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      Trump says military members will be paid despite government shutdown

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      Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that he has found a way to pay US military troops despite the ongoing federal government shutdown, saying he has instructed his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, to release funds.Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote: “I am using my authority, as commander-in-chief, to direct our secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our troops PAID on October 15.”Trump said he had identified the funds to make the payments happen, adding: “I will not allow the Democrats to hold our military, and the entire security of our nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous government shutdown. The radical left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT.”The recent federal government shutdown began on 1 October and is the first since a 35-day closure that happened in December 2018 and extended into the new year during Trump’s first presidential term. The shutdown came as Democrats were looking to regain their footing with voters, who re-elected Trump last year and relegated them to the minority in both chambers of Congress.More than 1.3 million military personnel across the country would not have received their first post-shutdown paychecks this month, only getting paid for the 21-30 September period. An estimated 750,000 federal employees have also been furloughed.As the Hill reported, however, federal workers are generally paid once a shutdown ends, whether they are furloughed or working. After the last shutdown in 2018, Congress wrote into law that federal workers must be paid once the government reopens.On Thursday, the US Senate remained deadlocked on legislation to end the shutdown, even as Trump repeated his threat to make Democrats pay for the funding lapse that has closed federal agencies and furloughed employees across the nation.Speaking to Punchbowl News, the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, expressed confidence in the strategy, saying: “Every day gets better for us.”The White House announced the layoffs of federal workers on Friday, following through with a threat it made to initiate the mass firings of government employees.A document filed with a federal court on Friday evening revealed that hundreds of layoffs took place across the executive branch, including about 315 at the Department of Commerce, 466 at the Department of Education and 187 at the Department of Energy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUnion leaders warned the layoffs would have “devastating effects” on services relied upon by millions of Americans, and pledged to challenge the moves in court.“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal and DC government workers.After Russell Vought, the director of the White House office of management and budget, wrote on social media that “RIFs have begun”, referring to the government’s reduction-in-force procedure to let employees go, the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, responded, saying: “America’s unions will see you in court.”In a repost of Trump’s delivery of the news that he proposes to pay the military by 15 October, Hegseth responded: “President Trump delivers for the troops.” More

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      Democrats refuse to fold over shutdown as Republican outrage builds

