, said. “I’ll emphasize ‘might.’ But is Speaker Johnson gonna do anything? Is the president gonna do anything?”Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has previously said he would not hold a vote on a plan to extend the tax credits that make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans who are not insured through their employers.Two leading progressives in the Senate Democratic caucus were even more dismissive of the emerging compromise. “It’s a mistake,” Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told Punchbowl News. “It would be a policy and political disaster for Democrats to cave,” Bernie Sanders of Vermont said.Democrats in the House expressed their dismay. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, promised to fight the proposed legislation. “We will not support spending legislation advanced by Senate Republicans that fails to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. We will fight the GOP bill in the House of Representatives,” Jeffries said in a statement.“A deal that doesn’t reduce health care costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them”, Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat who leads the House progressive caucus, wrote on X. “Republicans want health care cuts. Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise – it’s capitulation. Millions of families would pay the price.”“Unacceptable,” Florida congressman Maxwell Frost chimed in. “There are 189,000 people in my district who will be paying 50-300% more for the same, and in many cases worse, healthcare. I won’t do that to the people I represent. I’m a NO on this ‘deal.’”Democrats outside Washington denounced the compromise as well. “Pathetic. This isn’t a deal. It’s a surrender. Don’t bend the knee!” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, wrote on social media.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSunday marked the 40th day of the shutdown, which has sidelined federal workers and affected food aid, parks and travel, while air traffic control staffing shortages threaten to derail travel during the busy Thanksgiving holiday season late this month. Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said the mounting effects of the shutdown have pushed the chamber toward an agreement. He said the final piece, a new resolution that would fund government operations into late January, would also reverse at least some of the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers.“Temperatures cool, the atmospheric pressure increases outside and all of a sudden it looks like things will come together,” Tillis told reporters. Should the government remain closed for much longer, economic growth could turn negative in the fourth quarter, especially if air travel does not return to normal levels by Thanksgiving, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett warned on the CBS Face the Nation show. Thanksgiving falls on 27 November this year.Americans shopping for 2026 Obamacare health insurance plans are facing a more than doubling of monthly premiums on average, health experts estimate, with the pandemic-era subsidies due to expire at the end of the year. Republicans rejected a proposal on Friday by Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer to vote to reopen the government in exchange for a one-year extension of tax credits that lower costs for plans under the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare.Adam Schiff, a Democratic California senator, said on Sunday he believed Trump’s healthcare proposal was aimed at gutting the ACA and allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.“So the same insurance companies he’s railing against in those tweets, he is saying: ‘I’m going to give you more power to cancel people’s policies and not cover them if they have a pre-existing condition,’” Schiff said on ABC’s This Week program. More

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      US flight cancellations rise as Sean Duffy warns travel could reduce to a ‘trickle’

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      Flight cancellations and delays are set to grow as airline passengers across the United States spent the weekend grappling with those issues at major airports nationwide after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandated a 4% reduction in air traffic in response to the ongoing federal government shutdown.If the shutdown continues, the FAA has instructed airlines to cut 6% of flights on Tuesday – and to do the same to 10% by 14 November. The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, has warned that flight reductions could reach 20% if the shutdown persists, and on Sunday he predicted a “substantial” number of people in the US would be unable to celebrate the upcoming holidays with their families if the shutdown wasn’t resolved.“You’re going to see air travel be reduced to a trickle,” Duffy said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “We have a number of people who want to get home for the holidays. They want to see their family … Listen, many of them are not going to be able to get on an airplane because there are not going to be that many flights that fly if this thing doesn’t open back up.”The FAA’s requirement for airlines to cut 4% of daily flights at 40 “high-traffic” US airports began on Friday and represented an attempt to ease the mounting pressure on air traffic controllers. Like other federal employees, those controllers have not been paid for weeks amid the government shutdown, which has become the longest in history and reached its 40th day.“We are seeing signs of stress in the system, so we are proactively reducing the number of flights to make sure the American people continue to fly safely,” the FAA administrator, Bryan Bedford, said earlier this week. He also said that between 20% to 40% of controllers had not been showing up for work over the last several days.The first round of flight reductions led to around 800 cancellations on Friday and 1,460 on Saturday. As of 9am ET on Sunday, more than 1,000 flights across the US had been cancelled for the day, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.On Sunday, Duffy told CNN that the US is “short air traffic controllers” and that he was “trying to get more air traffic controllers into the towers and be certified, but I am about a 1,000 to 2,000 controllers short”.Airlines were offering full refunds to customers for canceled flights.The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has warned that the shutdown was worsening the staffing shortages and said that many controllers “are working 10-hour days and six-day workweeks due to the ongoing staffing shortage, all without pay.“This situation creates substantial distractions for individuals who are already engaged in extremely stressful work,” they said. “The financial and mental strain increases risks within the National Airspace System, making it less safe with each passing day of the shutdown.”On Saturday, the union said it had delivered 1,600 handwritten letters from members to Congress calling for the shutdown to end.As the shutdown drags on, Democratic and Republican lawmakers continued to blame each other for the impasse – and for the flight disruptions.On Friday, the White House blamed Democrats for the cancellations and delays, saying they “are inflicting their man-made catastrophe on Americans just trying to make life-saving medical trips or get home for Thanksgiving”.On Saturday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, accused the Republicans of “playing games” and said: “Instead of negotiating with Democrats, Republicans would rather let air-traffic controllers go unpaid, they’d rather ground flights, and they’d rather punish travelers.”For passengers, uncertainty remained about which flights would be canceled, and analysts warned that the disruption would likely intensify and spread beyond air travel if cancellations keep growing and reach into Thanksgiving week.The moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, Kristen Welker, asked the Democratic US House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, if the shutdown would end before Thanksgiving. “I hope so,” Jeffries said.Asked the same question by Welker, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said “it absolutely needs to – it needs to open today if we can get it open”.Rental car companies reported a sharp increase in one-way reservations Friday, and some people simply canceled flights altogether.Some analysts have pointed out that there was the potential for higher prices in stores, as nearly half of US air freight is shipped in the bellies of passenger aircraft. There is also the possibility of higher shipping costs that get passed on to consumers, and further losses, from tourism to manufacturing, that will ripple through the economy if the slowdown continues.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Senate Republicans embrace Trump’s call – from his Florida golf course – to replace Obamacare

