Closing summary
This blog is now closing but round-the-clock live coverage of the US government shutdown continues in our new live blog. Please join us for the latest news and developments here.
The US government shut down much of its operations on Wednesday as deep partisan divisions prevented Congress and the White House from reaching a funding deal, setting off what could be a long, gruelling standoff that could lead to the loss of thousands of federal jobs.
The shutdown is the first since a 35-day closure that began in December 2018 and extended into the new year, during Trump’s first term. It comes as Democrats look to regain their footing with voters, who re-elected Trump last year and relegated them to the minority in both chambers of Congress.
Senate Republicans have scheduled another round of votes on the two funding bills on Wednesday morning, with the stated goal of giving Democrats an opportunity to change their minds.
The Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have blamed Donald Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, saying they “do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people”.
The White House has responded to the shutdown threat by announcing plans to fire federal workers en masse if funding lapses. “When you shut it down, you have to do layoffs, so we’d be laying off a lot of people,” Donald Trump said earlier on Tuesday, adding: “They’re going to be Democrats.”
Russ Vought, director of the White House office of management and budget, released a letter blaming “Democrats’ insane policy demands” for a shutdown. “It is unclear how long Democrats will maintain their untenable posture, making the duration of the shutdown difficult to predict,” Vought wrote in the letter, which was addressed to the heads of federal offices and agencies.
Democratic leaders say they are not backing down, but signs have emerged of dissent within their ranks. Three members of the Democratic caucus voted for the Republican proposal on Tuesday evening – two more than when the bill was first considered earlier this month. “I cannot support a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration,” said Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto.
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The EPA’s shutdown contingency plan, first written a decade ago and slightly updated for this year, says 905 employees are considered essential because they are necessary to protect life and property or because they perform duties needed by law. An additional 828 employees can keep working because they aren’t funded by the annual federal budget and instead get their pay from fees and such.
EPA officials won’t say how many employees they have cut – former officials now at the Environmental Protection Network say it’s 25% – but the Trump administration’s budget plan says the agency now has 14,130 employees, down 1,000 from a year ago. The administration is proposing cutting that to 12,856 in this upcoming budget year and Zeldin has talked of going to levels of around Ronald Reagan’s presidency, which started at about 11,000.
The agency’s shutdown plan calls for it to stop doing non-criminal pollution inspections needed to enforce clean air and water rules. It won’t issue new grants to other governmental agencies, update its website, issue new permits, approve state requests dealing with pollution regulations or conduct most scientific research, according to the EPA document. Except in situations where the public health would be at risk, work on Superfund cleanup sites will stop.
Marc Boom, a former EPA policy official during the Biden administration, said inspections under the Chemical Accident Risk Reduction program would halt. Those are done under the Clean Air Act to make sure facilities are adequately managing the risk of chemical accidents.
“Communities near the facilities will have their risk exposure go up immediately since accidents will be more likely to occur,” Boom said.
He also said EPA hotlines for reporting water and other pollution problems likely will be closed. “So if your water tastes off later this week, there will be no one at EPA to pick up the phone,” he said.
How shutdown will affect EPA’s work
The Environmental Protection Agency was already reeling from massive stuff cuts and dramatic shifts in priority and policy. A government shutdown raises new questions about how it can carry out its founding mission of protecting America’s health and environment with little more than skeletal staff and funding.
Jeremy Symons, a former EPA policy official under President Bill Clinton, said it’s natural to worry that a shutdown will lead “the worst polluters” to treat it as a chance to dump toxic pollution without getting caught.
“Nobody will be holding polluters accountable for what they dump into the air we breathe, in the water we drink while EPA is shut down,” said Symons, now a senior adviser to the Environmental Protection Network.
“This administration has already been implementing a serial shutdown of EPA,” Symons said. “Whittling away at EPA’s ability to do its job.”
A scientific study of pollution from about 200 coal-fired power plants during the 2018-2019 government shutdown found they “significantly increased their particulate matter emissions due to the EPA’s furlough”.
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Kamala Harris and Democrats take aim at Republicans
The former Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris took aim at Republicans over the shutdown, posting on X:
President Trump and Congressional Republicans just shut down the government because they refused to stop your health care costs from rising. Let me be clear: Republicans are in charge of the White House, House, and Senate. This is their shutdown.
Congresswoman Shontel Brown said Donald Trump and Republicans alone are responsible for the shutdown. She said in a statement:
Washington Republicans have totally and completely failed in their responsibility to fund the government. House Republicans weren’t even in Washington this week as the government was close to shutting down. This was no accident; it was a deliberate choice.
We came to work to save health care – they went on vacation.
Every day this shutdown drags on, families, workers, and communities in Northeast Ohio will pay the price: service members and federal employees will miss paychecks, Social Security and veterans’ services could be delayed, and small business loans will stall.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett said Republicans “chose chaos” in a post on X:
Make no mistake: Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. This is THEIR shutdown. They had every tool to govern and chose chaos instead. The American people are the ones paying the price.
Health, national parks, FDA: what are agencies planning in shutdown?
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Health and Human Services will furlough about 41% of its staff out of nearly 80,000 employees, according to a contingency plan posted on its website. As part of that plan, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would continue to monitor disease outbreaks, while activities that will stop include research into health risks and ways to prevent illness.
Research and patient care at the National Institutes of Health would be upended. Patients currently enrolled in studies at the research-only hospital nicknamed the “house of hope” will continue to receive care. Additional sick patients hoping for access to experimental therapies can’t enroll except in special circumstances, and no new studies will begin.
As the shutdown neared, the National Park Service had not yet said whether it will close its more than 400 sites across the US to visitors. Park officials said Tuesday afternoon that contingency plans were still being updated and would be posted to the service’s website.
Many national parks including Yellowstone and Yosemite stayed open during a 35-day shutdown during Trump’s first term. Limited staffing led to vandalism, gates being pried open and other problems including an off-roader mowing down one of the namesake trees at Joshua Tree national park in California.
At the Food and Drug Administration, its “ability to protect and promote public health and safety would be significantly impacted, with many activities delayed or paused”. For example, the agency would not accept new drug applications or medical device submissions that require payment of a user fee.
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Which agencies keep operating and which might be affected?
Now that a lapse in funding has occurred, the law requires agencies to furlough their “non-excepted” employees. Excepted employees, which include those who work to protect life and property, stay on the job but don’t get paid until after the shutdown ends.
The White House Office of Management and Budget begins the process with instructions to agencies that a lapse in appropriations has occurred and they should initiate orderly shutdown activities. That memo went out Tuesday evening.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed, with the total daily cost of their compensation at roughly $400m.
FBI investigators, CIA officers, air traffic controllers and agents operating airport checkpoints keep working. So do members of the Armed Forces.
Those programs that rely on mandatory spending generally continue during a shutdown. Social Security payments still go out. Seniors relying on Medicare coverage can still see their doctors and health care providers can be reimbursed.
Each federal agency develops its own shutdown plan, outlining which workers would stay on the job and which would be furloughed.
White House website displays ticking clock as Republicans blame Democrats for shutdown
A timer has been added to the top of the White House’s official website with a banner that reads “Democrats Have Shut Down the Government”. The timer started as the midnight deadline and counts the time the government has been shut down.
“Democrats have officially voted to CLOSE the government,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson posted to X.