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      When he sat down to talk about the US government shutdown with reporters from a closely read political newsletter this week, Chuck Schumer sounded as if he were relishing his standoff with the Republicans.“Every day gets better for us,” he told Punchbowl News. As the shutdown got under way, Schumer explained, the Republicans believed that Democrats would quickly fold and vote to reopen the government, but instead they had stuck to their guns for a week and a half, demanding an array of concessions on healthcare and other issues.Outrage followed from Republicans, who printed out the Senate minority leader’s remark on posters and condemned it before press conferences. The shutdown has prompted federal agencies to close or curtail operations nationwide, and forced hundreds of thousands of employees to stay home without immediate pay. Schumer, Republicans argued, was being callous.“I’ve been asked many times in interviews the last couple days: ‘You seem angry – you don’t get angry a lot.’ I don’t, but this is beyond the pale,” the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said at a press conference on Friday morning, the 10th day of the shutdown. “What Chuck Schumer is doing right now, it’s sickening.”Hours later, the White House took it upon itself to increase the misery for government employees when Russ Vought, the director of the office of management and budget, began following through on his threat to carry out layoffs. The budget office said that more than 4,000 federal workers were being fired from a variety of agencies that had already shrunk in the second Trump administration, and the funding situation was “fluid and rapidly evolving”. Legal challenges are likely to follow, but still, now it was the Democrats’ turn to accuse the GOP of brutality.“Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,” Schumer said in a statement. “They don’t have to do it; they want to. They’re callously choosing to hurt people – the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.”It was the latest salvo in a battle that began when government funding lapsed on 1 October and has since degenerated into legislative trench warfare. Seven Senate votes have resulted in no breakthroughs, with lawmakers from both parties preventing the other’s proposals from reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.Democrats are maximizing the leverage they have in the upper chamber by refusing to reopen the government until premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans are extended into next year. They also want cuts to the Medicaid program for poor and disabled Americans reversed, funding to public media outlets such as PBS and NPR restored and Donald Trump’s use of “pocket rescissions” to slash spending curbed.Most of those are non-starters for Republicans, who insist government funding be restarted before negotiations take place. They’ve ascribed a variety of motivations to Democrats’ intransigence, from the rise of Zohran Mamdani as the Democratic nominee for New York mayor to the influence of a “far-left base” that has the party’s leaders in their thrall.On Friday, Johnson posited that Democratic senators were holding out because they were concerned about a “No Kings” protest planned for 18 October – which he called a “hate America rally” and where attendees might target party leaders if they decided to end the shutdown.“It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes, but the Democrats in the Senate have shown that they’re afraid of that crowd,” Johnson said, alleging that “the antifa crowd, and the pro-Hamas crowd and the Marxists” would be in attendance.“They’re willing to hold the American people hostage so that they don’t have to face an angry mob – that’s a big chunk of their base,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThere are indeed outside influences pressuring Democrats to stand firm on their demands, and so far they are happy with the results.“The Democrats, I think, have taken in the blowback, have understood where their folks want them to go, and are actually taking it and fighting back. And it’s a sight to see. It’s a welcome strategic shift,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of progressive organizing group Indivisible, said.In March, Schumer opted to work with Republicans on keeping the government open, prompting Indivisible to call for him to step aside as minority leader. Months later, Levin says his group is coordinating with Schumer’s office on actions to support Democratic lawmakers as the shutdown wears on, and believes the party should not compromise on its demands.Not only are Democrats’ demands “wildly popular”, Republicans are not to be trusted to honor any agreement, he said. Trump and his allies in Congress have made clear their interest in rescissions packages, which can be passed on a party-line vote, to cut spending approved with bipartisan support. After passing one in July that clawed back $9bn in funding for public media and foreign aid, Johnson said he is considering putting together another.“This regime is treating the federal budget like a personal bank account for Donald Trump, and we should stop that,” Levin said. “No deal is a real deal unless you have rescission and payment language.“We’ve got the goods. We are fighting for popular things. The Republicans are closing rural hospitals, increasing costs and giving a lawless administration more power to do what it wants. That’s a losing hand, and we want to see Democrats fight back.” More

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      White House announces federal worker layoffs as shutdown nears third week

