Johnson praises Trump for ‘pursuing peace with such determination and success‘
House speaker Mike Johnson has spent the first part of his press conference praising Donald Trump for “pursuing peace with such determination and success”, with regard to the hostage and prisoner exchange, along with the ceasefire in Gaza.
Per my earlier post, regarding the timing of the Senate votes today, it’s worth noting that the upper chamber will only vote on the House-passed funding bill that was written by Republicans, as Politico first reported.
Lawmakers do not plan to hold a vote on the dueling Democratic version, which includes several health care provisions – including the extension of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of this year.
We’re due to hear from the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, shortly.
Updated
Democratic lawmakers praise Trump for brokering Gaza ceasefire deal
Top Democratic leaders in Congress have praised Donald Trump for brokering a ceasefire deal in Gaza, which saw the release and exchange of the living Israeli hostages and almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners on Monday.
“Congratulations to President Trump for the historic Gaza agreement,” wrote senator Dick Durbin, of Illinois, who serves as the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “We know there are still critical elements to be negotiated and settled but the release of the Israeli hostages and the Palestinian prisoners is a good faith start. Now let’s negotiate a political ceasefire on Capitol Hill.”
The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, also piled praise on the White House. “I commend the enormous advocacy of the tireless hostage families, President Trump, his administration, and all who helped make this moment happen,” he said in a statement.
The chorus continued as former Democratic presidents Joe Biden and Bill Clinton gave credit to Trump and his team’s foreign diplomacy skills.
“The road to this deal was not easy. My Administration worked relentlessly to bring hostages home, get relief to Palestinian civilians, and end the war,” Biden said. “I commend President Trump and his team for their work to get a renewed ceasefire deal over the finish line.”
Former top CDC official says reversal of mass firings is causing 'instability and confusion'
More than a thousand employees at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received notice that they were losing their jobs on Friday in a move that erased entire offices and was partially reversed over the weekend.
It caused “instability and whiplash”, said Debra Houry, former chief medical officer at the CDC.
About 700 reduction in force (RIF) notifications were sent to employees in error, the Trump administration reportedly says, though there does not seem to be public evidence of an error. Another 600 terminated employees have not been reinstated.
“It seems like they just took a sledgehammer to the agency versus a scalpel,” Houry said. “The fact they brought half back already just shows they didn’t think through what they were doing.”
The entire staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a highly respected epidemiology journal, were terminated and then reinstated. So were employees working on global health and suicide prevention, as well as “disease detectives” and staff at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
But the entire human resources department is still gone, which will affect operations of the entire agency.
The Washington office is still cut, which “makes it difficult to communicate with Congress”, since they were the main channel for congressional inquiries, Houry said.
Staff with the CDC’s institutional review board, which reviews the design of studies, and the ethics office and oversees all conflicts and interests for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go.
In the next 30 days, some science protocols will be up for renewal by the institutional review board.
“They’ll have to be shut down,” Houry said.
Read more of Melody’s report below.
Government shutdown enters day 14, as House speaker says it’s ‘barreling toward one of the longest on record’
The government shutdown enters its 14th day, with little end in sight. On Monday, Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said it was “barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history”.
A reminder that the longest government shutdown on record lasted 35 days, during Trump’s first administration.
Johnson will host a press conference at 10am ET today, where we’ll bring you the latest. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers will also speak to the media at 11am ET on Capitol Hill.
The Senate is poised to take up the dueling funding bills – that have failed to clear the upper chamber repeatedly – later today. Votes are currently scheduled for 5:30pm ET.
Updated
Donald Trump touched back down at the White House in the early hours of Tuesday morning (local time).
Later he’ll welcome Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, to Washington for a bilateral lunch meeting. Milei is a close ally of Trump’s, and will benefit from an extraordinary $20bn cash bailout from the administration, as Argentina’s economy continues to suffer.
That meeting will be closed to the press as of now, but we’ll let you know if that changes.
We’ll also hear from Trump at 4pm ET, when he holds a ceremony to honor the late conservative activist, Charlie Kirk, with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.
China has hit back at accusations from the US that it is trying to hurt the world economy, as the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies appeared to re-escalate, amped up by aggressive rhetoric on both sides.
China’s commerce ministry said on Tuesday that the US was “threatening to intimidate” with the prospect of new tariffs on Chinese exports, “which is not the right way to get along with China”. Its spokesperson said that China would “fight to the end” in trade talks.
The comments came shortly after the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said China wanted to “to pull everybody else down with them” by damaging the world economy.
It follows the US and China starting to charge each other increased port fees on cargo ships, increasing trade tensions.