Johnson continued:
Results: Moms and kids now lose WIC nutrition. Veterans lose health care and suicide prevention programs. FEMA has shortfalls during hurricane season. Soldiers and TSA agents go UNPAID. The only question now: How long will Chuck Schumer let this pain go on — for his own selfish reasons?
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Shutdown will halt some work at education department
Already diminished by cuts by the Trump administration, the US education department will see more of its work come to a halt because of the government shutdown.
The department says many of its core operations will continue in the shutdown. Federal financial aid will keep flowing, and student loan payments will still be due. But investigations into civil rights complaints will stop, and the department will not issue new federal grants. About 87% of its workforce will be furloughed, according to a department contingency plan.
Since he took office, President Donald Trump has called for the dismantling of the education department, saying it has been overrun by liberal thinking.
In a shutdown, the administration has suggested federal agencies could see more positions eliminated entirely. In past shutdowns, furloughed employees were brought back once Congress restored federal funding. This time, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has threatened the mass firing of federal workers.
One of the department’s major roles is managing the $1.6tn federal student loan portfolio. Student aid will be largely unaffected in the short term, according to the department’s shutdown contingency plan. Pell Grants and federal loans will continue to be disbursed, and student loan borrowers must continue making payments on their debts.
About 9.9 million students receive some form of federal aid, spread across about 5,400 colleges, according to the department. Within the Office of Federal Student Aid, the department plans to furlough 632 of the 747 employees during the shutdown, although it didn’t say which ones. For most student loan issues, borrowers work with loan servicers hired by the department rather than directly with FSA staff.
Democratic leaders blame Trump for shutdown
The Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have blamed Donald Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, saying they “do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people”.
Jeffries and Schumer said in a joint statement:
After months of making life harder and more expensive, Donald Trump and Republicans have now shut down the federal government because they do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people.
Democrats remain ready to find a bipartisan path forward to reopen the government in a way that lowers costs and addresses the Republican healthcare crisis. But we need a credible partner.
Over the last few days, President Trump’s behavior has become more erratic and unhinged. Instead of negotiating a bipartisan agreement in good faith, he is obsessively posting crazed deepfake videos.
The country is in desperate need of an intervention to get out of another Trump shutdown.
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What would it take to end the US government shutdown?
A deep impasse between Donald Trump and congressional Democrats prevented Congress and the White House from reaching a funding deal. So what will take to end the shutdown?
What Republicans want
Trump’s Republicans control both the House and the Senate, and have already scored some big budget wins this year. The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ passed in July and it boosted spending for defense and immigration enforcement, rolled back spending on green energy and other Democratic priorities, while making major cuts in the Medicaid healthcare program for low-income and disabled people to help pay for tax cuts focused mainly on the wealthy. Republicans also have broadly supported the White House’s efforts to claw back money that had already been approved by Congress for foreign aid and public broadcasting, even though that undermines lawmakers’ constitutional authority over spending matters. They have said they would vote for a continuing resolution that would extend funding at current levels through 21 November to allow more time to negotiate a full-year deal.
What Democrats want
As the minority party, Democrats do not have much power. But Republicans will need at least seven Democratic votes to pass any spending bill out of the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to advance most legislation in the 100-seat chamber.
This time, Democrats are using that leverage to push for renewing expanded healthcare subsidies for people who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Their proposal would make permanent enhanced tax breaks that are otherwise due to expire at the end of the year and make them available to more middle-income households. If those tax breaks were to expire, health insurance costs would increase dramatically for many of the 24 million Americans who get their coverage through the ACA, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Democrats also want language inserted into any funding bill that would prohibit Trump from unilaterally ignoring their ACA provisions or temporarily withholding funds.
They also want to roll back other restrictions on ACA coverage that were enacted in the so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’. Those changes would provide health coverage for seven million Americans by 2035, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but also increase government healthcare spending by $662bn over 10 years. Republicans say they are open to considering a fix for the expiring tax breaks, but say the issue should be handled separately. Republicans have accused Democrats of trying to use the stopgap funding bill to open the gates for government healthcare subsidies for immigrants in the US illegally.
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About 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed amid shutdown
As the government shuts down, the US faces a new cycle of uncertainty.
Many offices will be shuttered, perhaps permanently, as Donald Trump vows to “do things that are irreversible, that are bad” as retribution. The economic fallout is expected to ripple nationwide in what could be a long standoff with no clear path out of the impasse.
Agencies warned that the 15th government shutdown since 1981 would halt the release of a closely watched September employment report, slow air travel, suspend scientific research, withhold pay from US troops and lead to the furlough of 750,000 federal workers at a daily cost of $400m.
US government shuts down as midnight deadline passes
The US government has officially shut down for the first time in nearly seven years, after congressional Democrats refused to support a Republican funding package unless they won a series of concessions centered on healthcare.
It marks the first time the US government has shuttered since a 35-day shutdown that lasted from late 2018 into early 2019 during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
Here’s my colleague Chris Stein with the full story:
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About an hour before the US government was scheduled to shut down this evening, Donald Trump posted on social media that he was watching golf.
At 11:01pm ET, Trump responded to a video of the European Ryder Cup team, which won the 2025 Ryder Cup tournament held last weekend. In the video, members of the team ask “Are you watching, Donald Trump?” while holding aloft their trophy. In his post, Trump wrote: “Yes, I’m watching. Congratulations!”
With about 30 minutes to go until the US government shuts down at midnight, here’s a look back at our coverage of the last shutdown, which stretched for 35 days, cost about $11bn and left 800,000 federal workers without paychecks.
Two labor unions have sued the Trump administration for threatening mass layoffs of federal workers during the impending government shutdown.
The American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed suit against both the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management in a northern California US District Court. The unions argue that the layoffs violate the Antideficiency Act, a law which prohibits the federal government from spending beyond its budget, by ordering OMB and OPM staff to conduct firings.
“These actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious, and the cynical use of federal employees as a pawn in Congressional deliberations should be declared unlawful and enjoined by this Court,” the lawsuit reads.
Donald Trump posted another deepfake video on social media mocking House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, just hours after he posted a similar video Democrats have denounced as “racist” and “bigoted”.
Yesterday, Trump posted an AI-generated video of Jeffries speaking outside the White House with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Trump had edited the video to show Jeffries wearing a sombrero and mustache while mariachi music played in the background.
This evening, about an hour after the Senate adjourned for the evening, signaling an impending government shutdown, Trump posted a second video. The second video showed Jeffries denouncing the first video in an interview on MSNBC. Trump had edited that footage to again show Jeffries wearing a sombrero and mustache while four images of Trump playing mariachi music appeared in the background.
Jeffries addressed the videos in an MSNBC interview, saying: “We need from the president of the United States an individual who actually is focused on doing his job, as opposed to engaging in racist or bigoted stereotypes designed to try to distract or throw us off as Democrats from what we need to do on behalf of the American people.”
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Speaking on CNN this evening, Bernie Sanders said he would vote against any government funding measure that doesn’t address expiring expanded premium tax credits.
Asked “So are you telling me you’re willing to vote no every time?” Sanders responded, “Damn right.”
“I will not let tens of thousands of fellow Americans die because they’re thrown off of healthcare,” he added. “In my state, people cannot afford a doubling in their healthcare premiums.”
Donald Trump has withdrawn his pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a conservative economist from the Heritage Foundation who worked on Project 2025.
