Congress

WASHINGTON — President Trump is showing little urgency to broker a compromise that would end the government shutdown, even as Democrats insist no breakthrough is possible without his direct involvement.

Three weeks in, Congress is at a standstill. The House hasn’t been in session for a month, and senators left Washington on Thursday frustrated by the lack of progress. Republican leaders are refusing to negotiate until a short-term funding bill to reopen the government is passed, while Democrats say they won’t agree without guarantees on extending health insurance subsidies.

For now, Trump appears content to stay on the sidelines.

He spent the week celebrating an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal he led, hosted a remembrance event for conservative activist Charlie Kirk and refocused attention on the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, his administration has been managing the shutdown in unconventional ways, continuing to pay the troops while laying off other federal employees.

Asked Thursday whether he was willing to deploy his dealmaking background on the shutdown, Trump seemed uninterested.

“Well, look, I mean, all we want to do is just extend. We don’t want anything, we just want to extend, live with the deal they had,” he said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Later Thursday, he criticized Democratic health care demands as “crazy,” adding, “We’re just not going to do it.”

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Democrats must first vote to reopen the government, “then we can have serious conversations about health care.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune echoed that approach before leaving for the weekend, saying Trump is “ready to weigh in and sit down with the Democrats or whomever, once the government opens up.”

Thune said he’d also be willing to talk, but only after the shutdown ends.

“I am willing to sit down with Democrats,” Thune posted on social media Friday.

“But there’s one condition: End the Schumer Shutdown. I will not negotiate under hostage conditions, nor will I pay a ransom,” he added.

Frustration is beginning to surface among rank-and-file Republicans, with bipartisan conversations breaking out on the Senate floor as members look for ways to move things forward. Still, even those Republicans admit little happens in Congress without Trump’s direction.

Leaving the Capitol on Thursday, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “We’re not making much headway this week.” For things to progress, Murkowski acknowledged Trump may need to get more involved: “I think he’s an important part of it.”

“I think there are some folks in his administration that are kind of liking the fact that Congress really has no role right now,” she added. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”

Trump has not been slowed by the shutdown

While Congress has been paralyzed by the shutdown, Trump has moved rapidly to enact his vision of the federal government.

He has called budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has taken the opportunity to withhold billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and lay off thousands of federal workers, signaling that workforce reductions could become even more drastic.

At the same time, the administration has acted unilaterally to fund Trump’s priorities, including paying the military this week, easing pressure on what could have been one of the main deadlines to end the shutdown.

Some of these moves, particularly the layoffs and funding shifts, have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges. A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the administration from firing workers during the shutdown, ruling that the cuts appeared politically motivated and were carried out without sufficient justification.

And with Congress focused on the funding fight, lawmakers have had little time to debate other issues.

In the House, Johnson has said the House won’t return until Democrats approve the funding bill and has refused to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Democrats say the move is to prevent her from becoming the 218th signature on a discharge petition aimed at forcing a vote on releasing documents related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

So far, the shutdown has shown little impact on public opinion.

An AP-NORC poll released Thursday found that 3 in 10 U.S. adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Democratic Party, similar to an AP-NORC poll from September. Four in 10 have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Republican Party, largely unchanged from last month.

Democrats want Trump at the table. Republicans would rather he stay out

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries have said Republicans have shown little seriousness in negotiating an end to the shutdown.

“Leader Thune has not come to me with any proposal at this point,” Schumer said Thursday.

Frustrated with congressional leaders, Democrats are increasingly looking to Trump.

At a CNN town hall Wednesday night featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both repeatedly called for the president’s involvement when asked why negotiations had stalled.

“President Trump is not talking. That is the problem,” Sanders said.

Ocasio-Cortez added that Trump should more regularly “be having congressional leaders in the White House.”

Democrats’ focus on Trump reflects both his leadership style — which allows little to happen in Congress without his approval — and the reality that any funding bill needs the president’s signature to become law.

This time, however, Republican leaders who control the House and Senate are resisting any push for Trump to intervene.

“You can’t negotiate when somebody’s got a hostage,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who added that Trump getting involved would allow Democrats to try the same tactic in future legislative fights.

Trump has largely followed that guidance. After previously saying he would be open to negotiating with Democrats on health insurance subsidies, he walked it back after Republican leaders suggested he misspoke.

And that’s unlikely to change for now. Trump has no plans to personally intervene to broker a deal with Democrats, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The official added that the only stopgap funding bill that Democrats can expect is the one already on the table.

“The President is happy to have a conversation about health care policy, but he will not do so while the Democrats are holding the American people hostage,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Thursday.

A product of the Congress Trump has molded

In his second term, Trump has taken a top-down approach, leaving little in Congress to move without his approval.

“What’s obvious to me is that Mike Johnson and John Thune don’t do much without Donald Trump telling them what to do,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

His hold is particularly strong in the GOP-led House, where Speaker Mike Johnson effectivelyowes his job to Trump, and relies on his influence to power through difficult legislative fights.

When Republicans have withheld votes on Trump’s priorities in Congress, he’s called them on the phone or summoned them to his office to directly sway them. When that doesn’t work, he has vowed to unseat them in the next election. It’s led many Democrats to believe the only path to an agreement runs through the White House and not through the speaker’s office.

Democrats also want assurances from the White House that they won’t backtrack on an agreement. The White House earlier this year cut out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.” And before he even took office late last year, Trump and ally Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan funding agreement that both parties had negotiated.

“I think we need to see ink on paper. I think we need to see legislation. I think we need to see votes,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “I don’t accept pinky promises. That’s not the business that I’m in.”

Both parties also see little reason to fold under public pressure, believing they are winning the messaging battle.

“Everybody thinks they’re winning,” Murkowski said. “Nobody is winning when everybody’s losing. And that’s what’s happening right now. The American public is losing.”

Cappelletti and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are poised for the 10th time Thursday to reject a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up healthcare benefits.

The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become. It has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor, while House Republicans have left Washington altogether. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.

“Every day that goes by, there are more and more Americans who are getting smaller and smaller paychecks,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, adding that there have been thousands of flight delays across the country as well.

Thune, a South Dakota Republican, again and again has tried to pressure Democrats to break from their strategy of voting against the stopgap funding bill. It hasn’t worked. And while some bipartisan talks have been ongoing about potential compromises on healthcare, they haven’t produced any meaningful progress toward reopening the government. Thune has also offered to hold a later vote on extending subsidies for health plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but said he would not “guarantee a result or an outcome.”

Democrats say they won’t budge until they get a guarantee on extending the tax credits for the health plans. They warn that millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance — such as small business owners, farmers and contractors — will see large increases when premium prices go out in the coming weeks. Looking ahead to a Nov. 1 deadline in most states, they think voters will demand that Republicans enter into serious negotiations.

“The ACA crisis is looming over everyone’s head, and yet Republicans seem ready to let people’s premiums spike,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer in a floor speech.

Still, Thune was also trying a different tack Thursday with a vote to proceed to appropriations bills — a move that could grease the Senate’s gears into some action or just deepen the divide between the two parties.

A deadline for subsidies on health plans

Democrats have rallied around their priorities on healthcare as they hold out against voting for a Republican bill that would reopen the government. Yet they also warn that the time to strike a deal to prevent large increases for many health plans is drawing short.

When they controlled Congress during the pandemic, Democrats boosted subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. It pushed enrollment under President Obama’s signature healthcare law to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. Nearly 24 million people currently get their health insurance from subsidized marketplaces, according to healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

Democrats — and some Republicans — are worried that many of those people will forgo insurance if the price rises dramatically. While the tax credits don’t expire until next year, health insurers will soon send out notices of the price increases. In most states, they go out Nov. 1.

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she has heard from “families who are absolutely panicking about their premiums that are doubling.”

“They are small business owners who are having to think about abandoning the job they love to get employer-sponsored healthcare elsewhere or just forgoing coverage altogether,” she added.

Murray also said that if many people decide to leave their health plan, it could have an effect across medical insurance because the pool of people under health plans will shrink. That could result in higher prices across the board, she said.

Some Republicans have acknowledged that the expiration of the tax credits could be a problem and floated potential compromises to address it, but there is hardly a consensus among the GOP.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) this week called the COVID-era subsidies a “boondoggle,” adding that “when you subsidize the healthcare system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.”

President Trump has said he would “like to see a deal done for great healthcare,” but has not meaningfully weighed in on the debate. And Thune has insisted that Democrats first vote to reopen the government before entering any negotiations on healthcare.

If Congress were to engage in negotiations on significant changes to healthcare, it would likely take weeks, if not longer, to work out a compromise.

Votes on appropriations bills

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are setting up a vote Thursday to proceed to a bill to fund the Defense Department and several other areas of government. This would turn the Senate to Thune’s priority of working through spending bills and potentially pave the way to paying salaries for troops, though the House would eventually need to come back to Washington to vote for a final bill negotiated between the two chambers.

It could also put a crack in Democrats’ resolve. Thune said Thursday, “If they want to stop the defense bill, I don’t think it’s very good optics for them.”

It wasn’t clear whether Democrats would give the support needed to advance the bills. They discussed the idea at their luncheon Wednesday and emerged saying they wanted to review the Republican proposal and make sure it included appropriations that are priorities for them.

While the votes will not bring the Senate any closer to an immediate fix for the government shutdown, it could at least turn their attention to issues where there is some bipartisan agreement.

Still, there was a growing sense on Capitol Hill that an end to the stasis is nowhere in sight.

“So many of you have asked all of us, how will it end?” said House Speaker Johnson. “We have no idea.”

Groves and Jalonick write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Democrats are ramping up the pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who won a special election last month to succeed her late father.

The delay has attracted mounting attention this week, with Johnson challenged by lawmakers, reporters and even C-SPAN viewers about why Grijalva hasn’t been given the oath of office. Johnson has said repeatedly that she will be sworn in when the House returns to session. He blames the government shutdown for the delay.

Here’s a look at where the situation stands:

Who is Adelita Grijalva?

She is the daughter of Rep. Raul Grijalva, a staunch progressive who died in March. He served more than two decades in the House, rising to chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, where he helped shape the nation’s environmental policies.