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      The White House announced layoffs of federal workers on Friday, making good on a threat it had made in response to the US government shutdown, which now appears set to stretch into a third straight week.Russell Vought, the director of the White House office of management and budget, wrote on social media that “RIFs have begun”, referring to the government’s reduction-in-force procedure to let employees go.While Vought provided no details on the departments and agencies at which the layoffs were taking place, a treasury spokesperson said notices had been distributed within the department. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Guardian that layoffs would also happen at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. And a union representing federal workers confirmed that members at the Department of Education would also be affected by the reduction in force.Union leaders warned the layoffs would have “devastating effects” on services relied upon by millions of Americans, and pledged to challenge the moves in court.“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal and DC government workers.Vought had warned that federal agencies could slash jobs if the government shuts down, but the Trump administration largely held off after funding lapsed last week. Asked at a press conference before Vought’s announcement why no layoffs had occurred, the top Senate Republican, John Thune, signaled they would happen soon.“The White House has now for 10 days laid off doing anything in hopes that enough Senate Democrats would come to their senses and do the right thing and fund the government,” he said.View image in fullscreen“My expectation is, yes, they’re going to start making some decisions about how to move money around, which agencies and departments are going to be impacted, which programs are going to be impacted, which employees are going to be impacted. That’s what a shutdown does.”The AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, responded to Vought’s post on Friday, saying: “America’s unions will see you in court.”Last week, the AFGE and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) filed for a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from carrying out any reductions in force (RIFs) during the shutdown. The unions filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order on Friday, following Vought’s post.Lee Saunders, president of the AFSCME, said: “These mass firings are illegal and will have devastating effects on the services millions of Americans rely on every day. Whether it’s food inspectors, public safety workers, or the countless other public service workers who keep America running, federal employees should not be bargaining chips in this administration’s political games.“By illegally firing these workers, the administration isn’t just targeting federal employees, it’s hurting their families and the communities they serve every day. We will pursue every available legal avenue to stop this administration’s unlawful attacks on public service workers’ freedoms and jobs.”Congressional Democrats have refused to vote for a Republican-backed bill to restore funding unless it includes an array of healthcare-centered concessions. After holding seven unsuccessful votes on the parties’ spending bills, the Senate’s Republican leaders have put the chamber in recess until next Tuesday, meaning the standoff is unlikely to be resolved before then.The layoffs came on the same day government employees received only a partial paycheck covering the final days of September but not the beginning of October, since appropriations lapsed at the start of the month.At a Friday-morning press conference, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, blasted Senate Democrats for not supporting the GOP’s bill, which passed his chamber on a near party-line vote.If the government is not reopened by next Wednesday, US military personnel are set to miss a paycheck.“This is the last paycheck that 700,000 federal workers will see until Washington Democrats decide to do their job and reopen the government,” Johnson said.View image in fullscreen“Starting next week, American service members, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, are going to miss a full paycheck. If Democrats don’t end this shutdown by Monday, then that October 15 date will pass us by.”Johnson has kept the House out of session throughout the shutdown in an effort to pressure Senate Democrats into supporting the Republican funding proposal. Earlier this week, a group of House Democrats sent the speaker a letter asking him to allow a vote on legislation that would ensure US troops get paid during a shutdown, but Johnson has refused to bring lawmakers back to Washington.The Senate has become a chokepoint in the funding battle because any legislation needs at least 60 votes to advance in the chamber. In exchange for their support, Democratic senators are demanding that premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans be extended beyond their end-of-the-year expiration date.They are also seeking safeguards against Donald Trump’s rescissions of congressionally approved funding, a restoration of money for public media outlets, and an undoing of cuts to the Medicaid healthcare program for poor and disabled Americans.Max Stier, the president and CEO of the non-profit Partnership for Public Service, condemned the gridlock’s impact on government workers.“It is wrong to make federal employees suffer because our leaders in Congress and the White House have failed to keep our government open and operational,” Stier said.“Our air traffic controllers, VA nurses, smoke jumpers and food inspectors are not responsible for this government shutdown, and they shouldn’t bear the financial burden created by the failures of our elected officials. The irony is that members of Congress and senior White House leaders are continuing to be paid.”Earlier this week, on 7 October, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide specifics on the status of any layoff plans, the affected agencies and whether any federal employees have been recalled back to work to carry out layoffs, by Friday, 10 October.A report by the Center for American Progress on 30 September argued that a government shutdown limits the ability of the Trump administration to carry out firings, citing guidance from the office of management and budget that admitted any permanent layoffs need to have been initiated before the shutdown began.“Constraints on permanently firing federal employees during a shutdown largely exist because of the Antideficiency Act and the distinction between ‘shutdown furloughs’ that happen during a lapse in congressional appropriations and ‘administrative furloughs’, which are department and agency procedures on how to permanently let staff go, including – for example – through a RIF,” the report, authored by Greta Bedekovics, associate director of democracy policy at the Center for American Progress, states. “The Trump administration’s threats to layoff federal employees should be understood as a goal of the administration that will be pursued with or without a government shutdown and should not drive lawmakers’ decisions on whether to support government funding bills.”Shrai Popat contributed additional reporting More

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      IRS to furlough nearly half its workforce due to government shutdown