In August, Trump fired the former head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, after claiming that the agency’s jobs data was “rigged” against him. The president nominated EJ Antoni to take her place, despite concerns that Antoni had a history of misrepresenting and exaggerating results which could politicize jobs data.
Here’s more coverage from my colleagues on Antoni’s earlier nomination:
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Federal immigration agents shoved three journalists working in a New York City immigration court, sending one to the hospital, just days after a bystander captured footage of an immigration agent forcing an Ecuadorian woman to the floor in the same courthouse.
Dean Moses, who is the police bureau chief at amNewYork, said immigration agents pushed him off an elevator when he attempted to photograph them arresting a woman who had just exited a court room. In the fray, another immigration agent pushed Olga Fedorova, a freelance photographer. Neither Moses nor Fedorova were seriously injured, but a third journalist – L Vural Elibol, who works for the Turkish outlet Anadolu, hit his head on the ground.
“Officers repeatedly told the crowd of agitators and journalists to get back, move, and get out of the elevator,” Tricia McLaughlin, the homeland security assistant secretary, said in a statement. “Rioters and sanctuary politicians who encourage individuals to interfere with arrests are actively creating hostile environments that put officers, detainees and the public in harm’s way.”
On social media, Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, a Democrat, denounced the agents’ actions: “This abuse of law-abiding immigrants and the reporters telling their stories must end,” she said.
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Donald Trump has posted a series of photos to his Truth Social account from his meeting with top congressional leaders yesterday which prominently feature red “Trump 2028” hats sitting atop his desk.
Two people with knowledge of the meeting confirmed to the Associated Press that those hats were in fact on the president’s desk during his meeting with Mike Johnson, John Thune, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries yesterday.
The president has been selling the hats through his online store since at least April and showed them to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French president Emmanuel Macron during their visit to the United States in August.
Although Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third term, he has suggested he might still want to, as my colleagues report below:
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A federal appeals court will reconsider a ruling made by a three-judge panel that had found the Trump administration could not use the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants who allegedly belong to a Venezuelan gang.
The conservative fifth circuit vacated the earlier ruling of three of its members, agreeing that all 17 of its judges would hear the case.
The Alien Enemies Act, which was passed in 1798, gives the government expansive powers to detain and deport citizens of hostile foreign nations, but only in times of war or during an “invasion or predatory incursion”.
Here’s my colleague David Smith with more on the history of the case and the earlier three-judge ruling:
With the Senate adjourned until 10am tomorrow and the House until 7 October, a government shutdown at midnight is nearly certain.
As we wait for that midnight deadline to arrive, we’ll bring you other national headlines.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, also held a press conference after the Senate failed to pass a funding bill to keep the government open. He blamed Republicans for failing to negotiate on rising healthcare costs.
“We see now Republicans are plunging Americans into a shutdown, rejecting bipartisan talks, pushing a partisan bill and risking Americans’ healthcare worst of all,” he said. He cited data that shows Affordable Care Act Marketplace enrollees would see their out-of-pocket premium payments more than double next year.
Later, Schumer said that in private conversations Republicans have raised concerns about rising healthcare costs as well, giving him hope they may be open to negotiations.
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John Thune, the Senate majority leader, held a press conference after the Senate failed to pass a funding bill. He blamed “far-left” Democrats for shutting down the government.
“The Democrat caucus here in town in the Senate has chosen to shut down the government over a clean, nonpartisan funding bill,” he said.
“Far-left interest groups and far-left Democratic members wanted a show down with the president,” he added.
Later, Thune added that “there are Democrats who are very unhappy with the situation that they are in” who may choose to vote with Republicans on a future funding bill. He also criticized the enhanced premium tax credits, which he said were only extended because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but that he said he would be open to negotiating on.
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Senate adjourns
The Senate has adjourned until 10am ET tomorrow, meaning a government shutdown is certain.
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The National Parks will remain largely open throughout the government shutdown, although about two-thirds of agency employees will be furloughed, the Associated Press reports.
According to a contingency plan released by the National Park Service, “park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors”. Parks could close if damage is done – as happened in Joshua Tree during the 2019 shutdown – although the contingency plan allows states, tribes or local governments to help keep national parks open through donations.
Here’s more from my colleague Gabrielle Canon about the uncertainty facing the national parks:
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Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota, just mentioned a Kaiser Family Foundation study published today that shows Americans accessing insurance through the Affordable Care Act will see their premiums double if Congress fails to extend the enhanced premium tax credits.
Here’s the study and its key takeaways:
If Congress allows the enhanced premium tax credits to expire at the end of this year, ACA Marketplace enrollees on average would see their out-of-pocket premium payments more than double next year, growing by 114%, from an average of $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026, according to a KFF analysis released today.
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OMB sends letter to federal agencies as midnight shutdown set to take effect
The office for management and budget (OMB) has sent a letter to federal agencies, continuing to blame Democratic lawmakers for the impending government shutdown.
“It is unclear how long Democrats will maintain their untenable posture, making the duration of the shutdown difficult to predict,” OMB director, Russell Vought, wrote. “Agencies should continue to closely monitor developments, and OMB will provide further guidance as appropriate.”
A reminder, that the office sent a memo to agencies last year, instructing them to brace for significant layoffs in the event of a shutdown. A repercussion that Donald Trump has co-signed as likely.
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Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has issued a statement, following the failure of the upper chamber to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded.
Republicans JUST VOTED DOWN our bill to avoid a government shutdown at midnight and address the healthcare needs of the American people. Republicans are plunging us into a government shutdown rather than fixing their healthcare crisis.
In a video, Democratic senator John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, said that his vote for the Republican-drafted continuing resolution was “country over my party”.
“I won’t vote for the chaos of shuttering our government,” Fetterman said, noting that he also voted for the Democratic version of the bill, which included an extension to Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Democratic senator Jacky Rosen, of Nevada, said that Donald Trump and Washington Republicans are now shutting down the government, “because they refuse to come to the table”.
“Everyone out there, your health care premiums are about to double, about to double, everybody across the board,” she added, after both versions of a short-term funding bill to keep the government funded failed to pass. “Trump can’t bully us into taking away your healthcare.”
Speaking on the floor now is the Kansas Republican senator Jerry Moran.
“We can’t pass a continuing resolution because there are those who want to bring other issues into the bill,” he says of the Democratic lawmakers who have blocked the continuing resolution.
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In a statement expanding on her decision to vote for the GOP short-term funding bill, Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democratic senator, said: “We need a bipartisan solution to address the impending healthcare crisis, but we should not be swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another.”
Notably, Cortez Masto voted joined several Senate Democrats in March to pass a continuing resolution and avert a government shutdown, much to the ire of several progressive lawmakers.
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Senate fails to pass a stopgap funding bill, as government careens towards a midnight shutdown
The US Senate has rejected a bill, passed by the House, to keep the government funded beyond midnight.
Lawmakers voted 55-45 on a resolution that would keep current levels of funding until 21 November. It ultimately failed to reach the 60 votes needed.
Another Democratic senator to vote “yes” on the Republican short-term funding bill is Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
Meanwhile, Angus King, an independent senator from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats, also voted for the resolution.
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Democratic senator John Fetterman broke ranks with his party and just voted for the Republican-written funding extension.
This is in line with his vote earlier in the month.
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on Capitol Hill
Republican senator Ted Cruz described Democrats’ shutdown threat as a “temper tantrum” that would ultimately go nowhere.