Adelita Grijalva has been active in local politics, first serving at the school board level and subsequently on the Pima County Board of Supervisors, becoming just the second woman to serve as chair.

She easily won a special election Sept. 23 to serve out the remainder of her father’s term. She will represent a mostly Hispanic district in which Democrats enjoy a nearly 2-1 ratio voter registration advantage over Republicans.

How Grijalva views the delay

Grijalva was gracious to her soon-to-be Democratic colleagues as they welcomed her to the U.S. Capitol last month, even as she and her future staff were officially considered visitors to the building.

“I think it’s great to be able to be in a room with those who will be my colleagues, but then you very quickly realize that you are not part of the club yet,” Grijalva said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “If I had big money to bet, I would bet that if I were a Republican representative waiting in the wings, I would have already been sworn in by now.”

She said she’s worried about the precedent that is being set by her delayed swearing-in.

“The bedrock of our democracy is free, fair, unobstructed elections,” she said. “And if Speaker Johnson believes this is, as I do, then he will quit toying with our democratic process and swear me in.”

Why the House is empty during the shutdown

Members of the House have been mostly back in their home districts since Sept. 19. That’s when Republicans passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through Nov. 21. Johnson’s decision to send lawmakers home was intended to pressure the Senate into passing that funding measure — a tactic that so far hasn’t worked.

Johnson has yet to schedule any floor votes since then, though the House has occasionally met in pro forma sessions, which are generally short affairs lasting just a few minutes during which no votes are taken.

“We will swear her in when everybody gets back,” Johnson told reporters this week.

Lawmakers who win special elections generally take the oath of office on days in which legislative business is conducted, and they are welcomed with warm applause from members on both sides of the aisle. They give a short speech as family and friends watch from the galleries.

Yet there is precedent for doing it differently. On April 2, Johnson swore in Republican Reps. Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine, both of Florida, less than 24 hours after they won their special elections, during a pro forma session.

Johnson says the circumstances were unique because the House had unexpectedly gone out of session that day. Patronis and Fine had already arranged for their families, friends and supporters to be in Washington.

“As a courtesy to them and their families, we went ahead and administered the oath to an empty chamber. It was no fun. They didn’t get the same pomp and circumstance everybody else gets,” Johnson said Thursday on C-SPAN when asked by a caller about Grijalva. “We’re going to administer the oath as soon as she gets back.”

How are Democrats responding?

Democrats have little leverage to force Johnson to seat Grijalva so long as the House is in recess. But they are keeping up the pressure.

In an unusual scene Wednesday, Arizona’s two Democratic senators — Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego — confronted Johnson outside his office about Grijalva’s situation.

“You just keep coming up with excuses,” Gallego said to Johnson. The speaker called it a publicity stunt.

Democrats have also taken to the floor during pro forma sessions to try to have Grijalva sworn in. The presiding officer has ignored them every time.

“Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva should be sworn in now. It should have happened this week, should have happened last week. It needs to happen next week,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Thursday.

What does her swearing-in have to do with the Epstein files?

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, defying GOP leadership, has been gathering signatures on a petition to trigger a vote on legislation that would force the release of federal files on Jeffrey Epstein. And he’s just one name away from succeeding.

Grijalva has said she’ll sign the petition once she takes office, providing Massie the 218 signatures needed to trigger a vote.

Democrats say Johnson is stalling on Grijalva’s swearing-in, as well as on bringing the House back to Washington, because he wants to push off any Epstein vote.

Johnson rejected that accusation during his appearance on C-SPAN. “This has zero to do with Epstein.”

Grijalva said she tries to not be a “conspiracy theorist” and initially disagreed with supporters and allies who warned her that she wouldn’t be seated in Congress because of the Epstein bill.

“I thought, no way, he’s gonna swear me in. It’ll be fine,” she said. “Here we are two weeks later.”

Brown and Freking write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court may help the GOP keep control of the House of Representatives next year by clearing the way for Republican-led states to redraw election districts now held by Black Democrats.

That prospect formed the backdrop on Wednesday as the justices debated the future of the Voting Rights Act in a case from Louisiana.

The Trump administration’s top courtroom attorney urged he justices to rule that partisan politics, not racial fairness, should guide the drawing election districts for Congress and state legislatures.

“This court held that race-based affirmative action in higher education must come to an end,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his brief. The same is true, he said, for using the Voting Rights Act to draw legislative districts that are likely to elect a Black or Latino candidate.

Too often, he said, the civil rights law has been “deployed as a form of electoral race-based affirmative action to undo a state’s constitutional pursuit of political ends.”

The court’s conservatives lean in that direction and sought to limit the use of race for drawing district boundaries. But the five-member majority has not struck down the use of race for drawing district lines.

But the Trump administration and Louisiana’s Republican leaders argued that now was the time to do so.

If the court’s conservatives hand down such a ruling in the months ahead, it would permit Republican-led states across the South to redraw the congressional districts of a dozen or more Black Democrats.

“There’s reason for alarm,” said Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulous. “The consequences for minority representation would likely be devastating. In particular, states with unified Republican governments would have a green light to flip as many Democratic minority-opportunity districts as possible.”

Such a ruling would also upend the Voting Rights Act as it had been understood since the 1980s.

As originally enacted in 1965, the historic measure put the federal government on the side of Blacks in registering to vote and casting ballots.

But in 1982, Republicans and Democrats in Congress took note that these new Black voters were often shut out of electing anyone to office. White lawmakers could draw maps that put whites in the majority in all or nearly all the districts.

Seeking a change, Congress amended the law to allow legal challenges when discrimination results in minority voters having “less opportunity … to elect representatives of their choice.”

In decades after, the Supreme Court and the Justice Department pressed the states, and the South in particular, to draw at least some electoral districts that were likely to elect a Black candidate. These legal challenges turned on evidence that white voters in the state would not support a Black candidate.

But since he joined the court in 1991, Justice Clarence Thomas has argued that drawing districts based on race is unconstitutional and should be prohibited. Justices Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented with Thomas two years ago when the court by a 5-4 vote approved a second congressional district in Alabama that elected a Black Democrat.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote the opinion. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh cast the deciding fifth vote but also said he was open to the argument that “race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”

That issue is now before the court in the Louisiana case.

It has six congressional districts, and about one-third of its population is Black.

Prior to this decade, the New Orleans area elected a Black representative, and in response to a voting right suit, it was ordered to draw a second district where a Black candidate had a good chance to win.

But to protect its leading House Republicans — Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise — the state drew a new elongated district that elected Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat.

Now the state and the Trump administration argue the court should strike down that district because it was drawn based on race and free the state to replace him with a white Republican.

As the partial government shutdown grinds on, with no end in sight, Catherine Cortez Masto stands ready to end it right now.

The lawyerly senator from Nevada is one of just two Democrats to repeatedly vote with Republicans and Maine’s independent senator, Angus King, to have the federal government up and running.

She’s not only bucking her Senate colleagues with her contrarian stance, but also placing herself squarely at odds with the animating impulse of her party’s political base: Stop Trump! Give no quarter! Now is the time! This is the fight!

Cortez Masto evinces not a flicker of doubt.

“I have been very consistent about the cost of a shutdown and the impact to Americans and the fact that I believe we need to work in a bipartisan way to find solutions to what we’re seeing right now, which is this looming healthcare crisis,” Cortez Masto said from Washington.

“And I think we can do that by keeping the government open. I don’t think we should do it by swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another.”

Unlike the Democrats’ other defector, Pennsylvania’s quirky Sen. John Fetterman, Cortez Masto hasn’t developed a reputation for partisan heresy, or antagonized party peers by playing footsie with President Trump and the MAGA movement.

Despite her temporary alliance with the GOP, she’s unstinting in her criticism of the president and the Republican stance on healthcare, the issue at the heart of the shutdown fight.

“Of course we need to stand up to Trump’s attacks on our families and our country,” she said. “I’ve been one of the most vocal opponents of Trump’s disastrous trade and tariff policies.”

Her split with fellow Democrats, she suggested, is not over ends but rather means.

It’s entirely possible, Cortez Masto insisted, to keep the government open for business and, at the same time, work through the parties’ differences over healthcare, including, most imminently, the end of subsidies that have kept insurance costs from skyrocketing.

It comes down to negotiation, trust and compromise, which in Cortez Masto’s view, is still possible — even in these rabidly partisan times.

“That’s what Congress is built on,” she said. “Congress is built on compromise, working together across the aisle to get stuff done. I still believe in it.”

Although she noted — with considerable understatement — “there are those in the administration and some of my colleagues” who disagree.

Not to mention a great many Democratic activists who believe anything short of jailing Trump and dispatching the entire GOP-run Congress to a far-off desert island amounts to cowardly capitulation.

Nevada, where Cortez Masto was born and bred, is a state that was Republican red for a very long time before turning blue-ish for a while, starting under Barack Obama in 2008. It went back to red-ish under Trump in 2024.

Cortez Masto, a former state attorney general, was first elected to the Senate in 2016, replacing the onetime Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, after the Democrat retired.

Six years later, when she sought reelection, Cortez Masto was widely considered Democrats’ most endangered incumbent. She was not nearly as powerful or prominent as Reid had been. Inflation was raging, and Nevada was still suffering an economic hangover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her opponent was a middling Republican, Adam Laxalt, a failed gubernatorial candidate and one of the architects of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election. He also seemed to harbor a soft spot for the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters.

Still, Cortez Masto barely beat him, winning by fewer than 10,000 votes out of more than 1 million cast. In retrospect, the result could be seen as a harbinger of Trump’s success in carrying the state after twice losing Nevada.

Cortez Masto next faces reelection in 2028, which is politically ages away. By then, the shutdown will be long forgotten. (And presumably long over.)

Her focus, she said, is the here and now and, especially, the shutdown’s economic effect at a time Nevada is already feeling the negative consequences of Trump’s trade and immigration policies. Las Vegas, which runs on tourism, has experienced a notable slump, and Cortez Masto suggested the shutdown only makes things worse.

That, however, hasn’t deterred Nevada’s other U.S. senator, Jacky Rosen, who has repeatedly voted alongside nearly every other Democrat to keep the government shuttered until Republicans give in.

“Nevadans sent me here to fight for them,” Rosen said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Not to cave.”