The US announced plans earlier this year to begin charging duties on China-linked ships to counter what it says are unfair maritime trade practices. Those tariffs – and retaliatory charges from China – came into effect on Tuesday.
State media said that Chinese-built ships would be exempt from the new measures.
The commerce ministry said on Monday that it had notified the US about the rare earth export controls Beijing announced last week in advance, contradicting comments made by the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, over the weekend that the US had not been warned.
Private equity acquisition of hospitals have led to an increase in deaths among emergency department patients receiving Medicare, according to a recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
It’s the latest in a series of recent studies illustrating that private equity acquisition of health facilities leads to worsening patient outcomes, including death.
“Each of them sort of comes up with the same result,” said Martin Kenney, distinguished professor in the department of human ecology at the University of California, Davis and author of Private Equity and the Demise of the Local. “Private equity takes over things in the medical field, quality goes down, prices go up,” Kenney explained.
Researchers found that private equity acquisition leads to increased deaths in nursing homes, increased post-operative complications for common inpatient surgeries and even an increase in medical conditions acquired in the hospital, such as bloodstream infections and injuries from falls.
Notably, the Department of Health and Human Services condemned private equity’s role in worsening patient outcomes toward the end of the Biden administration.
Donald Trump describes Time magazine photo of him as 'the worst of all time'
Donald Trump is unhappy with the photo of him used on the front of Time magazine, describing it as “the worst of all time”.
It is not the first time that Trump has been upset by a picture of himself. In March, he was ridiculed after publicly demanding the removal of a portrait at Colorado’s state capitol building, calling it “truly the worst”.
However, it now appears he is even more dissatisfied with the Time front cover. Here it is, make up your own minds as to whether it looks “really weird” or is a fair depiction of the president’s image:
On his Truth Social website, the president wrote:
Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time. They “disappeared” my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?
Updated
The firings of hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have been reversed, according to several reports citing officials familiar with the matter, and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest union representing federal workers.
On Friday, the White House budget office announced that as a result of the ongoing government shutdown, reductions in force (RIFs) across agencies have begun.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which houses the CDC, initially said that all employees that received layoff notices “were designated non-essential by their respective divisions”.
However, over the weekend, the administration rescinded more than half of the 1,300 termination notices it sent to public health officials at the CDC, according to Axios and Reuters, citing sources familiar. Around 600 people at the agency remain fired.
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), informally known as “disease detectives”, as well as the team that compiles the widely respected scientific journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, were among the employees reinstated.
Barack Obama took aim at institutions and businesses who made deals or worked out settlements with the Trump administration, noting on a new podcast episode: “We all have this capacity, I think, to take a stand.”
In a talk with Marc Maron on the comedian’s last edition of his long-running WTF With Marc Maron, the former US president said institutions – including law firms, universities and businesses – that have changed course during the Trump administration should have stood by their convictions.
Instead of bending to the administration, Obama noted that universities should say: “This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for. Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”
He also noted that the organizations that did concede to Trump should be able to say: “We’re not going to be bullied into saying that we can only hire people or promote people based on some criteria that’s been cooked up by Steve Miller,” in reference to the top White House aide and architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy.
Republican and Democratic senators Lindsey Graham and Mark Kelly have dug their heels in over the government shutdown – which is now approaching two weeks, with the former saying that the closure won’t push him to meet Democrats’ demands for a restoration of Obama-era healthcare subsidies.
Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he was in favor of the Senate voting to reopen the government and prepared to “have a rational discussion” with Democrats – but not with the government shut down.
“I’m willing to vote to open the government up tomorrow,” Graham said. “To my Democratic friends: I am not going to vote to extend these subsidies.”
Graham, speaking to Democrats, added: “It’s up to you. If you want to keep it shut down, fine. It’s not going to change how I approach healthcare.”
The senator’s comments came as Vice-President JD Vance warned that permanent cuts to the federal workforce will only get “deeper” as the shutdown continues.
Vance told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures that “the longer it goes on, Maria, the more significant they’re going to be. If you remember, we went nine days before announcing any significant layoffs.
“The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be,” Vance continued.
President Donald Trump will visit Malaysia on 26 October, the country’s foreign minister Mohamad Hasan said on Tuesday, adding that he was “looking forward” to witnessing a ceasefire deal between south-east Asian neighbours Thailand and Cambodia.
Tension over undemarcated points on the two nations’ 817km (508 mile) land border erupted into a deadly five-day conflict in July, killing at least 48 and temporarily displacing hundreds of thousands in their worst fighting in more than a decade.