“They’re trying to show … that they hate Trump,” he told reporters. “It will end inevitably in capitulation. At some point they’re going to turn the lights on again, but first they have to rage into the night.”
The Texas senator knows of which he speaks. He played a major role in leading a 2013 shutdown aimed at defunding the Affordable Care Act, which – as government shutdowns tend to – did not succeed.
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Senate majority leader, John Thune, has introduced votes on the GOP-written continuing resolution, which would keep the government funded until 21 November.
“All indications are the Democrats are going to reject the clean, nonpartisan funding extension here before us and choose to shut the government down,” the Republican senator said. “Democrat leaders may be determined to take government funding hostage for their own partisan purposes. You don’t have to join them.”
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Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, just cited a new Morning Consult poll, joking that he “doesn’t always believe the New York Times”.
“Seventy-five percent of Americans support extending the tax premium credit. 63% of Republicans support it, and 45% of voters say they’ll blame Republicans in Congress for a government shutdown,” Schumer said.
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Senate rejects Democratic resolution to keep government funded
The Senate has rejected a stopgap funding bill, drawn up by congressional Democrats, that would keep the government funded until the end of October. Fifty-three Republicans voted against the resolution, while 47 Democrats voted for it.
This version of a shortterm funding patch also included several healthcare provisions – including extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that are due to expire at the end of this year.
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on Capitol Hill
Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic senator representing purple state New Hampshire, told reporters at the Capitol that she agreed with Democratic leaders’ insistence that compromising on government funding is up to the GOP.
“I think we need to get a resolution, and I think it’s doable, and I think that what’s been lacking has been a commitment from the president, who’s in charge of all three branches of government, and he doesn’t seem to be interested,” she said.
Asked if Democrats chose wisely by centering the government funding fight on healthcare, she said: “I think there are a number of fights we should be having.”
Shaheen is not running for re-election next year, leaving open a competitive Senate seat that Democrats will have to defend.
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According to CNN and Punchbowl News, the Senate will continue votes on Wednesday, 1 October, before breaking for Yom Kippur. Lawmakers will also return on Friday, 3 October and Saturday, 4 October, in the event that Congress fails to pass a resolution today. They cite confirmation from the Senate majority whip, John Barrasso.
Republicans will propose their original bill, which would keep the government funded until 21 November.
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Right now, senators are voting on a version of a shortterm funding bill that Democratic lawmakers wrote to counter the original resolution, written by Republicans.
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CNN’s Manu Raju has just shared a discussion he captured in a Capitol hallway with Democratic congresswoman Madeleine Dean, and Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson.
In the video, Dean calls on Johnson to say that a recent deepfake video Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, which shows House minority leader with a sombrero and several racist tropes and fabricated audio.
According to Raju’s video, Johnson tells Dean that the AI-generated video is “not my style”. Dean then replies: “Not your style? It’s disgraceful. It’s racist. You should call it out.”
It ends with Johnson saying that he “loves” and “respects” Dean and her insisting that’s why she is talking to him about the video.
New — Just saw Dem Rep. Madeleine Dean confront Speaker Johnson off House floor over CR, health care, recessing chamber, Trump’s speech.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 30, 2025
And on Trump’s AI video, Johnson says “it wasn't my style."
Dean: “Not your style? It's disgraceful. It's racist. You should call it out.” pic.twitter.com/Ykw8Mx2r6y
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On the Senate floor, Patty Murray – who serves as the senior senator from Washington, and vice-chair of the influential appropriations committee – just said that she hopes Republicans will “come to their senses and come to the table”.
“If Republicans want to avoid a shutdown like Democrats want to avoid a shutdown, then stop spending so much time saying you will sit down with us on healthcare later,” Murray said. “Spend that time working with us right now.”
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Bondi to appear before Senate judiciary committee next week
Attorney general Pam Bondi is set to appear before the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, 7 October, as turmoil in the justice department continues.
Last week, federal prosecutors indicted former FBI director James Comey. This despite the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, Erik Siebert, finding insufficient evidence to prosecute him.
The president, then moved to fire Siebert and installed White House staffer and his personal attorney, Lindsey Halligan.
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'We have no choice': Trump says layoffs are inevitable if the government shuts down
When asked by a reporter during his executive order signing, why it’s necessary to cut more federal jobs in the event of a government shutdown, the president said it’s something you “have to do”.
“No country can afford to pay for illegal immigration, healthcare for everybody that comes into the country. And that’s what they [Democrats] are insisting,” Trump said. “They want open borders. They want men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody. They never stop. They don’t learn. We won an election in the landslide. They just don’t learn. So we have no choice. I have to do that for the country.”
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Trump signs executive order to use AI in pediatric cancer research
The president signed an executive order today to “accelerate” pediatric cancer research by using artificial intelligence.
This includes doubling a $50m investment in the childhood cancer data initiative.
“For years, we’ve been amassing data about childhood cancer, but until now, we’ve been unable to fully exploit this trove of information and apply it to practical medicine,” Trump said.
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It’s worth noting something that Donald Trump said earlier, during his announcement in the Oval Office.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible. Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” the president said, seemingly in reference to the memo sent out by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last week that told federal agencies to prepare for layoffs in the event of a government shutdown. “And you all know Russell Vought. He’s become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way.”
Vought, who is the director of the OMB, was standing beside the president during today’s announcement.
In response, top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer said the president “admitted himself that he is using Americans as political pawns”.
“He is admitting that he is doing the firing of people, if god forbid it [the shutdown] happens,” Schumer added. “Democrats do not want to shut down. We stand ready to work with Republicans to find a bipartisan compromise.”
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In terms of who stands to be affected if Congress fails to pass a funding extension today, my colleague Lauren Gambino notes that approximately 750,000 federal employees will be furloughed each day of a government shutdown, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office released on Tuesday.
Operations deemed essential – such as social security, military duties, immigration enforcement, and air traffic control – continue, but other services may be disrupted or delayed. Mail delivery and post office operations will continue without interruption.
Agencies have been releasing updated contingency plans in the event of a shutdown. The Department of Education said nearly all its federal employees would be furloughed, while most of the Department of Homeland Security workforce would remain on the job.
The effect can be wide-ranging and potentially long-lasting. Previous shutdowns have closed national parks and the Smithsonian museums in Washington; slowed air travel; delayed food safety inspections and postponed immigration hearings.
Lauren notes that while the broader economy may not feel the effects immediately, analysts warn that a prolonged shutdown could slow growth, disrupt markets, and erode public trust.
Read Lauren’s full primer on the looming shutdown below.
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Qatar, Egypt and Turkey urge Hamas to accept Trump's Gaza proposal – report
Qatar, Egypt and Turkey are urging Hamas to give a positive response to Donald Trump’s proposal for ending Israel’s war in Gaza, Axios is reporting, citing two sources with knowledge of the talks.
Trump said earlier this morning that he was giving the group “three or four days” to respond. “We have one signature that we need, and that signature will pay in hell if they don’t sign,” Trump told US generals and admirals in Quantico, Virginia. Yesterday the president made clear that he would support Israel continuing the war if Hamas rejects the proposal, or reneges on the deal at any stage.
According to Axios’s source, while Trump presented the plan at a press conference yesterday alongside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Qatari PM Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad were presenting it to Hamas leaders in Doha – and both urged Hamas to accept.