Asked about the fissure, Cortez Masto responded evenly and with diplomacy. “She’s a good friend.… Our goal is to fight for Nevada and we are doing it,” she said. “We both are doing it in different ways.”

So, negotiation. Bipartisanship. Compromise.

What makes Cortez Masto think Trump, who’s run roughshod over Congress and the courts, can be trusted to honor any deal Democrats cut with Republicans to reopen the government and address the healthcare crisis she sees?

“Well, that’s the rub, right? We know what he’s doing,” she replied. He’s “flouting the law when it comes to … taking the role of legislators and appropriating funds at his own whim…. So, of course, no, you can’t trust him.

“But he is there. What you got to figure out is how you work together with Republican colleagues to get something done.”

Cortez Masto noted, dryly, that Congress is, in fact, a separate branch of government with its own power and authority. Republicans have ceded both to Trump and if they really want to solve problems, she said, and do more than the president’s bidding, they “need to come out and do bipartisan legislation to push back on this administration.”

“We’ve got to govern,” Cortez Masto said. “We’ve got to work together.”

Wouldn’t that be something.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is making this government shutdown unlike any the country has ever seen, enabling his budget office a rare authority to pick winners and losers — who gets paid or fired — in an unprecedented restructuring across the federal workforce.

As the shutdown enters its third week, the Office and Management and Budget said Tuesday it’s preparing to “batten down the hatches” with more reductions in force to come. The president calls budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper” who’s seized on the opportunity to fund Trump’s priorities, paying the military while slashing employees in health, education, the sciences and other areas with actions that have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges.

“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” OMB said in a social media post.

With Congress at a standstill — the Republican-led House refusing to return to session and the Senate stuck in a loop of failed votes to reopen government as Democrats demand health care funds — the White House’s budget office quickly filled the void.

From Project 2025 to the White House

Vought, a chief architect of the conservative Project 2025 policy book, is reshaping the size and scope of federal government in ways similar to those envisioned in the blueprint. It is exactly what certain lawmakers, particularly Democrats, feared if Congress failed to fund the government.

Trump’s priorities — supporting the military and pursuing his mass deportation agenda — have been kept largely uninterrupted, despite the closures. But employees in health, education, the sciences and other federal departments are among those being laid off. As many as 750,000 workers are being furloughed.

“Donald Trump and Russ Vought and all of their cronies are using this moment to terrorize these patriots,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., standing with federal workers Tuesday outside the White House budget office.

Van Hollen said it’s “a big fat lie” when Trump and his budget director say that the shutdown is making them fire federal workers. “It is also illegal and we will see them in court,” Van Hollen said.

Shutdown grinds into a third week

Now on its 14th day, the federal closure is quickly becoming among the longest government shutdowns. Congress failed to meet the Oct. 1 deadline to pass the annual appropriations bills needed to fund the government as the Democrats demanded a deal to preserve expiring health care funds that provide subsidies for people to purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday said he has nothing to negotiate with the Democrats until they vote to reopen the government.

The Republican speaker welcomed OMB’s latest actions to pay some workers and fire others.

“They have every right to move the funds around,” Johnson said at a press conference at the Capitol. If the Democrats want to challenge the Trump administration in court, Johnson said, “bring it.”

Typically, federal workers are furloughed during a lapse in funding, traditionally with back pay once government funding is restored. But Vought’s budget office announced late last week the reductions in forces had begun. More than 4,000 workers received layoff notices over the weekend.

Military pay, deportations on track

At the same time, Trump instructed the military to find money to ensure service personnel wouldn’t miss paychecks this week. The Pentagon said over the weekend it was able to tap $8 billion in unused research and development funds to make payroll.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency was relying on Trump’s big tax cuts law for funding to make sure members of the Coast Guard, which falls under the department, are also paid.

“We at DHS worked out an innovative solution to make sure that didn’t happen,” Noem said in a statement. Thanks to “the One Big Beautiful Bill,” she said, “the brave men and women of the US Coast Guard will not miss a paycheck this week.”

In past shutdowns, the Office of Management and Budget has overseen agency plans during the lapse in federal fundings, ensuring which workers are essential and remain on the job. Vought, however, has taken his role further by speaking openly about his plans to go after the federal workforce.

As agencies started making their shutdown plans, Vought’s OMB encouraged department heads to consider reductions in force, an unheard of action. The budget office’s general counsel, Mark Paoletta suggested in a draft memo that the workforce may not be automatically eligible for back pay once government reopens.

‘Grim reaper’ replaces Elon Musk’s chainsaw

Trump posted an AI-generated video last week that portrayed Vought dressed with cloak and dagger, against the backdrop of the classic rock staple “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.”

“Every authoritarian leader has had his grim reaper. Russell Vought is Donald Trump’s,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, the senior Democrat from Maryland.

Hoyer compared the budget chief to billionaire Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw earlier this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s slashing of the workforce “Vought swings his scythe through the federal government as thoughtlessly,” he said.

In many ways, the “Big, Beautiful Bill, Act” as the law is commonly called, gives the White House a vast new allotment of federal funding for its priority projects, separate from the regular appropriations process in Congress.

The package unleashed some $175 billion for the Pentagon, including for the Golden Dome missile shield and other priority projects, and another $175 million to Homeland Security largely for Trump’s mass deportation agenda. It also included extra funds for Vought’s work at OMB.

Trump’s big bill provides billions

Certain funds from the “big bill” are available to be used during the shutdown, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“The Administration also could decide to use mandatory funding provided in the 2025 reconciliation act or other sources of mandatory funding to continue activities financed by those direct appropriations at various agencies,” according to CBO.

The CBO cited the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Management and Budget as among those that received eligible funds under the law..

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Troops patrol train stations and streets in the nation’s capital. Masked federal law enforcement agents detain District of Columbia residents. Congress passes bills that further squeeze the city’s autonomy. And the one person who could act as a voice for Washington on Capitol Hill has been a rare sight.

Even longtime allies say Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s nonvoting delegate in the House, has not risen to the challenge of pushing back against the Trump administration’s intervention into her city. They cite her age, 88, and her diminished demeanor.

That has raised questions about the 18-term lawmaker’s future in that office and has led to calls for her to step aside and make way for a new generation of leaders. The race to replace her has began in earnest, with two members of the D.C. Council, including a former Norton aide, announcing campaigns for the 2026 contest.

“D.C. is under attack as at no other time in recent history, and we need a new champion to defend us,” Donna Brazile, a onetime Norton chief of staff, wrote in a Washington Post opinion essay.

Brazile acknowledged Norton’s legendary service and why she might wish to continue. “As I’ve told her in person,” Brazile said, “retirement from Congress is the right next chapter for her — and for the District.”

Norton has so far resisted that call. Her office declined to make her available for an interview, and her campaign office did not respond to requests for comment. The oldest member of the House, Norton came to office in 1991 and has indicated she plans to run next year.

Federal intervention created new demands

Washington is granted autonomy through a limited home rule agreement passed by Congress in 1973 that allowed residents to elect a mayor and a city council. But federal political leaders retain ultimate control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by that council.

That freedom came under further restrictions after Republican President Trump issued an emergency order in August. It was meant to combat crime as he federalized the city’s police department and poured federal agents and National Guard troops into the city. Trump’s emergency order expired in September, but the troops and federal officers remain.

While the D.C. delegate position is a nonvoting one, it grants the people of the district, who have no other representation in Congress, a voice through speechmaking on the House floor and bill introduction.

Even without a vote in Congress, “there are so many things that the delegate can do from that position, even if it’s just using the bully pulpit,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a voting rights group. “Even if it’s just giving folks encouragement or showing that fight that a lot of people want to see.”

At public appearances, Norton has seemed unsteady and struggled to read from prepared notes, including at a recent committee hearing focused on stripping some of Washington’s independence on prosecuting crime.

During Trump’s monthlong security emergency and since, Norton has not been as publicly visible as city officials, who attended protests and held media events denouncing the intervention.

Without a push for party unity from congressional leaders on Washington’s interests, the delegate’s role has added importance, said George Derek Musgrove, associate professor of history at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

“The delegate really has to be a one-person whip operation to try and hold the caucus in line against this Republican onslaught,” Musgrove said.

City leaders step in

It is unclear what a more energetic delegate could have done, given Trump’s expansive view of executive power and Republican control of Congress. Nonetheless, some critics of her performance have suggested it might have helped the city avoid a recent federal budget plan that created a $1.1-billion budget hole earlier this year. Months later, Congress has yet to approve a fix for the shortfall, even though Trump has endorsed one.

With Norton quiet, other leaders in the Democratic-run city have filled the void since Trump’s emergency declaration.

Mayor Muriel Bowser has stepped in as the district’s main mediator with the administration and Congress, joined by the council, although that outreach has been fragmented. D.C. Atty. Gen. Brian Schwalb sued the administration in the most combative stance against the federal government’s actions.

As Norton left a recent House hearing about the district, she responded with a strong “no” when asked by reporters whether she would retire.

Among those seeking to challenge her in next year’s Democratic primary are two council members — Robert White Jr., a former Norton aide, and Brooke Pinto. Many others in the city have expressed interest. Allies, including Bowser and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, have declined to publicly endorse another Norton run.

A push for new faces

Norton’s life is a journey through American history.

In 1963, she split her time between Yale Law School and Mississippi, where she volunteered for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. One day during the Freedom Summer, civil rights activist Medgar Evers picked her up at the airport. He was assassinated that night. Norton also helped organize and attended the 1963 March on Washington.

Norton went on to become the first woman to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which helps enforce anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. She ran for office when her predecessor retired to run for Washington mayor.

Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia and a staunch Norton ally who worked with her on a number of bills, said voters should know who she is and what she is capable of, even now.

“She saved the city,” he said, listing off accomplishments such as the 1997 act that spared the city from bankruptcy, as well as improving college access. “She was a great partner.”

Davis said both major political parties are yearning for new faces.

“She’s still very well respected. She’s got a lot seniority,” he said. “I think she’s earned the right to go out on her terms. But that’s gonna be up to the voters.”

Fields, Brown and Khalil write for the Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO — Though raging thousands of miles to the east, the entrenched stalemate in Washington over federal spending and the ensuing government shutdown has thrust California’s expansive healthcare policies into the center of the pitched, partisan debate.