“During the summit, we hope to see the signing of a declaration, known as the Kuala Lumpur Accord, between these two neighbours to ensure peace and a lasting ceasefire,” Mohamad told the media.
US news outlets refuse to sign new Pentagon rules to report only official information
Several leading news organizations with access to Pentagon briefings have formally said they will not agree to a new defense department policy that requires them to pledge they will not obtain unauthorized material and restricts access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.
The policy, presented last month by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been widely criticized by media organizations asked to sign the pledge by Tuesday at 5pm or have 24 hours to turn in their press credentials.
The move follows a shake-up in February in which long-credentialed media outlets were required to vacate assigned workspaces which was cast as an “annual media rotation program”. A similar plan was presented at the White House where some briefing room spots were given to podcasters and other representatives of non-traditional media.
On Monday, the Washington Post joined the New York Times, CNN, the Atlantic, the Guardian, Reuters, the Associated Press, NPR, HuffPost and trade publication Breaking Defense in saying it would not sign on to the agreement.
Matt Murray, the Post’s executive editor, said the policy runs counter to constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press.
“The proposed restrictions undercut First Amendment protections by placing unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information,” Murray wrote in a statement published on X. “We will continue to vigorously and fairly report on the policies and positions of the Pentagon and officials across the government.”
Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto asked president Donald Trump on Monday if he could meet with Trump’s son Eric, an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, according to comments by the leaders picked up by a microphone after Trump had addressed a Gaza-focused summit in Egypt.
Trump and Prabowo, who were also seen on video, appeared to be unaware that a live microphone was recording their conversation.
The two spoke in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh after Trump delivered remarks to a group of world leaders gathered for the summit, which followed the announcement of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
The White House, Prabowo’s office, Indonesia’s foreign ministry and the Trump Organization’s Indonesian business partner, MNC Group, did not respond to requests for comment on the exchange, Reuters reported.
It was not clear in the audio whether the two were referencing the Trump Organization or any business deals involving the president or his family.
Letitia James pushes back against 'powerful voices trying to silence truth'
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I am Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that New York attorney-general Letitia James struck a defiant tone Monday during her first public appearance since being indicted on federal fraud charges related to her purchase of a home in Virginia.
The Democrat took the stage to thunderous and sustained applause and chants of “We love Tish” during a boisterous rally for New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the city’s Washington Heights neighborhood, AP reported.
James warned of “powerful voices trying to silence truth and punish dissent” and “weaponize justice for political gain,” though she stopped short of naming president Donald Trump, who had pushed for months for justice department officials to bring charges against her.
“We are witnessing the fraying of our democracy, the erosion of our system of government,” James said. “This, my friends, is a defining moment in our history.”
She called on supporters to protect “every norm and every rule of law” as she vowed she “will not capitulate.”
“You come for me, you got to come though all of us!,” James roared, to loud cheers. “Every single one of us!”
A federal grand jury indicted Letitia James, the New York attorney general, last week for bank fraud and making false statements. Two charges were brought against James, who had brought a civil fraud case against the Trump Organization in 2022 that Trump claimed was a malicious prosecution.
Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, personally presented the case to the grand jury on Thursday, the person said. US attorneys do not typically present to a grand jury.
In other developments:
Republican and Democratic senators Lindsey Graham and Mark Kelly have dug their heels in over the government shutdown – which is now approaching two weeks, with the former saying that the closure won’t push him to meet Democrats’ demands for a restoration of Obama-era healthcare subsidies.
Argentina’s libertarian leader is lavishing praise on Trump ahead of his first White House meeting with the US president on Tuesday. “It is an honor to consider you not only an ally in the defense of those values, but also a dear friend and an example of leadership that inspires all those who believe in freedom,” Javier Milei said.
Trump has vowed to use the power of his presidency to ensure that Israel recognises it has achieved “all that it can by force of arms”, and begin an age of cooperation in the Middle East that may ultimately extend as far as peace with Iran.
Trump is expected to posthumously award Charlie Kirk the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom later today. Kirk was shot and killed last month while speaking at Utah Valley University.
Several leading news organizations with access to Pentagon briefings have formally said they will not agree to a new defense department policy that requires them to pledge they will not obtain unauthorized material and restricts access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.
US military veterans increasingly face arrest and injury amid protests over Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and his push to deploy national guard members to an ever-widening number of American cities. The Guardian has identified eight instances where military veterans have been prosecuted or sought damages after being detained by federal agents.
Barack Obama took aim at institutions and businesses who made deals or worked out settlements with the Trump administration, noting on a new podcast episode: “We all have this capacity, I think, to take a stand.”
The firings of hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control have been reversed, according to several reports citing officials familiar with the matter, and the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers.