Per Axios’s report: “Al-Thani advised the Hamas leaders that this was the best deal he was able to get for them and it won’t get much better, the source told the news agency. He also stressed that based on his conversations with Trump, he was confident the US president was seriously committed to ending the war. He said that was a strong enough guarantee for Hamas. The Hamas leaders told al-Thani they would study the proposal in good faith.”
They met again on Tuesday, this time along with Turkish intelligence director Ebrahim Kalin, the source told Axios. Ahead of that meeting, al-Thani told Al-Jazeera he hopes “everyone looks at the plan constructively and seizes the chance to end the war”. He said Hamas needs to get to a consensus with all other Palestinian factions in Gaza before issuing an official response. “We and Egypt explained to Hamas during yesterday’s meeting that our main goal is stopping the war. Trump’s plan achieves the main goal of ending the war, though some issues in it need clarification and negotiation,” the Qatari PM added.
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The US is set to deport some 400 Iranian people back to Iran in the coming months as part of a deal with the Iranian government, the New York Times (paywall) reports.
Iranian officials have told the paper that a US-chartered flight carrying about 100 people departed Louisiana last night and will arrive in Iran via Qatar in the next few days.
The deportation to Iran, which has one of the harshest human rights records in the world, marks “one of the starkest efforts yet by the Trump administration to deport migrants no matter the human rights conditions in countries on the receiving end”, the NYT’s report reads.
“The identities of the Iranians on the plane and their reasons for trying to immigrate to the United States were not immediately clear,” it notes. But Iranian officials add “that in nearly every case, asylum requests had been denied or the [deportees] had not yet appeared before a judge for an asylum hearing”.
Earlier today, the homepage of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) was changed to a message in bold, claiming “the Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”
The partisan message comes after whistleblowers at the agency claimed they were fired for raising concerns about the agency dismantling efforts to enforce fair housing laws.
Here is my colleague Alice Speri’s story on today’s ruling from a federal judge that found the Trump administration’s policy to detain and deport foreign scholars over their pro-Palestinian views violates the US constitution and was designed to “intentionally” chill free speech rights.
In a short while, Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders at 3pm EST in the Oval Office.
As of now, it’s closed press, but we’ll keep you updated if anything changes.
With the potential for another contentious government shutdown looming large, national park leaders and advocates are concerned the Trump administration could again push for leaving America’s parks open when they are unstaffed.
“National parks don’t run themselves. It is hard-working National Park Service employees that keep them safe, clean and accessible,” 40 former superintendents said in a letter issued to Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, this week, urging him to close the parks if a shutdown occurs. “If sufficient staff aren’t there, visitors shouldn’t be either.”
Irreversible damage was done at popular parks, including Joshua Tree in California, following a month-long shutdown in Trump’s first term, when his administration demanded parks be kept open while funding was paused and workers were furloughed.
Without supervision, visitors left behind trails of destruction. Prehistoric petroglyphs were vandalized at Big Bend national park. Joshua trees, some more than a century old, were chopped down as trash and toilets overflowed. Tire tracks crushed sensitive plants and desert habitats from illegal off-roading vehicles in Death Valley. There were widespread reports of wildlife poaching, search-and-rescue crews were quickly overwhelmed with calls and visitor centers were broken into.
There were 26 pages of listed damages, according to Kristen Brengel, senior vice-president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, who added that those effects happened in late December and January – a season when many parks are typically quieter.
The autumn months, and October especially, still draw millions of visitors even as the peak of summer visitation begins to slow. In 2024, there were more than 28.4m recreational visits in October alone, according to data from the NPS.
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One House Democrat told me, on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, that the “best thing” for Democrats right now is that their Republican colleagues are “refusing” to negotiate on healthcare, and “forcing the American people to get hammered with these consequences of what they’ve done”.
This Democrat added that if GOP lawmakers were to “cut some kind of deal on health care” it would “inoculate them to some extent, for the midterms in 2026”.
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The Hill is reporting that the Senate is expected to vote on the Republican and Democratic versions of a stopgap funding bill at 5pm ET today.
A reminder that both failed to achieve the 60 votes needed to clear the chamber prior to last week’s congressional recess.
At the time of writing this post, government funding is set to expire in under 10 hours.
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Federal judge says that Trump administration's targeting of pro-Palestinian activists violates the First Amendment
A federal district court judge in Massachusetts today ruled that the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty members for pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the first amendment.
Judge William Young said that today’s ruling was to decide whether noncitizens lawfully present in the US “have the same free speech rights as the rest of us”.
“The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do.’ ‘No law’ means ‘no law’,” he said.
The lawsuit, brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University after activist Mahmoud Khalil’s was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in March, alleged the Trump administration was conducting an “ideological deportation” that was unconstitutional. It resulted in a nine-day trial in July.
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Coming soon to Miami: the Donald J Trump presidential library.
Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis and his cabinet voted Tuesday morning to hand over a lucrative parcel of land for the venture, the first formal step towards a building intended to honor the legacy of the 45th and 47th president.
The unanimous vote by DeSantis and three loyalists, including the unelected Florida attorney general James Uthmeier, conveys almost three acres of prime real estate in the shadow of the Miami Freedom Tower, the iconic and recently reopened “beacon of freedom” that saw tens of thousands of Cubans enter the US during its time as an immigration processing center.
On Monday, protestors at the site, currently a parking lot for Miami Dade College’s downtown campus, highlighted the juxtaposition with a building celebrating a president who has implemented the biggest crackdown on immigration in the nation’s history.
“I look forward to the patriotic stories the Trump Library Foundation will showcase for generations to come in the Free State of Florida,” Uthmeier said in a statement following the vote.
Eric Trump, the president’s son, celebrated the news in a post to X. “It will be the greatest Presidential Library ever built, honoring the greatest President our Nation has ever known,” he wrote.
Critics of the venture note that college trustees voted a week ago to transfer ownership of the land, estimated to be worth $67m, to the state without knowing what DeSantis intended to do with it.
On CNN today, Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, said that “sometimes you’ve got to stand and fight” in regard to the looming shutdown.
“A fight to protect Americans who can’t afford their healthcare, is a fight worth having,” she added.
The president said that he didn’t see Democrats “bend” at all when they discussed healthcare provisions in his meeting on Monday. He spoke with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.
But when asked to clarify what he means when he talks about Democrats fighting for undocumented immigrants’ access to federal healthcare programs, when they aren’t eligible to access them, Trump didn’t answer the question.
Instead he listed off, what he described as, several achievements by the administration to curb illegal migration.
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'We'll probably have a shutdown,' Trump says in Oval Office press conference
Donald Trump has just said that the government will “probably” shut down, while addressing reporters in the Oval Office.
“They want to give Cadillac Medicare to illegal aliens … at the cost to everyone else,” the president said. This is a false claim that Trump and congressional Republicans have repeated since lawmakers have failed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded. A reminder, this lapses tonight.
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to enroll in subsidized programs like Medicaid, Medicare or the Affordable Care Act.
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In the Oval Office, Trump just said that today’s announcement with Pfizer is “one of the biggest news conferences from a medical standpoint, that I think has ever been had by any administration”.
He also noted that he discussed these lower costs with congressional Democratic leadership at the White House yesterday.
“You know, the cost of prescription medicine is a big, I guess, a very big, more than 50% the cost of what we’re talking about. So we might be able to do something like that,” the president said.