The Trump administration and the Republican leaders in Congress continue to use California, and the benefits the state has extended to eligible immigrants regardless of their legal status, as a cudgel against Democrats trying to extend federal subsidies for taxpayer-funded healthcare coverage.

President Trump claimed recently that Democrats “want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive healthcare at the cost to everybody else.” Democrats called Trump’s assertion an absolute lie, accusing Republicans of wanting to slash federal healthcare benefits to Americans in need to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.

“California has led the nation in expanding access to affordable healthcare, but Donald Trump is ripping it away,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

In return for their votes to reopen the government, Democratic leaders in Congress want to reverse Medicaid cuts made in Republicans’ tax and spending bill passed this summer and continue subsidies through the Affordable Care Act, a program long targeted by Republicans. The subsidies, which come in the form of a tax credit, help lower health insurance costs for millions of Americans.

Can immigrants in the country illegally enroll in federal healthcare programs?

No. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program or Medicare, or coverage through the Affordable Care Act, according to KFF, an independent health research organization.

Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) held a virtual town hall last week in which he highlighted the “misinformation” about immigrants and healthcare.

“I just want to be completely clear that federal funding does not pay for health insurance for undocumented immigrants, period,” Mullin said.

Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, said the debate is really over “who can benefit from the federal dollars that are flowing to all states, including California,” to help lower costs for health insurance.

Covered California serves as a marketplace exchange for state residents seeking healthcare insurance under the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, allowing them to select from name-brand insurance providers and choose from a variety of coverage plans. The vast majority of Californians receive federal subsidies to lower their premiums, including many middle-income families who had become eligible when Congress expanded the financial assistance in 2021.

Those expanded subsidies will expire at the end of the year, and Democrats are demanding that they be extended as part of any deal to reopen the government before they vote in favor of what is known as a continuing resolution, or a temporary funding bill to keep the federal government running.

“From the very beginning, undocumented or illegal — whatever terminology you want to use — individuals were never eligible for those tax credits, never eligible for those cost-sharing reductions, and in fact, and not even eligible to come onto a marketplace and buy coverage if they paid the full costs,” Altman said.

California does offer state healthcare coverage for undocumented immigrants

Through Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program, some medical coverage is offered, regardless of immigration status. The majority of that money comes from the state.

H.D. Palmer, deputy director for external affairs at the California Department of Finance, said the cost to provide Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants in the current fiscal year is just over $12.5 billion.

State money accounts for $11.2 billion and the remaining difference is reimbursed with federal funding because it’s used to cover emergency services, Palmer explained.

“Under current law, hospitals that receive Medicaid are required to provide emergency care, including labor and delivery, to individuals regardless of their citizenship status,” he said. “That goes back to a budget law that was approved by Congress in 1986 and signed by President Ronald Reagan.”

The 1986 law is called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, and allows for emergency healthcare for all persons.

Some Republicans have raised other concerns about the state’s use of managed care organization taxes.

The MCO tax is a federally allowable Medicaid funding mechanism that imposes a tax on health insurance providers that charge fixed monthly payments for services and is based on the number of people enrolled in plans each month. The revenue from the tax can then be used to support Medicaid expenditures with federal matching funds.

Critics say California exploits a so-called loophole: By increasing the MCO tax, and subsequently bringing in more matching federal funds, California can then put more of its own state money toward healthcare for undocumented immigrants.

“We are bringing in all those additional federal dollars and then reallocating other money away so that we can provide about $9.6 billion for Medi-Cal for undocumented and illegal immigrants,” said Assemblymember David J. Tangipa (R-Fresno). “The MCO tax was never supposed to be weaponized in that process.”

White House officials also contend that California could not afford to put resources toward benefits for undocumented immigrants if it had not received the extra federal money — a claim Newsom disputes.

“What the president is saying, he’s lying,” Newsom said at a recent event. “Speaker [Mike] Johnson’s lying. They’re lying to the American people. It’s shameful. … I guess they’re trying to connect their displeasure with what California and many other states do with state resources in this space, and that is a very separate conversation.”

California is not alone in offering such healthcare to immigrants in the country illegally

A “small but growing” number of states offer state-funded coverage to certain groups of low-income people regardless of immigration status, according to KFF.

California became the first state in the nation last year to offer healthcare to all low-income undocumented immigrants, an expansion spearheaded by Newsom.

Newsom has since partially walked back that policy after the costs exceeded expectations. Starting in January, most adult Medi-Cal applications will be blocked — although current enrollees can continue to renew — and some adults will be required to pay monthly premiums. Undocumented minors under age 19, who became eligible for Medi-Cal nearly a decade ago, will not be affected by the changes.

The upcoming changes to the state’s policies and the enrollment freeze will help decrease the overall costs, which are projected to fall to about $10.1 billion during the next fiscal year, according to the California Department of Finance.

While the governor’s shift angered his most progressive allies and renewed speculation that he is tacking to the political middle ahead of his expected run for president in 2028, the Democratic-led Legislature approved the Medi-Cal eligibility changes in June.

Public opinion on the issue may also be changing.

Fifty-eight percent of adults in California were opposed to providing healthcare for undocumented immigrants, according to a poll released in June from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. This was a notable shift, as previous surveys from the institute conducted between 2015 to 2023 showed the majority approved.

Who would lose coverage if the tax credits end and Medicaid cuts aren’t reversed?

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Republicans this summer, ends healthcare subsidies that were extended during the pandemic and makes other cuts to programs. According to the White House, the bill “contains the most important America First healthcare reforms ever enacted.”

“The policies represent a comprehensive effort to address waste, fraud, and abuse to strengthen the healthcare system for the most vulnerable Americans, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are focused on American citizens and do not subsidize healthcare for illegal immigrants,” the White House said in a statement on Oct. 1.

Among other things, the law limits Medicare and other program eligibility to certain groups, including green card holders, effective July 2025. Other lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylees, are no longer eligible, according to KFF.

It’s estimated that the eligibility restrictions will result in about 1.4 million lawfully present immigrants becoming uninsured, reduce federal spending by about $131 billion and increase federal revenue by $4.8 billion as of 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

At the same time, a broader group of lawfully present immigrants, including refugees, will lose access to subsidized coverage through the ACA marketplace by January 2027.

Covered California’s Altman estimated that there are about 119,000 immigrants in California who are covered and would lose eligibility for financial assistance.

More broadly, Altman and other healthcare experts predict that healthcare premiums will skyrocket if the ACA tax credits expire.

Oct. 13 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1775, the Continental Congress ordered construction of America’s first naval fleet.

In 1792, the cornerstone to the White House in Washington was laid. It would be November 1800 before the first presidential family — that of John Adams — moved in.

In 1903, the Boston Americans (later known as the Red Sox) beat the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the first modern World Series, five games to three.

In 1917, up to 100,000 people gathered in Fatima, Portugal, for the “Miracle of the Sun” and its strange solar activity and, for many, a reported glimpse of the Virgin Mary.

In 1943, conquered by the Allies, Italy declared war on Germany, its Axis former partner.

In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 carrying 45 people, including a rugby team from Montevideo, crashed in the Andes mountains. It would take 72 days for rescuers to learn the fate of the survivors, and by that time, only 16 were left to tell their story. The survivor’s harrowing story was brought to the big screen in the 1993 feature film, Alive.

In 1972, more than 170 people were killed in a Soviet airliner crash near Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport.

In 1987, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — the first winner from Central America. Arias was recognized for his work promoting democracy and peace in Central America.

File Photo by Gary C. Caskey/UPI

In 1990, Syrian forces moved into Lebanon, removing Christian militia leader General Michel Aoun from power, effectively ending the Lebanese Civil War.

In 1994, two months after the Irish Republican Army announced a cease-fire, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Freedom Fighters, the two main paramilitary groups fighting to keep Northern Ireland with its Protestant majority in the United Kingdom, announced a cease-fire.

In 2000, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung for his efforts to reconcile his country with North Korea through a summit earlier in the year with counterpart Kim Jong Il.

In 2010, after more than two months entombed half a mile under the Chilean desert, the first of 33 trapped miners was pulled to safety in a narrow passageway drilled through more than 2,000 feet of rock, to be followed in the next 24 hours by the rest of the crew in a dramatic finale to a remarkable rescue mission.

In 2013, a stampede by masses of worshipers crossing a bridge over the Sindh River at a Hindu festival in India’s Madhya Pradesh state killed more than 100 people and injured scores of others. A police official said people panicked as rumors spread that the bridge was collapsing.

In 2019, American Simone Biles became the most decorated gymnast in history with her record 25th gold medal at the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

In 2021, Star Trek actor William Shatner, at 90, became the oldest person to go to space. He traveled with three others aboard a Blue Origin capsule and returned 11 minutes after reaching space.

In 2024, SpaceX used a tower with arms to “catch” the 20-story-tall booster for its Starship rocket for the first time.

File Photo courtesy of SpaceX

Last month, in a special election, voters in southern Arizona chose Adelita Grijalva to succeed her late father in Congress.

The outcome in the solidly Democratic district was never in doubt. The final tally wasn’t remotely close.

Grijalva, a Tucson native and former Pima County supervisor, crushed her Republican opponent, 69% to 29%.

The people spoke, loudly and emphatically, and normally that would have been that. Grijalva would have assumed office by now, allowing her to serve her orphaned constituents by filling a House seat that’s been vacant since her father died in March, after representing portions of Arizona for more than 20 years.

But these are not normal times. These are times when everything, including the time of day and state of the weather, has become politically charged.

And so Grijalva is residing in limbo. Or, rather, at her campaign headquarters in Tucson, since she’s been locked out of her congressional office on Capitol Hill — the one her father used, which now has her name on a plaque outside. She’s been denied entry by Speaker Mike Johnson.

“It’s pretty horrible,” Grijalva said in an interview, “because regardless of whether I have an official office or not, constituents elected me and people are reaching out to me through every social media outlet.

“‘I have a question,’” they tell Grijalva, or “‘I’m afraid I’m going to get fired’ or ‘We need some sort of assistance.’”

All she can do is refer them to Arizona’s two U.S. senators.