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      US senators are working through the weekend for the first time since the government shutdown began more than a month ago, but hopes for a bipartisan agreement on how to end the standoff, and keep healthcare affordable for millions of Americans, appeared to recede as Republican senators floated a proposal toxic to Democrats: scrapping the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as Obamacare.The impact on Americans from the longest shutdown of the federal government in history deepened on Saturday, as federal workers went unpaid, airlines were forced to cancel flights and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits have been delayed for 42 million Americans.As Saturday’s session got under way, Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana welcomed a proposal made on social media early Saturday by Donald Trump, from his golf course in West Palm Beach, for subsidies to be replaced by health savings accounts.In a Truth Social post, Trump suggested that instead of meeting the demand from Democrats to extend subsidies for health insurance plans purchased through the ACA marketplace, to pay for sharply increased premiums, Republicans should return to the project of replacing the Obama-era law, which failed during his first administration.“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE,” Trump wrote.Graham welcomed the proposal, which is similar to a replacement for Obamacare he put forward in 2017, writing on social media that Trump’s “recommendation that we stop sending tens of billions of dollars under Obamacare to money-sucking insurance companies and instead send that money directly to the people so they can buy better healthcare is simply brilliant”.“We’re going to replace this broken system with something that is actually better for the consumer,” Graham said later.Cassidy, who was a co-author of Graham’s similar plan in 2017, also praised Trump’s proposal on social media, and stood next to a giant blow-up of Trump’s post as he spoke on the Senate floor.“I’m writing the bill right now,” Scott posted in a response to Trump’s suggestion. “We must stop taxpayer money from going to insurance companies and instead give it directly to Americans in HSA-style accounts and let them buy the health care they want. This will increase competition & drive down costs.”None of the Republican senators seemed to grapple with the fact that consumers would still need to buy plans from the same insurance companies, or that Republican lawmakers need the support of eight Democrats to reopen the government, and the idea of repealing and replacing Obamacare with savings accounts is unlikely to earn a single Democratic vote.Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, shared an alarmed response to Trump’s proposal from Larry Levitt, the executive vice-president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, who wrote on social media: “You have to read between the lines here to imagine what President Trump is proposing. But, it sounds like it could be a plan for health accounts that could be used for insurance that doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions, which could create a death spiral in ACA plans that do.”“In other words, Donald Trump’s ‘concept of a plan’ for health care is another cynical attempt to repeal Obamacare,” Warren commented. “It’s the same failed Republican plan that’s been rejected by voters and Congress. We can lower costs and open the government TODAY by extending ACA tax credits.”Senate Republican leaders have signaled an openness to an emerging proposal from a small group of moderate Democrats to end the shutdown in exchange for a later vote on the “Obamacare” subsidies.Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, who is leading the talks among moderates, said Friday evening that Democrats “need another path forward” after Republicans rejected an offer from Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York to reopen the government and extend the subsidies for a year.Shaheen and others, negotiating among themselves and with some Republicans, have been discussing bills that would pay for parts of government – food aid, veterans’ programs and the legislative branch, among other things – and extend funding for everything else until December or January. The agreement would only come with the promise of a future healthcare vote, rather than a guarantee of extended subsidies.It was unclear whether enough Democrats would support such a plan. Even with a deal, Trump appears unlikely to support an extension of the health benefits. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, also said this week that he would not commit to a health vote.Schumer on Saturday persisted in arguing that Republicans should accept a one-year extension of the subsidies before negotiating the future of the tax credits.“Doing nothing is derelict because people will go bankrupt, people will lose insurance, people will get sicker,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “That’s what will happen if this Congress fails to act.”Earlier, Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, said they need to stand strong after overwhelming Democratic victories on election day.One bizarre element of the Republican effort to signal that their party is working overtime to end the shutdown, even as Trump golfs in Florida, was a social media post on Saturday from Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator. Mullin posted four photographs of himself and two other Republican senators meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, with the caption: “Working through the weekend with President Donald J Trump. It’s always an honor to be in the Oval Office– I never take this opportunity to serve Oklahoma for granted.”What Mullin failed to make clear is that the photographs were taken on Friday, before Trump left for a weekend golf trip at his Florida resort. Mullin himself had previously posted one of the photographs in a social media video Friday night.The Associated Press contributed reporting More