Democrats call out Republicans for postponing votes on Capitol Hill
As the government hurtles toward a shutdown, Democrats have called out Republican House leadership for cancelling votes that were scheduled for Monday and today – following last week’s congressional recess.
Lawmakers in the lower chamber were initially meant to return to work this week, but speaker Mike Johnson has pushed their return in order to jam Democrats from negotiating further, blaming them for failing to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded until 21 November.
Today, on the House floor, we’ve seen Democrats decry their colleagues across the aisle. “Shame on you,” they said, as they were gaveled out of their procedural session.
The Senate is back today, and will vote on two resolutions – both which previously failed. Earlier, the upper chamber’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, said that Republicans were shirking responsibility and lying about their claims that Democrats are attempting to shutdown the government to provide healthcare for undocumented immigrants.
“That is utter bull and they know it,” the senator from New York said. “The law prohibits undocumented immigrants from getting payments from medicare, medicaid or the ACA. There is no money, not a penny of federal dollars that is going there. So why do they bring this up? Because they are afraid to talk about the real issue which is healthcare for the American citizens.”
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Trump announces agreement with Pfizer to lower medication prices
Donald Trump has just announced that his administration has struck a deal with pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, to sell its medications for less.
“All new medications introduced by Pfizer to the American market will be sold at the reduced, most favored nation cost,” the president said. That means the US will pay a price tag no greater than other foreign countries.
Pfizer will also guarantee these prices for drugs covered by Medicaid and Medicare, according to Trump.
“I can’t tell you how big this is,” the president said today. “By taking this bold step we’re ending the year of global price gouging at the expense of American families.”
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And just like that, Donald Trump is speaking again! This time from the Oval Office and he’s making an announcement on medicine costs. I’ll bring you more on that shortly.
What was in Trump and Hegseth's astonishing speeches to US top military brass?
Here’s a roundup of what was in those astonishing speeches we just heard delivered to a mostly silent audience of top US military leaders by Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump.
The defense secretary announced that the military will require combatants to meet the “highest male standard” in physical fitness tests. He acknowledged that this may exclude some women from serving. “Standards must be uniform, gender neutral, and high,” he said, and if that meant some women didn’t qualify, “it is what it is.”
He ordered officers to focus on physical appearance and fitness, attacking what he called the “tiring” sight of “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals”. “It’s a bad look,” he said, adding that he was upping physical fitness testing to twice a year.
He also said this was an end to the “era of unprofessional appearances” and announced that officers could no longer have beards.
Hegseth vowed an end to diversity efforts and wanting to usher in a change to the “politically correct” culture of the military – which had made the Department of Defense (DOD) “the woke department” – and have a greater focus on “warrior ethos”. “We’re ending the war on warriors,” he said.
Rallying against “woke”, he said they were “fixing decades of decay” by doing away with DEI programs, and ending the promotion of a “risk-averse” officer corps. He said troops had been distracted by political correctness, racial and gender quotas, climate change, “gender delusions”, “woke garbage” and fears of being labeled as “toxic” leaders.
He said the department would review its definitions of “toxic”, “bullying” and “hazing” “to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing”. “The era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now,” the defense secretary said.
He announced wider departmental changes including ending anonymous complaints procedures. He said the DOD’s Inspector General’s Office (which is investigating him over Signalgate) would be “overhauled” as it had created a culture of “walking on eggshells” and had been “weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat”. “No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking careers, no more walking on eggshells,” he said.
He justified his previous firing of senior commanders, saying that he went with “his gut” and got rid of those he believed wouldn’t shift away from policies set in previous administrations. He ominously added that he was certain more leadership changes would be made.
He told leadership that if the new standards he has unveiled makes their “hearts sink” then they should “do the honorable thing and resign”.
In an at times free-wheeling speech, Donald Trump commented on the remarkable silence in the room before picking up on a number of these points, saying: “We went through political correct where you had to have people who were totally unfit to be doing what you’re doing,” he said. “Now it’s all based on merit.”
Trump told his top military leadership that the US faced “a war from within”. Repeating his criticisms of Democrat-led US cities, claiming “they’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one”, he added that “this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room”.
He said so-called “dangerous cities” should be used as “training grounds” for military troops and the national guard. He suggested they were “going into Chicago very soon” and said Portland, Oregon “looks like a war zone” [residents have said this is “entirely divorced from reality”].
He said that Hegseth will soon announce “major reforms to streamline military acquisitions and expedite foreign military sales”, as many countries want to buy US military equipment but it needs to be made faster.
Trump also said he’s contemplating making the military “larger” and his administration plans to make “more historic announcements” in the coming months to “fully embrace the identity of the Department of War”.
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Well that was a lot. Stay tuned, I’ll post a summary of what we’ve just heard shortly.
He calls America “the most unstoppable force ever to walk the face of the Earth”.
He says his administration plans to make “more historic announcements” in the coming months to “fully embrace the identity of the Department of War”.
“I love the name. I think it’s so great. I think it stops wars,” Trump says. “The Department of War is going to stop wars.”
Trump says he’s debating making the military larger.
“We’re thinking about making it larger because we have so many people, and it’s nice to be able to cut people because of merit that aren’t really qualified for any reason, a physical reason, a mental reason, you don’t have to take them anymore, because you have, you have the pick of the litter, and they all want to be with you,” he says. “They all want your job. They want to be with you. They want to work with you. They’ll even take your job.”
Major reforms to military acquisitions and sales are coming, Trump says
Trump says Hegseth will soon announce “major reforms to streamline military acquisitions and expedite foreign military sales”.
“We have tremendous numbers of countries that want to buy our equipment, and you know, many cases, it takes too long. They’re backlogged,” Trump says.
He says that he told companies, “you better get your ass going,” because “we’re getting countries to buy your equipment”.
“We make the best equipment in the world, but they got to make it faster,” he adds.
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He says “peace through strength” is back and that the US is respected again in the world.
He says the US was not respected under Biden, who was “falling down stairs every day” and adds that he is always careful when he walks down the stairs.
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He says that if military or police vehicles are hit with bricks or other objects, that officers should “do whatever the hell” they want.
“You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do, because those people are, you now can die from that,” he says.
Portland, Oregon “looks like a war zone”, he says. “This place is a nightmare.” [Trump has authorized deployment of the national guard there but the city and state have sued the administration over the move.]
“It looks like a war zone, and I get a call from the liberal governor. ‘Sir, please don’t come in. We don’t need you.’ I said, ‘Well, unless they’re playing false tapes, this looks like World War II, your place is burning down’,” he says.
The Guardian’s Robert Mackey wrote about Portland at the weekend – and described Trump’s portrayal of the city as “entirely divorced from reality”.
He writes:
There were just four protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in an outlying residential neighborhood that the president had claimed was “under siege” by antifascists and “other domestic terrorists”. Jack Dickinson, 26, wore a chicken costume draped in an American flag and held a sign that read “Portland Will Outlive Him”. Passing motorists honked in appreciation.
Dickinson, who is from Portland and has helped organize the small but persistent protest at that location, which is going on three months, said he was not surprised to see Trump focus his attention on the city. But he called the president’s threat to have soldiers use “full force” against the protesters, whose numbers occasionally swell into the dozens, unwarranted.
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Trump suggets 'dangerous cities' should be used 'as training grounds' for the military and national guard
“I told Pete [Hegseth], we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, national guard, but military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon, that’s a big city with an incompetent governor,” the president says.