House members are scattered across the country during the partial government shutdown and Johnson said he can’t possibly administer the oath of office to Grijalva during a pro forma session, a time when normal business — legislative debate, roll call votes — is not being conducted. “We have to have everybody here,” Johnson said, “and we’ll swear her in.”

But, lo, dear reader, are you sitting down?

It turns out there were two Republican lawmakers elected this year in special elections, each, as it happens from Florida. Both were sworn in the very next day … during pro forma sessions!

Shocked? Don’t be. In the Trump era, rules and standards are applied in flagrantly different ways, depending on which political party is involved.

But partisanship aside, what possible reason would Johnson have to stall Grijalva’s swearing-in? Here’s a clue: It involves a convicted sex trafficker and former buddy of President Trump, whose foul odor trails him like the reeking carcass of a beached whale.

Yes, it’s the late Jeffrey Epstein!

“On my very first day in Congress, I’ll sign the bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Grijalva said on the eve of her landslide election. “This is as much about fulfilling Congress’ duty as a constitutional check on this administration as it is about demanding justice for survivors.”

Jeffrey Epstein. Gone but very much unforgotten.

For years, his perversions have been an obsession among those, mainly on the right, who believe a “deep state” cover-up has protected the rich and powerful who partnered with women procured by Epstein. After Trump’s marionette attorney general, Pam Bondi, suggested a client list was sitting on her desk, awaiting release, the Justice Department abruptly reversed course.

There was no such list, it announced, and Epstein definitely committed suicide and wasn’t, as the conspiracy-minded suggest, murdered by those wishing to silence him.

Trump, who palled around with Epstein, urged everyone to move along. Naturally, Johnson fell into immediate lockstep. (Bondi, for her part, tap-danced through a contentious Senate hearing last week, repeatedly sidestepping questions about the Epstein-Trump relationship, including whether photos exist of the president alongside “half-naked young women.”)

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a GOP lawmaker and persistent Trump irritant, and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna have led the bipartisan effort to force the Justice Department to cough up the government’s unclassified records related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend and fellow sex trafficker.

The discharge petition, overriding the objections of Trump and Johnson and forcing the House to vote on release of the files, needs at least 218 signatures, which constitutes a majority of the 435 members. The petition has been stalled for weeks, just one signature shy of ratification.

Enter Grijalva.

Or not.

Johnson, who may be simply delaying an inevitable House vote to curry Trump’s favor, insists the Epstein matter has “nothing to do with” his refusal to seat Grivalja.

Righto.

And planets don’t revolve around the sun, hot air doesn’t rise and gravity doesn’t bring falling leaves to Earth.

More than 200 Democratic House members have affixed their signatures to the petition, along with four Republicans — Massie and Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The latter three are all MAGA stalwarts who have bravely broken ranks with Trump to stand up for truth and the victims of Epstein’s ravages.

“Aren’t we all against convicted pedophiles and anyone who enables them?” Greene asked in an interview with Axios.

Most are, one would assume. But apparently not everybody.

WASHINGTON — Heather Campbell lost her job working for a food bank over the summer because of federal funding cuts. Her husband serves as an officer in the Air Force, but now he’s facing the prospect of missing his next paycheck because of the government shutdown.

If lawmakers in Washington don’t step in, Campbell’s husband won’t get paid on Wednesday. Because the couple lacks the savings to cover all their expenses, they expect to survive on credit cards to pay the mortgage and feed their three children, racking up debt as the political stalemate drags on.

“You’re asking us to put our lives on the line or the people we love to put their lives on the line,” said Campbell, 39, who lives outside Montgomery, Alabama, near Maxwell Air Force Base. “And you’re not even going to give us our paycheck. What? There is a lot of broken trust there.”

The nation’s third shutdown in 12 years is once again raising anxiety levels among service members and their families because those in uniform are working without pay. While they would receive back pay once the impasse ends, many military families live paycheck to paycheck. During previous shutdowns, Congress passed legislation to ensure that troops kept earning their salaries, but time is running out before they miss their first paycheck in less than a week.

“There are so many things that Congress can’t agree on right now,” said Kate Horrell, the wife of a Navy veteran whose Washington, D.C., company provides financial advice to military families. “I don’t want to assume that they’re going to be able to agree on this.”

Paying the troops has support, but it’s unclear when a deal might pass

When asked if he would support a bill to pay the troops, President Donald Trump said, “that probably will happen.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Trump said Wednesday. “Our military is always going to be taken care of.”

Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican and former Navy helicopter pilot, has introduced a measure to maintain military and Coast Guard salaries, and it has bipartisan co-sponsors.

The House is closed for business until next week, leaving two days to take action before Wednesday’s payday. Missed paychecks for military service members are among the most serious pressure points in the shutdown, causing political pain for the lawmakers. Several proposals have been floated for voting on stand-alone legislation that would ensure no interruption in pay, but those are not expected to be brought up for consideration, for now.

Amanda Scott, whose husband is an Air Force officer in Colorado, said the uncertainty goes beyond the stress of just getting by — it chips away at the military’s ability to retain the best people and their readiness to fight.

“How ready and lethal are you if you don’t know if you can feed your family?” said Scott, 33, of Colorado Springs, who works for a defense contractor and volunteers as an advocate for military families. “A lot of these service members are highly skilled and can go out and make much more money in the civilian sector.”

Aid is available for service members, but it’s not enough for some families

Support is available for military families through nonprofits and charities. For example, some financial institutions are offering zero-interest loans, while each military branch has a relief organization.

But Campbell said she and her husband in Alabama can’t apply for a payday loan because they’re refinancing their house. They lack a substantial emergency fund because they were paying off student loans and moved several times in the last few years to military posts. It was often challenging for her to find steady work and child care.

“The opportunity to build up savings is really difficult on just one income,” Campbell said. “I don’t know many military families that have a month’s worth of income set aside just in case, let alone multiple months’ worth.”

Jen Cluff, whose husband recently left the Air Force, said her family was on a food aid program during the 2019 shutdown. But even the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC, which helps more than 6 million low-income mothers and young children, would run out of federal money within two weeks unless the shutdown ends, experts say.

“We made so little and had three young children,” said Cluff, 42, of San Antonio. “We were definitely a family that had very little buffer.”

If Congress had not passed legislation to pay troops during the last shutdown, missing more than two paychecks “would have been catastrophic for us,” she said.

“Resentment can grow quickly,” Cluff said of the shutdown, adding that “the general public, and many in government, truly don’t understand the daily sacrifices our military members and their families make for our country.”

Wider effects feared in military-heavy areas

The economic impact will ripple through regions with large military footprints, like coastal Virginia, home to the nation’s largest Navy base and several other installations. The area’s 88,000 active duty service members and their families likely have pulled back significantly on spending, said Rick Dwyer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, an advocacy group.

“Think about service members who are deployed right now around the world,” said Dwyer, who served in the Air Force during previous shutdowns. “They’re having to wonder if their families are going to be able to pay the rent, the child care bills, the car payments.”

A shutdown contingency plan posted on the Pentagon’s website cites the use of funds to continue military operations from Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill. The Congressional Budget Office has said money appropriated to the Defense Department under the new law could be used to pay active duty personnel.

It was not clear if the funding would be used for that. The Pentagon said Thursday that it could not provide information “at this time.”

Its contingency plan says it will “continue to defend the nation and conduct ongoing military operations” as well as activities “necessary for the safety of human life and the protection of property.”

Listed among the highest priorities are securing the U.S.-Mexico border, operations in the Middle East and the future Golden Dome missile defense program. The plan also noted that “child care activities required for readiness” would continue.

Raleigh Smith Duttweiler, chief impact officer for the National Military Family Association, said most child development centers on military bases are still operating. But she said most service members pay for child care off base.

“Last I checked, my kids’ babysitter doesn’t take an IOU from the federal government,” said Duttweiler, whose husband is a Marine.

Finley writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — It has been four months since Elon Musk, President Trump’s bureaucratic demolition man, abandoned Washington in a flurry of recriminations and chaos.

But the Trump administration’s crusade to dismantle much of the federal government never ended. It’s merely under new management: the less colorful but more methodical Russell Vought, director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.

Vought has become the backroom architect of Trump’s aggressive strategy — slashing the federal workforce, freezing billions in congressionally approved spending in actions his critics often call illegal.

Now Vought has proposed using the current government shutdown as an opportunity to fire thousands of bureaucrats permanently instead of merely furloughing them temporarily. If any do return to work, he has suggested that the government need not give them back pay — contrary to a law Trump signed in 2019.

Those threats may prove merely to be pressure tactics as Trump tries to persuade Democrats to accept spending cuts on Medicaid, Obamacare and other programs.

But the shutdown battle is the current phase of a much larger one. Vought’s long-term goals, he says, are to “bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will” and “deconstruct the administrative state.”

He’s still only partway done.

“I’d estimate that Vought has implemented maybe 10% or 15% of his program,” said Donald F. Kettl, former dean of the public policy school at the University of Maryland. “There may be as much as 90% to go. If this were a baseball game, we’d be in the top of the second inning.”

Along the way, Vought (pronounced “vote”) has chipped relentlessly at Congress’ ability to control the use of federal funds, massively expanding the power of the president.

“He has waged the most serious attack on separation of powers in American history,” said Elaine Kamarck, an expert on federal management at the Brookings Institution.

He’s done that mainly by using OMB, the White House office that oversees spending, to control the day-to-day purse strings of federal agencies — and deliberately keeping Congress in the dark along the way.

“If Congress has given us authority that is too broad, then we’re going to use that authority aggressively,” Vought said last month.

Federal judges have ruled some of the administration’s actions illegal, but they have allowed others to stand. Vought’s proposal to use the shutdown to fire thousands of bureaucrats hasn’t been tested in court.

Vought developed his aggressive approach during two decades as a conservative budget expert, culminating in his appointment as director of OMB in Trump’s first term.

In 2019, he stretched the limits of presidential power by helping Trump get around a congressional ban on funding for a border wall, by declaring an emergency and transferring military funds. He froze congressionally mandated aid for Ukraine, the action that led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Even so, Vought complained that Trump had been needlessly restrained by cautious first-term aides.

“The lawyers come in and say, ‘It’s not legal. You can’t do that,’” he said in 2023. “I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office over whether something is legal.”