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      The Internal Revenue Service said it will furlough nearly half of its employees – about 34,000 workers – due to the government shutdown, making it significantly harder for US taxpayers to receive assistance.In a statement on Wednesday, the IRS said that “due to the lapse in appropriations”, it would begin its furlough on 8 October for “everyone except already-identified excepted and exempt employees”.“Employee who are not exempt or excepted are furloughed and placed in a non-pay and non-duty status until further notice; however, all employees should plan to report to work for their next tour of duty,” the IRS said, adding that employees would be given up to four hours to close out work requirements and receive formal furlough notification.The furlough will leave only 53.6%, or 39,870 IRS employees, working as the government remains shut down.In the standard furlough letter provided to all affected employees, David Traynor, acting IRS human capital officer, confirmed that furloughed employees cannot work and will not be paid during the shutdown.The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS employees, condemned the decision, with its president, Doreen Greenwald, saying on Wednesday: “Due to the government shutdown the American people lost access to many vital services provided by the IRS.”The statement continued: “Expect increased wait times, backlogs and delays implementing tax law changes as the shutdown continues. Taxpayers around the country will now have a much harder time getting the assistance they need, just as they get ready to file their extension returns due next week.”The IRS’s decision to furlough its employees comes a day after a White House memo suggested that furloughed workers may not receive back pay, despite the 2019 law Trump signed during his first term, during the last government shutdown; the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 (Gefta) ensures government workers would be automatically paid after future shutdowns.In his letter, Traynor said that “employees must be compensated on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates”. More

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      US shutdown deadlock deepens as senators reject competing bills

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      The deadlock over ending the US government shutdown deepened on Wednesday, with senators once again rejecting competing bills to restart funding as Democrats and Republicans remain dug in on their demands for reopening federal agencies.The funding lapse has forced offices, national parks and other federal government operations to close or curtail operations, while employees have been furloughed. Signs of strain have mounted in recent days in the parts of the federal government that remained operational, with staffing shortages reported at airports across the US as well as air traffic control centers. Further disruptions may come next week, when US military personnel and other federal workers who remain on the job will not receive paychecks, unless the government reopens.When the Senate met on Wednesday afternoon, it became clear that sentiment had not shifted in the eight days since the shutdown began. For the sixth time, Democratic and Republican proposals to restart funding both failed to receive enough support to advance, and no senators changed their votes from recent days.Democrats are demanding that any bill to fund the government be paired with an array of healthcare-centered provisions, including an extension of premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans. Those expire at the end of the year, and costs are set to rise for the plans’ roughly 20 million enrollees if they are not renewed.Donald Trump has sought to pressure the Democrats to accept the GOP’s proposal, which would only extend funding through 21 November. On Tuesday, the White House office of management and budget released a memo arguing that federal workers were not entitled to back pay, despite a 2019 law saying they should be.The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, poured cold water on that prospect at a press conference the following day, saying: “I think it is statutory law that federal employees be paid. And that’s my position. I think they should be.”Both parties otherwise remained unmoved in their demands. The House of Representatives passed the GOP’s bill on a near party-line vote last month, and Johnson has kept the chamber out of session ever since in a bid to force Senate Democrats to approve it.At his press conference, the speaker alleged that top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer was opposing the Republican bill out of fear from a primary challenge by the “communists” in his party.“They are worried about the Marxist flank in their Democrat party,” Johnson said.“He’s terrified that he’s going to get a challenge from his far left. I’ve noted that Chuck Schumer is a very far-left politician, but he is not far enough left for the communists, and they’re coming for him, and so he has to put up his dukes and show a fight.”In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer once again faulted Republicans for refusing to negotiate on the Democrats’ healthcare demands. The Senate’s majority leader John Thune has said he will discuss the ACA tax credit issue, but only when government funding is restored.“We can do both: fix healthcare and reopen the government. This is not an either-or thing, which Republicans are making it. The American people don’t like it,” Schumer said.While both parties’s rank-and-file lawmakers have appeared united around their leaders’ strategies, the GOP suffered a high-profile defection on Monday when far-right lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene backed negotiations over the tax credits. However in the days since, no other Republicans have publicly joined her.Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican congresswoman representing a swing district, has received bipartisan support for legislation that would extend the credits for a year, and is viewed a potential compromise in the funding standoff.At a press conference on Tuesday, top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries called the idea a “nonstarter”.“It was introduced by the same people who just permanently extended massive tax breaks for their billionaire donors,” Jeffries said, referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Republicans passed this year without Democratic votes. More

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      White House says furloughed federal workers not entitled to back pay amid shutdown