Trump says 'straightening out' US cities will be 'a major part for some of the people in this room'
He criticizes Democrat-led cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and LA. “They’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one.”
“And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can’t let these people in,” he adds.
He blames “radical left lunatics, that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it came to common sense” for his qualms with migration to the US.
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Trump tells military generals 'we're under invasion from within'
“We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms,” Trump says.
He claims Canada called him a couple of weeks ago to express interest in being part of his Golden Dome missile defense system.
“They want to be part of it, to which I said, ‘Why don’t you just join our country? You become 51, become the 51st state, and you get it for free,’” he says. “They’re having a hard time up there in Canada now, because, as you know, with tariffs, everyone’s coming into our country.”
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Due to political correctness, “we had people who were totally unfit to be doing what you’re doing”, he tells military leaders. “Now, it’s all based on merit.”
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He starts talking about the importance of merit, before getting distracted by his love of the word tariff and claims that America is becoming “rich as hell”.
He says it’s been “such an honor” to play a role in ending conflicts around the world.
“And then we have Putin and Zelenskyy, the easiest one of them all, I said, that one, I’ll get done. I thought that was going to be first,” he says.
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We’re on paper now. Trump praises “beautiful paper” and how much he loves his own signature, and criticizes Joe Biden’s previous use of an autopen – so much so he refers to the former president as “the autopen”.
“You know, when I have a general and I have to sign for a general, because we have beautiful paper. They’re gorgeous paper. I said, ‘Throw a little more gold on it. They deserve it,’” he says.
“I always think to myself, ‘How can you have an autopen sign this?’” he says. “It’s just so disrespectful to me. It’s just totally disrespectful.”
Trump has used an autopen in the past too.
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Trump says that people shouldn’t “throw around” the word nuclear. “I call it the N-word. There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them.”
“We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine, nuclear submarine, the most lethal weapon ever made,” Trump says. “Number one, you can’t detect it. There’s no way. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines.”
“Frankly, if it does get to use, we have more than anybody else,” Trump says, referring to the US nuclear arsenal. “We have better, we have newer, but it’s something we don’t ever want to even have to think about.”
Trump says he wants to get Putin and Zelenskyy together
Trump reiterates that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy need to get together to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
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Trump says Hamas 'has to agree' to US proposal for Gaza, adding 'if they don't it's going to be very tough on them'
“Hamas has to agree” to his Gaza plan, he says. “And if they don’t it’s going to be very tough on them, but it is what it is.”
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He goes on a couple of tangents about the border and his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
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Trump says he's never seen 'a room so silent before' as he address top military brass
Donald Trump is speaking now.
He says he’s “never walked into a room so silent before”.
Some in the audience laugh, to which Trump jokes: “Don’t laugh, you’re not allowed to do that.”
“Just have a good time,” he adds. “And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.”
People laugh, and Trump tells them to “feel nice and loose”.
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Hegseth tells generals if they do not agree with him, 'do the honorable thing and resign'
He tells senior military officers to “do the honorable thing and resign” if they don’t agree with his views on diversity, the past Covid-19 vaccine mandate for the military, or his criticisms of transgender individuals.
“The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies,” he says. “But if the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” he says.
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He justifies his firing of senior generals and admirals.
He also announces he’s overhauling the Pentagon’s equal opportunity program and inspector general’s office.
“We are overhauling an inspector general process – the IG that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues, and poor performers in the driver seat,” Hegseth says.
He also says the department will do the same with equal opportunity, a program which largely is responsible for complaints of things like sexual harassment and discrimination based on race, religion, and gender.
“No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking careers, no more walking on eggshells,” he says.
“Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formation since 1948. The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal,” he adds.
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Hegseth says that if new military standards prevent women from serving in combat, 'it is what it is'
“This is not about preventing women from serving,” he says. “We very much value the impact of female troops. Our female officers and NCOs are the absolute best in the world. But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral.”
“If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result, so be it ... It will also mean that we mean that weak men won’t qualify because we’re not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death,” he says.
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Pentagon will review its definitions of 'toxic leadership', 'bullying' and 'hazing', says Hegseth
He says upholding and enforcing high standards is “not toxic”.
“Leading war fighters toward the goals of high, gender neutral and uncompromising standards in order to forge a cohesive, formidable and lethal Department of War is not toxic,” he says.
He says it would be “toxic leadership” to endanger “subordinates with low standards” or promote people on a non-merit basis.
“That’s why today at my direction, we’re undertaking a full review of the department’s definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing,” he announces.
He clarifies this does not mean “nasty bullying and hazing”.
Words like “bullying”, “hazing” and “toxic” have “been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOs”, he says.
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'No more beardos,' Hegseth tells military leaders they must look professional
He turns to “grooming standards”.
“No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression,” he vowed. “We’re going to cut our hair, shave our beards and adhere to standards.”
If someone wants a beard, then “join special forces”, he says.
“We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans, but unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards,” he says.
“The era of unprofessional appearance is over,” he declares: “No more beardos”.
If someone cannot meet male physical standards for combat, cannot pass a physical test or does not want to shave and look professional, “it’s time for a new position or a new profession.”
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“We’re not talking hot yoga and stretching – real, hard PT,” he says.
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Hegseth says troops will be required to hit height and weight requirements and take fitness tests twice a year.
Troops will be required to perform physical fitness activity every day on duty, he adds.
“Most units do that already, but we’re codifying,” he says.
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'Fat troops are tiring to look at': Hegseth orders top officers to focus on fitness
It all starts with physical fitness and appearance, he says.
He then compares this to his “regular hard PT”.
He says: “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops.”
It’s also unacceptable seeing “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon, and leading commands around the country and the world”.
“It’s a bad look,” he says.
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Combat troops will have to meet ‘highest male standard', Hegseth says
He says he is also adding a “combat field test” for combat arms units.
He says he’s also directing that “war-fighters in combat jobs execute their service fitness test at a gender-neutral, age norm, male standard scored above 70%”.
“I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out shape, or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons, platform, or task, or under a leader who was the first but not the best. Standards must be uniform, gender neutral, and high,” Hegseth says.
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He announces the first of 10 war department directives.
He says “each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS for every designated combat arms position returns to the highest male standard only”.
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“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don’t hurt anyone’s feelings leadership ends right now,” he says.
He says he wants “ruthless, dispassionate and common sense application of standards”.
He says the new war department “golden rule” is: “Do onto your unit as you would have done onto your own child’s unit.”
“Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or undertrained troops? Or alongside people who can’t make basic standards? Or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in? In a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and war-fighting? The answer’s not just no, it’s hell no,” he says.
He says he’s made it his mission “to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal”.
But there are deeper problems “beneath the woke garbage”, he adds.
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'We are done with that shit': Hegseth says military is done with diversity efforts in extraordinary speech to generals
He says the administration has “done a great deal to remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department”.
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses”, he says. “No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions, no more debris”.
“We are done with that shit,” he adds.
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“Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass headed, and we lost our way,” he says. “We became ‘the woke department’.”
“Not any more,” he adds.
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He says the department has spent too long promoting “risk averse go-along to get-along conformists”.
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He claims that “for too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons – based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” he says.
'You might say, we're ending the war on warriors,' says Pete Hegseth in speech to military leaders
Hegseth is speaking now.
He says his speech is about “fixing decades of decay”.