Vought is a proponent of the “unitary executive” theory, the argument that the president should have unfettered control over every tentacle of the executive branch, including independent agencies such as the Federal Reserve.

When Congress designates money for federal programs, he has argued, “It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor. It’s not the notion that you have to spend every dollar.”

Most legal experts disagree; a 1974 law prohibits the president from unilaterally withholding money Congress has appropriated.

Vought told conservative activists in 2023 that if Trump returned to power, he would deliberately seek to inflict “trauma” on federal employees.

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work.”

When Vought returned to OMB for Trump’s second term, he appeared to be in Musk’s shadow. But once the flamboyant Tesla chief executive flamed out, the OMB director got to work to make DOGE’s work the foundation for lasting changes.

He extended many of DOGE’s funding cuts by slowing down OMB’s approval of disbursements — turning them into de facto freezes.

He helped persuade Republicans in Congress to cancel $9 billion in previously approved foreign aid and public broadcasting support, a process known as “rescission.”

To cancel an additional $4.9 billion, he revived a rarely used gambit called a “pocket rescission,” freezing the funds until they expired.

Along the way, he quietly stopped providing Congress with information on spending, leaving legislators in the dark on whether programs were being axed.

DOGE and OMB eliminated jobs so quickly that the federal government stopped publishing its ongoing tally of federal employees. (Any number would only be approximate; some layoffs are tied up in court, and thousands of employees who opted for voluntary retirement are technically still on the payroll.)

The result was a significant erosion of Congress’ “power of the purse,” which has historically included not only approving money but also monitoring how it was spent.

Even some Republican members of Congress seethed. “They would like a blank check … and I don’t think that’s appropriate,” said former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

But the GOP majorities in both the House and Senate, pleased to see spending cut by any means, let Vought have his way. Even McConnell voted to approve the $9-billion rescission request.

Vought’s newest innovation, the mid-shutdown layoffs, would be another big step toward reducing Congress’ role.

“The result would be a dramatic, instantaneous shift in the separation of powers,” Kettl said. “The Trump team could kill programs unilaterally without the inconvenience of going to Congress.”

Some of the consequences could be catastrophic, Kettl and other scholars warned. Kamarck calls them “time bombs.”

“One or more of these decisions is going to blow up in Trump’s face,” she said.

“FEMA won’t be capable of reacting to the next hurricane. The National Weather Service won’t have the forecasters it needs to analyze the data from weather balloons.”

Even before the government shutdown, she noted, the FAA was grappling with a shortage of air traffic controllers. This week the FAA slowed takeoffs at several airports in response to growing shortages, including at air traffic control centers in Atlanta, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

In theory, a future Congress could undo many of Vought’s actions, especially if Democrats win control of the House or, less likely, the Senate.

But rebuilding agencies that have been radically shrunken would take much longer than cutting them down, the scholars said.

“Much of this will be difficult to reverse when Democrats come back into fashion,” Kamarck said.

Indeed, that’s part of Vought’s plan.

“We want to make sure that the bureaucracy can’t reconstitute itself later in future administrations,” he said in April in a podcast with Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was slain on Sept. 10.

He’s pleased with the progress he’s made, he told reporters in July.

“We’re having fun,” he said.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Unlike eight previous attempts to remove the president, almost all legislative factions expressed support for the move.

Peru’s Congress has voted to remove President Dina Boluarte, among the world’s most unpopular leaders, in a late-night session called hours after political parties from across the spectrum called for her impeachment, as the nation fights an intensive crime wave.

Politicians voted late Thursday into Friday to debate her removal from office on grounds of “moral incapacity” and summoned her to defend herself before Congress an hour later.

The stunning turn of events came just hours after a shooting at a concert in the capital inflamed anger over crime roiling the South American nation.

Legislators had voted to accept four requests for a vote to remove Boluarte from office over what they said was her government’s inability to stem crime. They exceeded the minimum 56 votes required for each request, setting up a debate and impeachment trial in the 130-member unicameral Congress.

They then requested that Boluarte come before them on Thursday shortly before midnight to defend herself, but when she did not appear, they immediately voted to oust her. In short order, 124 lawmakers voted just past midnight to impeach Boluarte.

Unlike eight previous attempts to remove her, almost all legislative factions expressed support for the latest requests.

On October 7, 2025, Congress Park Capital LLC disclosed buying 10,764 shares of Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM), an estimated $2.54 million trade for the quarter.

What happened

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission dated October 7, 2025, Congress Park Capital LLC increased its position in Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM) by 10,764 shares during Q3 2025. The estimated transaction value, based on the period’s average price, was $2.54 million. The fund reported holding 32,844 shares, worth $8.12 million.

What else to know

This was a buy; QQQM now represents 2.5% of Congress Park Capital LLC’s 13F reportable assets under management.

Top holdings after the filing:

• NYSE:JFR: $22.57 million (7.0% of AUM)
• NYSEMKT:IVV: $19.64 million (6.1% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:GOOGL: $16.03 million (5.0% of AUM)
• NYSE:NEA: $13.07 million (4.1% of AUM)
• NASDAQ:AMZN: $13.05 million (4.1% of AUM)

As of October 7, 2025, shares were priced at $248.85, up 25.4% over the past year, outperforming the S&P 500 by 8.0 percentage points

Company overview

Company snapshot

Investment strategy: Seeks to track the performance of the Nasdaq-100 Index by investing at least 90% of assets in the underlying securities, providing exposure to 100 of the largest nonfinancial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Underlying holdings: The portfolio consists of securities from 100 of the largest nonfinancial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and has a non-diversified structure.

Expense ratio and structure: The fund operates as a passively managed ETF that tracks an index.

The Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM) offers investors targeted access to the Nasdaq-100 Index, representing some of the largest and most innovative nonfinancial companies traded on the Nasdaq exchange. The fund’s scale, with a market capitalization of $6.92 billion as of October 8, 2025, provides exposure to some of the largest nonfinancial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange. By mirroring the index methodology and maintaining a transparent, rules-based approach, QQQM offers exposure to 100 of the largest nonfinancial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Its disciplined strategy and non-diversified holdings reinforce its role as an index-tracking equity allocation.

Foolish take

Congress Park Capital increased its holdings in Invesco’s popular NASDAQ 100 ETF, which holds the 100 biggest nonfinancial companies in the NASDAQ, to nearly 33,000 shares worth over $8 million as of Q3 2025. This purchase of what amounts to an additional approximately 50% of the institution’s original holdings shows a great deal of conviction in the stock, and for good reason. It’s up 25% in the last year, and up over 107% over the last five years.

The tech-heavy NASDAQ has seen a lot of growth from companies across the spectrum, and much of its weight is currently coming from various AI plays. This includes chipmakers, software companies, and even AI startups that are looking for new ways to leverage the technology. In addition, public companies acting as Bitcoin holding companies are often members of the NASDAQ, and with the rapid increase in Bitcoin value, that’s certainly not hurt QQQM at all.

Investors seeking exposure to the NASDAQ who are looking to minimize downside risk may find what they’re looking for in QQQM, and Congress Park Capital has certainly indicated an interest in furthering its investment in the stock with this purchase.

Glossary

ETF: Exchange-Traded Fund; a fund that trades on stock exchanges and holds a basket of securities.

13F reportable AUM: Assets under management that must be disclosed in quarterly SEC Form 13F filings by institutional investment managers.

Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of investments managed on behalf of clients by a fund or firm.

Dividend yield: Annual dividends paid by an investment divided by its current price, expressed as a percentage.

Total return: The investment’s price change plus all dividends and distributions, assuming those payouts are reinvested.

Index-tracking: An investment strategy aiming to replicate the performance of a specific market index.

Non-diversified structure: A fund that invests in a limited number of securities, increasing exposure to individual holdings.

Expense ratio: The annual fee, as a percentage of assets, that a fund charges to cover operating expenses.

Passively managed: A fund management style that seeks to mirror an index rather than actively select securities.

Underlying securities: The individual stocks or assets that make up an ETF or fund’s portfolio.

Outperforming: Achieving a higher return than a benchmark or comparable investment over a specified period.

Rules-based approach: An investment strategy that follows predetermined, systematic criteria for selecting and weighting securities.

WASHINGTON — A president looking to seize power beyond the executive branch. A Congress controlled by Republican lawmakers unwilling to directly defy him. And a minority party looking for any way to fight back.

The dynamic left Washington in a stalemate Thursday — the ninth day of the government shutdown — and lawmakers openly venting their frustration as they tried to gain traction without the trust that is typically the foundation of any bipartisan deal.

“To have good-faith conversations, you have to have trust. There’s a real challenge of trust,” said Rep. Brad Schneider, chair of the New Democratic Coalition, a pragmatic group of House Democrats.

Groups of lawmakers — huddled over dinners, on phone calls, and in private meetings — have tried to brainstorm ways out of the standoff that has shuttered government offices, kept hundreds of thousands of federal employees at home and threatened to leave them without a scheduled payday. But lawmakers have found themselves running up against the reality that the relationship between the two parties is badly broken.

The frustration was evident this week as House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, on separate occasions, engaged in tense exchanges in the Capitol hallways with members of the opposing party.

“We’re in an environment where we need more than a handshake,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat who has engaged in talks with Republicans.

President Trump and Republicans have so far held to the stance that they will only negotiate on Democratic demands around health care benefits after they vote to reopen the government. They also say Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer is beholden to the left wing of his party and only staging the shutdown fight to stave off a primary challenge.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, told Punchbowl News in an interview that Democrats were winning the shutdown fight, saying, “Every day gets better for us.”

Republicans quickly seized on those comments, arguing it showed that Schumer is approaching the shutdown with purely political motives.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune stood on the Senate floor flanked by a poster printed with Schumer’s words.

“This isn’t a political game. Democrats might feel that way, but I don’t know anybody else that does,” said Thune, a South Dakota Republican. “The longer this goes on, the more the American people realize that Democrats own this shutdown.”

Schumer, in his own floor speech, responded that it was Trump and Republicans who are “playing with people’s lives.”

“Every day that Republicans refuse to negotiate to end this shutdown, the worse it gets for Americans and the clearer it becomes who is fighting for them,” said the New York senator.