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      The White House’s office of management and budget (OMB) is arguing that federal workers who are furloughed amid the ongoing government shutdown are not entitled to back pay.In a draft memo first obtained by Axios, OMB argued that an amendment to the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA) of 2019 would not guarantee furloughed workers back pay and that said funds must be set aside by Congress.“The legislation that ends the current lapse in appropriations must include express language appropriating funds for back pay for furloughed employees, or such payments cannot be made,” said Mark Paoletta, OMB’s general counsel, in a draft addressed to White House budget director Russell Vought, the Washington Post reported.The OMB previously revised a shutdown guidance document on Friday to remove reference to the GEFTA Act, reported Government Executive, a media site reporting on the US executive branch.Donald Trump previously signed GEFTA into law after the 2019 government shutdown, which lasted for 35 days. While many understood the law to automatically guarantee pay for federal workers, the White House’s OMB is arguing against that interpretation, suggesting that the law only created the conditions for back pay.Trump and other Republicans have not confirmed if workers would be paid when the government reopens. When asked about the White House’s stance on back payment for federal workers, Trump said “it depends who we’re talking about” during comments in the Oval Office on TuesdayTrump also added that he planned to announce additional government programs that will be permanently eliminated as the shutdown continues as well as possible layoffs, CNN reported.House speaker Mike Johnson said that federal workers affected by the shutdown should receive back pay, but noted that “some legal analysts [are] saying that [back payments] may not be appropriate or necessary, in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided,” the Hill reported.Several Republicans have said that questions on back pay should put pressure on congressional Democrats to support a continuing resolution to reopen the government.Meanwhile, Democrats have slammed the reinterpretation of GEFTA as unlawful. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, which is home to thousands of federal workers, said any suggestion of withheld back pay is “more fear mongering from a president who wants a blank check for lawlessness”.Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a top Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, called the latest reinterpretation “lawless”. “They’re plotting to try and rob furloughed federal workers of backpay at the end of this shutdown,” said Murray during Senate floor remarks. “This flies in the face of the plain text of the law, which could not be more clear.”An estimated 750,000 federal workers have been furloughed during the federal government shutdown, now in its seventh day, the Post reported citing congressional bookkeepers. More

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      Schumer rejects Trump’s claim that bipartisan government shutdown negotiations are under way – live