When a handshake deal is not enough

Democrats have insisted they can’t take Trump at his word and therefore need more than a verbal commitment for any deal.

Conflicts over spending power had already been raging before the shutdown as the White House pushed to assert maximum power over congressionally approved budgets. The White House budget office had canceled scores of government contracts, including cutting out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.”

That enraged Democrats — and disturbed some Republicans who criticized it as executive overreach.

“I hate rescissions, to be honest with you, unless they’re congressionally approved,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican.

Matt Glassman, a fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, said the president’s use of rescissions was “blowing up the underlying dynamic of the bargaining” because it inserts intense partisanship into the budget appropriations process that otherwise requires compromise, particularly in the Senate.

Then, as the government entered a shutdown, Trump’s budget director Russ Vought laid out arguments that the president would have even more power to lay off workers and even cancel pay due to furloughed federal workers once the funding lapse is solved. Vought has also announced that the administration was withholding billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in states with Democratic senators who have voted for the shutdown.

Trump has cast Vought’s actions as the consequences of Democratic obstruction, even sharing a video that depicted him as the grim reaper. But on Capitol Hill, there has been an acknowledgment that the hardball tactics are making it harder to negotiate.

“I think with senators, carrots work better than sticks,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican.

One Democratic idea may win GOP support

Before they vote to reopen the government, Democrats’ main demand is that Congress take up an extension of tax credits for health plans offered on Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Trump has sounded open to a deal, saying that he wants “great health care” for Americans.

What’s received less attention is that Democrats also want new safeguards in the law limiting the White House’s ability to claw back, or rescind, funding already approved by Congress. While final appropriations bills are still being worked out, Republicans have been open to the idea.

“When you end the shutdown and get back to regular order within the appropriations bills, there’s very clear language about how we feel about rescissions,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I think you’ll find hard, solid support from Republicans to see that what we agree to will be executed on.”

In the meantime, the main sticking point for lawmakers this week has been finding any agreement on extending the health care subsidies.

The consequences of an extended shutdown

As the shutdown drags on without sign of significant progress to ending the impasse, lawmakers are looking ahead to the dates when federal employees will miss a payday.

Active-duty military troops would miss a paycheck on Oct. 15. Some lawmakers are getting nervous about both the financial implications for the troops and the political blowback of allowing soldiers to go without pay.

As House Speaker Mike Johnson fielded questions on C-SPAN Thursday morning, one caller pleaded with him to pass legislation that would allow the military to get paid during the government shutdown.

The woman, identified as Samantha, said her husband serves in the military and that they “live paycheck to paycheck.”

She pleaded with Johnson to call the House back to Washington, saying, “You could stop this.”

Johnson said he was sorry to hear about her situation, blamed Democrats for refusing to pass a stop-gap spending bill and added, “I am angry because of situations just like yours.”

Groves, Jalonick and Brown write for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty Wednesday to face a criminal case that has thrown a spotlight on the Justice Department’s efforts to target adversaries of President Trump.

The arraignment is expected to be brief, but the moment is nonetheless loaded with significance given that the case has amplified concerns the Justice Department is being weaponized in pursuit of Trump’s political enemies and is operating at the behest of a White House determined to seek retribution for perceived wrongs against the president.

Comey entered a not guilty plea through his lawyer at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., to allegations that he lied to Congress five years go. The plea kick-starts a process of legal wrangling in which defense lawyers will almost certainly move to get the indictment dismissed before trial, possibly by arguing the case amounts to a selective or vindictive prosecution.

The indictment two weeks ago followed an extraordinary chain of events that saw Trump publicly implore Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against Comey and other perceived adversaries. The Republican president also replaced the veteran attorney who had been overseeing the investigation with Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide who had never previously served as a federal prosecutor. Halligan rushed to file charges before a legal deadline lapsed despite warnings from other lawyers in the office that the evidence was insufficient for an indictment.

What the indictment says

The two-count indictment alleges that Comey made a false statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020, by denying he had authorized an associate to serve as an anonymous source to the news media and that he obstructed a congressional proceeding. Comey has denied any wrongdoing and has said he was looking forward to a trial. The indictment does not identify the associate or say what information may have been discussed with the media, making it challenging to assess the strength of the evidence or to even fully parse the allegations.

Though an indictment is typically just the start of a protracted court process, the Justice Department has trumpeted the development itself as something of a win, regardless of the outcome. Trump administration officials are likely to point to any conviction as proof the case was well-justified, but an acquittal or even dismissal may also be held up as further support for their long-running contention the criminal justice system is stacked against them.

The judge was nominated by Biden

The judge randomly assigned to the case, Michael Nachmanoff, was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and is a former chief federal defender. Known for methodical preparation and a cool temperament, the judge and his background have already drawn Trump’s attention, with the president deriding him as a “Crooked Joe Biden appointed Judge.”

Besides Comey, the Justice Department is also investigating other foes of the president, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

Several Comey family members arrived in court Wednesday morning ahead of the arraignment, including his daughter Maurene, who was fired by the Justice Department earlier this year from her position as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, as well as Troy Edwards Jr., a son-in-law of Comey’s who minutes after Comey was indicted resigned his job as a prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia — the same office that filed the charges.

Trump and Comey’s fraught relationship

The indictment was the latest chapter in a long-broken relationship between Trump and Comey.

Trump arrived in office in January 2017 as Comey, appointed to the FBI director job by President Obama four years earlier, was overseeing an investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The dynamic was fraught from the start, with Comey briefing Trump weeks before he took office on the existence of uncorroborated and sexually salacious gossip in a dossier of opposition research compiled by a former British spy.

In their first several private interactions, Comey would later reveal, Trump asked his FBI director to pledge his loyalty to him and to drop an FBI investigation into his administration’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Comey said Trump also asked him to announce that Trump himself was not under investigation as part of the broader inquiry into Russian election interference, something Comey did not do.

Comey was abruptly fired in May 2017 while at an event in Los Angeles, with Trump later saying he was thinking about “this Russia thing” when he decided to terminate him. The firing was investigated by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller as an act of potential obstruction of justice.

Comey in 2018 published a memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” that painted Trump in deeply unflattering ways, likening him to a mafia don and characterizing him as unethical and “untethered to truth.”

Trump, for his part, continued to angrily vent at Comey as the Russia investigation led by Mueller dominated headlines for the next two years and shadowed his first administration. On social media, he repeatedly claimed Comey should face charges for “treason” — an accusation Comey dismissed as “dumb lies” — and called him an “untruthful slime ball.”

Tucker, Richer and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. Tucker reported from Washington.

WASHINGTON  — Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi struck a defiant tone Tuesday during a Senate hearing where she dodged a series of questions about brewing scandals that have dogged her agency.

Bondi, a Trump loyalist, refused to discuss her conversations with the White House about the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey and the deployment of federal troops to Democrat-run cities.

She deflected questions about an alleged bribery scheme involving the president’s border advisor and declined to elaborate on her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

In many instances, Bondi’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee devolved into personal attacks against Democrats, who expressed dismay at their inability to get her to answer their inquiries.

“This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answers to serious questions about the cover-up of corruption about the prosecution of the president’s enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said toward the end of the nearly five-hour hearing. “When will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions?”

Her testimony came as the Justice Department faces increased accusations that it is being weaponized against President Trump’s political foes.

It marked a continuation of what has become a hallmark of not just Bondi, but most of Trump’s top officials. When pressed on potential scandals that the president has taken great pains to publicly avoid, they almost universally turn to one tactic: ignore and attack the questioner.

That strategy was shown in an exchange between Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who wanted to know who decided to close an investigation into Trump border advisor Tom Homan. Homan reportedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents after indicating he could get them government contracts. Bondi declined to say and shifted the focus to Padilla.

“I wish that you loved your state of California as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi said. “We’d be in really good shape then because violent crime in California is currently 35% higher than the national average.”

In between partisan attacks, the congressional hearing allowed Bondi to boast about her eight months in office. She said her focus has been on combating illegal immigration, violent crime and restoring public trust in the Justice Department, which she said Biden-era officials weaponized against Trump.

“They wanted to take President Trump off the playing field,” she said about the effort to indict Trump. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day. We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime.”

She defended the administration’s deployment of federal troops to Washington, D.C., and Chicago, where she said troops had been sent on Tuesday. Bondi declined to say whether the White House consulted her on the deployment of troops to American cities but said the effort is meant to “protect” citizens from violent crime.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) asked about the legal justification for the military shooting vessels crossing the Carribbean Sea off Venezuela. The administration has said the boats are carrying drugs, but Coons told Bondi that “Congress has never authorized such a use of military force.”

“It’s unclear to me how the administration has concluded that the strikes are legal,” Coons said.

Bondi told Coons she would not discuss the legal advice her department has given to the president on the matter but said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “is a narcoterrorist,” and that “drugs coming from Venezuela are killing our children at record levels.”

Coons said he was “gravely concerned” that she was not leading a department that is making decisions that are in “keeping with the core values of the Constitution.” As another example, he pointed to Trump urging her to prosecute his political adversaries, such as Comey.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) the top Democrat on the committee, raised a similar concern at the beginning of the hearing, saying Bondi has “systematically weaponized our nation’s leading law enforcement agency to protect President Trump and his allies.”

“In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history,” Durbin said. “It will take decades to recover.”

WASHINGTON — Democrats believe healthcare is an issue that resonates with a majority of Americans as they demand an extension of subsidies for their votes to reopen the shuttered U.S. government. But it is also one of the most intractable issues in Congress — and a real compromise is unlikely to be easy, or quick.

There are some Republicans in Congress who want to extend the higher subsidies, which were first put in place in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as millions of people who receive their insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces are set to receive notices that their premiums will increase at the beginning of the year. But many GOP lawmakers are strongly opposed to any extension — and see the debate as a new opportunity to cut back on the program altogether.

“If Republicans govern by poll and fail to grab this moment, they will own it,” wrote Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican, in a letter published in the the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. He encouraged senators not to go “wobbly” on the issue.

“The jig is up, the pandemic is over and my colleagues shouldn’t blink in any other direction,” Roy wrote.