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      Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer rejected President Donald Trump’s claim that negotiations with Democrats are underway.“Trump’s claim isn’t true — but if he’s finally ready to work with Democrats, we’ll be at the table,” Schumer said in a statement. “For months, Democrats have been calling on Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to come to the table and work with us to deliver lower costs and better healthcare for the American people.”He added: “If President Trump and Republicans are finally ready to sit down and get something done on healthcare for American families, Democrats will be there — ready to make it happen.”Earlier today, Trump told reporters that “we are speaking with Democrats” regarding the ongoing government shutdown and that “some good things could happen with health care.”“Just hang in there, because I think a lot of good things could happen, and that could also pertain to health care,” Trump said.Donald Trump signed an executive order to allow construction of an access road to the Ambler mining district in Alaska and unlock domestic supplies of copper and other minerals, reversing an order from former President Joe Biden.The Biden administration had rejected a 211-mile road intended to enable mine development in the north central Alaskan region. Biden’s Interior Department had cited risks to caribou and fish populations that dozens of native communities rely on for subsistence.“This is something that should have been long operating and making billions of dollars for our country and supplying a lot of energy and minerals and everything else that we are talking about,” Trump said earlier today.“On day one, he signed a very important executive order unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential,” the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, said on Monday. “And this is part of the continuation. There’s a number of things that have already happened with Alaska that are moving forward. There’s more to come. But big milestone today in reversing this Biden-era decision about the Ambler Road.”Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer rejected President Donald Trump’s claim that negotiations with Democrats are underway.“Trump’s claim isn’t true — but if he’s finally ready to work with Democrats, we’ll be at the table,” Schumer said in a statement. “For months, Democrats have been calling on Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to come to the table and work with us to deliver lower costs and better healthcare for the American people.”He added: “If President Trump and Republicans are finally ready to sit down and get something done on healthcare for American families, Democrats will be there — ready to make it happen.”Earlier today, Trump told reporters that “we are speaking with Democrats” regarding the ongoing government shutdown and that “some good things could happen with health care.”“Just hang in there, because I think a lot of good things could happen, and that could also pertain to health care,” Trump said.While speaking to reporters on Monday, President Donald Trump said that “Puff Daddy” has contacted him about a pardon.He’s referring to Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was sentenced on Friday to more than four years in prison on federal prostitution-related charges. Trump made these remarks while answering questions about the possibility of pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted on sex trafficking charges, after the Supreme Court declined to hear her appeal.“I have a lot of people who have asked me for pardons,” President Trump said. “Puff Daddy has asked me for a pardon.”Regarding Maxwell’s appeal, Trump said: “I’m gonna have to take a look at it. I have to ask DOJ. I didn’t know they rejected it. I didn’t know she was even asking for it.”Voting is officially underway in California, the final step of lightning speed campaign to temporarily redraw the state’s Congressional districts.Proposition 50, known as the Election Rigging Response Act, was brought by Governor Gavin Newsom and California Democrats to offset Texas’s gerrymander, drawn at Donald Trump’s behest, that aims to safeguard Republicans’ fragile House majority next year.Unlike Texas and Missouri, where the Republican legislature approved a new map carved up in their favor, the effort in California will be decided by voters.Ballots have been mailed and the “yes” and “no” campaigns are in full swing. Polling suggests the yes campaign has the edge in the blue state that has been tormented by Trump since his return to office.Proponents have put the president at the center of their campaign, arguing that it is the best chance Democrats – and the country – has to put a check on Trump’s second term. Opponents argue that the new maps – designed to help elect five more Democrats to Congress – disenfranchise the millions of Republican voters in the state, while dismantling the work of the state’s independent commission, long considered a gold standard in fair map-drawing.While surveys consistently find that voters prefer independent redistricting and do not trust politicians to control the process, Newsom and Democrats have argued that their plan is both temporary and necessary to respond to Trump’s “powergrabs” in red states.The measure asks voters to amend the state constitution to adopt a new congressional map for 2026 through 2030. Election Day is 4 November.Michael Ellis, the deputy director of the CIA, unexpectedly removed a career lawyer who had been serving as the agency’s acting general counsel since January and appointed himself to the position, The New York Times reports.Ellis, who was involved in a number of controversies during President Trump’s first term, is keeping his role as the agency’s second-highest official while assuming responsibility for the agency’s top legal decisions.The reason behind his move remains unclear, but it has raised concern among current and former intelligence officials, according to the Times.President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would be open to striking a deal on Affordable Care Act subsidies that are at the heart of the government shutdown fight.But he also noted that “billions and billions” of dollars are being wasted, nodding to arguments from conservatives who do not want the health subsidies extended.“We are speaking with the Democrats,” Trump said, adding: “some very good things” could happen.Trump, who had been teasing layoffs for the last several days, said that if a Senate vote later Monday to reopen the government fails, “it could” trigger mass firings.“It could,” he said. “At some point it will.”A CBS News/YouGov survey shows that more Americans blame President Trump and congressional Republicans for the government shutdown than congressional Democrats.According to the poll, 39% of US adults say Trump and the GOP deserve most of the blame, compared to 30% who fault Democrats and 31% who place equal blame on both sides.A majority (52%) disapprove of how Trump and Republicans are handling the shutdown, while 49% disapprove of Democrats.Social Security Administration commissioner Frank Bisignano was named to the newly created position of CEO of the IRS today, making him the latest member of the Trump administration to be put in charge of multiple federal agencies.As IRS CEO, Bisignano will report to Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who currently serves as acting commissioner of the IRS, the Treasury Department says. It is unclear whether Bisignano’s newly created role at the IRS will require Senate confirmation.The Treasury Department said in a statement that Bisignano will be responsible for overseeing all day-to-day IRS operations while also continuing to serve in his role as commissioner of the Social Security Administration.JB Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor, said today that the federal immigration agents have “terrorized” people in his state in recent months.“They aren’t receiving any orders from Trump to cease and desist their aggressive behavior. Remember, they answer only to Trump, not to the people of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “Their plan all along has been to cause chaos that and then they can use that chaos to consolidate Donald Trump’s power. They think they can fool us all into thinking that the way to get out of this crisis that they created is to give them free rein.”Addressing reporters today, Illinois governor JB Pritzker said today that he plans to use “every lever” to resist the “power grab” from the Trump administration to quell protests in Chicago by deploying national guard troops.The state has now filed a lawsuit to block the president’s move to federalize troops. Earlier, a federal judge did not block the deployment immediately, but has given the justice department two days to respond in writing to the state’s temporary restraining order motion. The next hearing is set for Thursday.Per my earlier post, noting that the Chicago mayor has signed an executive order which prevents federal immigration agents from using city property for immigration staging, the White House has responded, calling the move “a sick policy” that “coddles criminal illegal alien killers, rapists, and gangbangers who prey on innocent Americans”. Donald Trump has announced that all “Medium and Heavy Duty Trucks” coming to the US from other countries will be subject to a 25% tariff starting 1 November.