Republicans have been railing against the Affordable Care Act, former President Obama’s signature healthcare law, since it was enacted 15 years ago. But while they have been able to chip away at it, they have not been able to substantially alter it as a record 24 million people are now signed up for insurance coverage through the ACA, in large part because billions of dollars in subsidies have made the plans more affordable for many people.

Now, some of them see the Democrats’ fight as their chance to revisit the issue — putting Republican congressional leaders and President Trump in a complicated position as the government shutdown enters its seventh day and hundreds of thousands of federal workers are going unpaid.

“I am happy to work with Democrats on their Failed Healthcare Policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our Government to reopen,” Trump wrote on social media Monday night, walking back earlier comments saying there were ongoing negotiations with Democrats.

Waiting for the other side to blink

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has repeatedly indicated that Republicans are open to extending the subsidies, with reforms, if Democrats would reopen the government. But he has refused to negotiate until that happens — and has suggested Trump will be key to the eventual outcome.

Thune told reporters Monday “there may be a path forward” on ACA subsidies, but stressed, “I think a lot of it would come down to where the White House lands on that.”

Many GOP senators argue the only path forward is to overhaul the law. “The whole problem with all of this is Obamacare,” said Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

Most House Republicans agree, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has been noncommittal on discussions.

“Obamacare is not working,” Johnson said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re trying to fix it.”

Democrats believe that public sentiment is on their side and argue that Trump and Republicans will have to come to the negotiating table as people who are enrolled in the program, many of whom live in Republican districts and states, are notified that their rates will increase.

“All I can tell you is the American people feel very deeply about solving this healthcare crisis,” Schumer said after the Senate rejected a House-passed bill to reopen the government for the fifth time Monday evening. “Every poll we have seen shows they want us to do it, and they feel that the Republicans are far more responsible for the shutdown than we are.”

Bipartisan talks face difficulties

With leaders at odds, some rank-and-file senators in both parties have been in private talks to try to find a way out of the shutdown. Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota has suggested extending the subsidies for a year and then phasing them out. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) has suggested pushing ahead with a group of bipartisan spending bills that are pending and a commitment to discuss the healthcare issue.

But many Democrats say a commitment isn’t good enough, and Republicans say they need deeper reforms — leaving the talks, and the U.S. government, at a standstill.

Maine Sen. Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, voted with Republicans to keep the government open. But he said Monday that he might switch his vote to “no” if Republicans do not “offer some real solid evidence that they are going to help us with this crisis” on healthcare.

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said his party is “not budging,” however. “First and foremost, before we can talk about anything, they need to reopen the government.”

Some Republicans urge action on healthcare

Still, some Republicans say they are open to extending the subsidies — even if they don’t like them — as it becomes clear that their constituents will face rising costs.

“I’m willing to consider various reforms, but I think we have to do something,” said Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. He said Congress should address the issue “sooner rather than later” before open enrollment begins Nov. 1.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she is “not a fan” of Obamacare but indicated she might vote to extend it.

“I’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” she posted on social media Monday evening.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro, Matt Brown, Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves and Joey Cappalletti contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration warned on Tuesday of no guaranteed back pay for federal workers during a government shutdown, reversing what has been long-standing policy for some 750,000 furloughed employees, according to a memo being circulated by the White House.

Trump signed into law after the longest government shutdown in 2019 legislation that ensures federal workers receive back pay during any federal funding lapse. But in the new memo, his Office of Management and Budget says back pay must be provided by Congress, if it chooses to do so, as part of any bill to fund the government.

The move by the Republican administration was widely seen as a strong-arm tactic — a way to pressure lawmakers to reopen the government, now in the seventh day of a shutdown.

“There are some people that don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way,” Trump said during an event at the White House.

He said back pay “depends on who we’re talking about.”

Refusing retroactive pay to the workers, some of whom must remain on the job as essential employees, would be a stark departure from norms and practices and almost certainly would be met with legal action.

While federal workers — as well as service members of the military — have often missed paychecks during past shutdowns, they are almost always reimbursed once the government reopens.

“That should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference at the Capitol.

Johnson, a lawyer, said he hadn’t fully read the memo but “there are some legal analysts who are saying” that it may not be necessary or appropriate to repay the federal workers.

But Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington blasted the Trump administration as defying the law.

“Another baseless attempt to try and scare & intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards,” said Murray, who is the ranking lawmaker on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “The letter of the law is as plain as can be — federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their back pay following a shutdown.”

Asked a second time about back pay for furloughed federal workers given that the requirement is spelled out in law, Trump said: “I follow the law, and what the law says is correct.”

In a single-page memo from Trump’s Office of Management and Budget under Russ Vought, first reported by Axios, the office’s general counsel seeks to lay out a legal rationale for no back pay of federal workers.

The memo explains that while the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 says workers shall be paid after federal funding is restored, it argues the action is not self-executing. Instead, the memo says, repaying the federal workers would have to be part of legislation to reopen the government.

The OMB analysis draws on language familiar to budget experts by suggesting that the 2019 bill created an authorization to pay the federal workers but not the actual appropriation.

Congress, it says, is able to decide whether it wants to pay the workers or not.

For now, Congress remains at a standstill, with neither side — nor the White House — appearing willing to budge. Democrats are fighting for healthcare funds to prevent a lapse in federal subsidies that threaten to send insurance rates skyrocketing. Republicans say the issue can be dealt with later.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Will Weissert, Kevin Freking, Joey Cappelletti and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — Regardless of all the campaign jabber, Proposition 50 is not about saving democracy, stopping power grabs or veering off the moral high road. It’s about which political party controls Congress.

Or whether Republicans and Democrats share the power.

It’s also about exerting some control over unhinged President Trump. That would happen if voters across America next year flip the House of Representatives from Republican to Democrat, ending one-party rule of the federal government. Proposition 50 could help do that.

Does an obedient Republican Congress continue to allow Trump to walk all over it? Or does a new Democrat-led House exercise its constitutional duty to provide checks and balances over the executive branch?

This is what’s potentially at stake in California’s special election on Nov. 4. And it’s mostly what has motivated political donors to kick in an astronomical $128 million so far for the fight.

But let’s back up.

For many decades, state legislators drew their own districts — gerrymandering them to blatantly help themselves and their party win elections. And with some creative hands from California’s House delegation, Sacramento’s lawmakers also gerrymandered congressional districts.

It was unethical but perfectly legal. The final straw came in 2001 when legislators of both parties conspired to draw districts that protected every incumbent, whether Democrat or Republican.

California voters finally had enough and in 2008 banned gerrymandering. They assigned legislative redistricting to an independent bipartisan citizens’ commission. In 2010, voters also gave the panel responsibility for drawing House seats.

It has worked great. Politicians no longer get to choose their own voters. And the districts have become much more competitive.

District maps have always been drawn at the beginning of each decade after the decennial census — until now.

This time, Trump got worried that Republicans could lose the House in next year’s elections — a fate that has often befallen a president’s party during a midterm.

So Trump pressured Texas Gov. Greg Abbott into orchestrating a mid-decade legislative gerrymandering of his state’s House districts, with the aim of gaining five more Republican seats. The president has also been browbeating other red states to rig their congressional lines.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly retaliated. He asked an eager Democrat-controlled Legislature to draw up new House maps designed to gain five new Democratic seats, neutralizing Texas’ action.

Democrats already outnumber Republicans in the California House delegation, 43 to 9. In Texas, Republicans hold 25 of the 38 House seats. Nationally, Democrats need to gain just three seats to retake House control.

Unlike in Texas, Newsom needs the voters’ permission to resume gerrymandering. That’s what Proposition 50 does, along with granting voter approval of proposed new weird-looking congressional maps drawn by Democratic lawmakers.

How weird? To make a new 2nd District Democrat-friendly, it was stretched hundreds of miles from the rural northeastern Oregon border southwestward into the urban San Francisco Bay Area.

Under the ballot measure, the independent commission would resume redistricting in 2031 after the next census. Proposition 50’s opponents contend Democrats can’t be trusted to keep the gerrymandering temporary.

And they’re hypocritically screaming about a “Newsom power grab” — without also pointing the finger at Trump and Abbott, who started this fight.

At its core, this is a brawl over raw political power. Forget any idealism.

Longtime Republican operative Jon Fleischman mixed his party’s principal talking point with reality in a recent blog:

“Prop. 50 is a naked power grab by Gavin Newsom,” he wrote.

“If it passes, five of nine safe GOP House seats in California will flip to safe Democrat, potentially flipping the House next year.”

In trying to rally Democratic voters — who outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 in California — Newsom frames Proposition 50 as essential for democracy.

“It’s all at stake,” the governor asserts, sounding a bit hyperbolic. “This is a profound and consequential moment in American history. We can lose this republic if we do not assert ourselves … and stand guard for the republic and our democracy.”

Come on, our republic will survive regardless of what happens to Newsom’s gerrymandering proposal — even if Trump does strain democracy.

Proposition 50 also is opposed on idealistic grounds — particularly by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and wealthy GOP donor Charles Munger Jr. Both were strong backers of creating the independent redistricting commission. Munger has contributed $33 million to the anti-50 effort.

“Gerrymanders are a cancer and mid-decade gerrymanders are metastasis,” Munger wrote in a New York Times op-ed last month.

If Democratic politicians gerrymander California, he asserted, “then they lose the moral high ground.”

Well, if this is the moral high ground we’re living in under the Trump regime, I’d like to move to another level.

My definition of a moral high ground doesn’t include a Congress that won’t push back against a bully president who cuts back millions in research aid to universities because he doesn’t like what they teach, who sics his own masked police force of unidentified agents on California residents, who sabotages our anti-pollution programs.

Isra Ahmad, a member of the independent commission, noted in a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece that “California has embraced [redistricting] equity and transparency while states like Texas entrench partisan advantage.”

And she asked: “Does taking the high road matter when your opponents are willing to play dirty?”

The answer: We should all play by the same rules — even if it unfortunately requires temporary gerrymandering. After Trump leaves, we can return to the high road.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: California voters were mailed inaccurate guides ahead of November special election
The interpersonal read: He’s a real pain for Gavin Newsom. And a rising Democratic star
The L.A. Times Special: In the biggest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history, some claim they were paid to sue

Until next week,
George Skelton

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