      The White House criticized a Trump-appointed judge’s ruling, which temporarily blocked the deployment of national guard troops from Oregon and California. At a press briefing today, Karoline Leavitt said Judge Karin Immergut’s decision was “untethered in reality”, and said the administration was hopeful that the ninth US circuit court of appeals would rule in the president’s favor. Immergut said there was no evidence that persistent protests outside the immigration facility in Portland constituted an “invasion” – which could allow Trump to federalize guardsmen. The White House said that the facility is “under siege” by “anarchists”.

      In the midwest, Illinois has sued the Trump administration to block the deployment of hundreds of national guard troops to the streets of Chicago. In the lawsuit, leaders in the state say that Trump is using a “flimsy pretext”, which alleges an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in a Chicago suburb needs protecting as protests outside the building over Trump’s immigration crackdown continue. A reminder that over the weekend, the president sought to federalize up to 300 members of the Illinois national guard, despite the objections of the Democratic governor JB Pritzker. Trump sent another 400 from Texas, which Republican governor Greg Abbott has said he authorized.

      It is the sixth day of the government shutdown, and both parties continue to trade barbs over who is to blame. Congressional republicans say and the White House say that the ball is in the Democrats’ court, to pass a “clean” funding bill, and tackle healthcare negotiations once the government reopens. Meanwhile, Democrats say that their colleagues across the aisle have stonewalled any attempts at compromise. Earlier today, Karoline Leavitt said that any layoffs would be an “unfortunate consequence” of the shutdown, again laying blame at Democrats’ feet.

      The Senate will hold votes later today on the dueling stopgap funding bills, which are set to fail … yet again. The House of Representatives remains out of session, after Republican speaker Mike Johnson said that he wouldn’t be calling lawmakers back to Capitol Hill until the Senate advances the House-passed extension, known as a continuing resolution.

      The supreme court rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s challenge of her criminal conviction for recruiting and grooming minors who were sexually abused by her former boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking crimes. Two lower federal courts have ruled that a plea deal Epstein struck in 2007, which protected his co-conspirators, didn’t extend to Maxwell’s federal conviction.

      Beyond the beltway, delegations from Israel, Hamas and the US began negotiations in Egypt today. The White House said that it hopes for a swift release of all remaining Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners so that a lasting peace deal can be reached in the region.
      The cause of a huge fire at the beachfront home of a South Carolina judge who had reportedly been subjected to death threats is being investigated by state law enforcement investigators.The blaze at the home of Diane Goodstein – a Democrat-appointed circuit court judge – erupted on Saturday, sending three members of her family to the hospital, including her husband, a former state senator.However, Goodstein, 69, was walking her dogs at the time the blaze erupted at the three-story home in the luxury gated community on Edisto Beach in Colleton county.A spokesperson for the South Carolina state law enforcement division (Sled) confirmed it was investigating a fire in the county. “The investigation is active and ongoing. More information may be available as the investigation continues,” a Sled spokesperson told FITSNews.For his part, John Kittredge, the South Carolina chief justice, told the outlet: “At this time, we do not know whether the fire was accidental or arson. Until that determination is made, Sled chief Mark Keel has alerted local law enforcement to provide extra patrols and security.”Goodstein, who has served on the state judicial bench since 1989, in September issued a temporary injunction on the release of the state’s voter files to the Trump administration-led US justice department.Goodstein’s ruling was later publicly criticized by an assistant attorney general for the justice department’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon. The division has been at the forefront of efforts to acquire information, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers and social security numbers, of more than 3 million registered voters under an executive order targeting “non-citizen voter registration”. More

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      US shutdown enters second week as Senate votes again on funding bill

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      The US government shutdown entered its second week on Monday, with Democratic and Republican lawmakers making no apparent progress towards reaching a deal to restart funding, while the Trump administration warned it was moving forward with plans to slash the federal workforce.Many agencies and departments closed their doors and told employees to stay home last Wednesday, after Congress failed to approve legislation to continue the government’s authority to spend money.Democrats have refused to back any bill that does not include an array of healthcare-centered concessions, but Congress’s Republican leaders have refused to negotiate over their demands until government funding is restored. Later on Monday, the Senate will vote for a fifth time on the party’s competing proposals to reopen the government, but neither measure appears to have enough votes to advance.“We hope that the vote will not fail, because this administration wants to reopen the government,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.Leavitt said that if the shutdown stretches on, a program thats pays for food for low-income mothers and children would exhaust its funding, while government employees would miss a paycheck, though federal law entitles them to back pay. She also reiterated the Trump administration’s threats to fire federal workers.“We don’t want to see people laid off. But, unfortunately, if this shutdown continues, layoffs are going to be an unfortunate consequence of that,” Leavitt said.In the days since the shut down began, Russ Vought, the director of the White House office of management and budget, has cancelled funding for energy projects in several states, as well as transportations developments in Chicago and New York – all of which are areas governed by Democrats.But though he warned before funding lapsed that he would use it as an opportunity to deepen cuts to the federal workforce, those have largely not yet taken place.Asked about when layoffs may be announced, Leavitt replied: “We’ll see how the vote goes tonight.”Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress have shown no signs of budging from their demands in the days since the shutdown began. Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House on recess for a second straight week, in a bid to pressure Senate Democrats to provide the roughly eight votes the Republican funding bill is expected to need to advance in the upper chamber.“The ball is in the court of the Senate Democrats. There’s only a handful of people in the country who can solve this problem,” Johnson told a press conference.The Democratic minority has largely stuck to their demands that any legislation to fund the government includes an extension of premium tax credits for people covered by Affordable Care Act health insurance. Created under Joe Biden, the credits are set to expire at the end of the year, and costs for 20 million enrollees of the plans will rise if they are not extended.The party has also included in their funding bill a reversal of the Republican cuts to Medicaid, which provides health insurance to the poor and disabled, as well as a restoration of funding for public media outlets like PBS and NPR, and a prohibition on Donald Trump’s use of a “pocket rescission” to undo congressional appropriations.The Senate’s Republican majority leader John Thune has held four votes on the two parties’ bills in the past weeks. No Republicans have supported the Democratic proposal, while only three members of the minority – John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine – have backed the GOP bill.In an interview on CBS News, Schumer said he and the top House Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, would be willing to negotiate with Trump and the Republican leadership, but they have refused. And while he has “encouraged” his lawmakers “to sit and talk to Republicans”, those conversations were not promising.“The Republicans offered nothing,” Schumer said. “The only way this will ultimately be solved is if five people sit together in a room and solve it.”Several recent polls have shown Democrats with a narrow edge in the public’s opinion of a shutdown. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll found that 53% of respondents held the GOP responsible for the shutdown, as opposed to 47% who blamed the Democrats. Seventy percent of those surveyed opposed the shutdown overall.Johnson reiterated that he would not call the chamber back into session until government funding is restored. He has also said he will only swear in newly elected Democratic representative Adelita Grijalva once the House returns to work.Grijalva is set to be the 218th lawmaker to sign a petition that will force a vote on a bill to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Johnson and Trump oppose releasing the files, and Thomas Massie, an iconoclastic Republican representative who has led the charge to make the documents public, accused Johnson of keeping the House out of session to delay that vote.“Why are we in recess? Because the day we go back into session, I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Massie said, adding that Johnson “doesn’t want that to be the news”.Joseph Gedeon contributed reporting More