“We’re clearing out the debris, removing distractions, clearing the way for leaders to be leaders,” says Hegseth. “You might say, we’re ending the war on warriors.”
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Trump and Hegseth to address unprecedented gathering of military leaders
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, is due to address the country’s top military leaders in Quantico, Virginia quite soon (it was billed as 8.15am ET). Donald Trump will also be attending, and it was revealed last night that he’ll also be speaking at 9am ET.
Last week, hundreds of generals and admirals were summoned at short notice and without explanation from around the world for this unusual meeting with Hegseth at at the Marine Corps Museum. They were initially not told why they were summoned in this unprecedented way, but it’s being reported that Hegseth is expected to talk about “warrior ethos”.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump said it would be “really just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things”.
“We have some great people coming in and it’s just an ‘esprit de corps,’” he said. “You know the expression ‘esprit de corps’? That’s all it’s about. We’re talking about what we’re doing, what they’re doing, and how we’re doing.”
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The US government is hurtling towards its first shutdown in six years, with no signs congressional leaders are near agreement on legislation to continue funding beyond the Tuesday night deadline to prevent workers from being furloughed and agencies from shutting their doors.
Congress’s Republican majority is pushing legislation to fund the government through 21 November, but Democrats have refused to vote for it unless it includes a series of concessions centered on healthcare.
Donald Trump convened a meeting of the two parties’ congressional leaders on Monday evening, but there was no sign of a breakthrough, with JD Vance, the vice-president, declaring: “I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.”
Republicans passed their funding bill through the House of Representatives on a near party-line vote, but it requires at least some Democratic support to advance in the Senate.
In exchange for their votes, the minority party is demanding an extension of subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans, which expire at the end of the year. They also want to undo Republican cuts to Medicaid, the program providing healthcare to poor and disabled Americans, and public media outlets.
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The White House will open 13.1m acres (5.3m hectares) of public land to coal mining while providing $625m for coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration has announced.
The efforts came as part of a suite of initiatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at reviving the flagging coal sector. Coal, the most polluting and costly fossil fuel, has been on a rapid decline over the past 30 years, with the US halving its production between 2008 and 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
“This is an industry that matters to our country,” interior secretary Doug Burgum said in a livestreamed press conference on Monday morning, alongside representatives from the other two departments. “It matters to the world, and it’s going to continue to matter for a long time.”
Coal plants provided about 15% of US electricity in 2024 – a steep fall from 50% in 2000 – the EIA found, with the growth of gas and green power displacing its use. Last year, wind and solar produced more electricity than coal in the US for the first time in history, according to the International Energy Agency, which predicts that could happen at the global level by the end of 2026.
Despite its dwindling role, Trump has made reviving the coal sector a priority of his second term amid increasing energy demand due to the proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers.
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Trump gutting protected status for immigrants will strain US healthcare, Democrats warn
The US healthcare system faces a “perfect storm”, more than 100 members of Congress warn today, as Donald Trump’s administration risks exacerbating pressure on its workforce by stripping nearly one million US immigrants of work authorization and legal protection.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has granted about 570,000 US workers protection from deportation, as their home countries are regarded as dangerous, due to factors like war and natural disaster.
Under Trump, the federal government has sought to cancel this status for people from eight countries – Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Syria, and Venezuela – raising concerns about the impact on key sectors of the US workforce.
In a letter sent today to senior Trump officials, seen by the Guardian, an array of Democratic lawmakers led by the veteran senator Elizabeth Warren caution that the US healthcare system “cannot withstand yet another blow” after broader cuts since Trump return to office. “The most vulnerable Americans in need of healthcare will pay the price,” they warn.
Signatories of the letter – sent to Kristi Noem, US homeland security secretary; Robert F Kennedy Jr, health and human services secretary; and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, labor secretary – include Warren, senators Chris Van Hollen, Ed Markey, Cory Booker, Tammy Duckworth, and Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal, and Jasmine Crockett.
Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, also signed the letter.
Immigrants make up between 32 to 40% of workers in US home care settings, they note in the letter, 24% in residential care, and 21% in nursing facilities. Some 15% of non-citizen healthcare workers originate from nations under temporary protected status.
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Portland is bracing for the deployment of 200 national guard troops as Donald Trump moves ahead with plans to bring the US military into another Democratic-run city.
Oregon filed a lawsuit to block the deployment, which the state has warned will escalate tensions and lead to unrest when there is “no need or legal justification” to bring federal troops into Portland.
Trump on Saturday claimed Portland is “war ravaged” and that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facilities there are under attack, but there is no evidence of that and protests outside Ice sites have been small.
It is the latest development in Trump’s years-long fixation on the Pacific north-west city of 635,000 that extended through the president’s first term in the White House. The president has frequently sought to paint the city as out of control and, as he described in September, like “living in hell”.
During the first Trump administration, Portland was the site of major rightwing gatherings, counterprotests and clashes between both groups, and in 2020 it became a hotspot for the racial justice protests that swept the US in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.
In response to the large racial justice protests, the president sent federal agents, including an elite border patrol unit, which teargassed crowds and arrested protesters off the streets into unmarked vehicles.
Donald Trump to preside over gathering of US military's top commanders in Quantico, Virginia
President Donald Trump will preside on Tuesday over an extraordinary gathering of America’s top generals and admirals from around the world, who were summoned to a Marine base in Virginia without explanation last week.
Trump has said he will use the face-to-face meeting with the US military’s top commanders at the Marine Corps University in Quantico to tell them “we love them.”
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to talk about the “warrior ethos”, Reuters reported.
The meeting comes after eight months of blistering changes at the Pentagon since Trump took office, including firing the chair of the joint chiefs of staff and the navy’s top admiral, banning books from academy libraries and lethal strikes on suspected drug boats off Venezuela.
That has led to speculation, within the US military and in the broader American public, that the gathering could go far beyond the morale-boosting exercise described by Trump to include discussions about reductions in senior officers’ ranks and a revamp of US defense priorities.
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The Utah governor, Spencer Cox, has called on people in the US to “stop shooting each other – that’s it” saying he makes that plea against political violence after being unable to “unsee” video of a sniper in his state killing rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.
Cox delivered those comments in an interview aired Sunday evening on the CBS program 60 Minutes, 18 days after Kirk’s shooting death at Utah Valley University (UVU) and one week from the Turning Point USA founder’s memorial service outside Phoenix.
The Republican politician told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that his fellow conservative accuse him “all the time” of wanting people to have a “kumbaya” moment – “to hold hands and just hug it out”.
“I’m not asking anybody to hold hands and hug it out – I’m not asking for that,” Cox said on the premiere of 60 Minutes’ 58th season. “I’m trying to get people to stop shooting each other – that’s it.”
Cox alluded to public discourse that sought to frame Kirk’s killing as having occurred during a war – not formally declared – being waged between Americans on opposite sides of the country’s political divide. He contended that those trying to agitate tempers amid that rhetorical climate – including and particularly on social media platforms – were “making mistakes”.
“The question I always ask when I hear people say … that we’re at war … [is] what does that mean?” Cox also remarked. “What is next? Who am I supposed to shoot now?”
US justice department sues Minnesota over sanctuary city policies
The justice department has sued the state of Minnesota over its sanctuary city immigration policies, making it the latest locality to face legal threats as the Trump administration attempts to carry out the president’s campaign promise of mass deportations.
“Minnesota officials are jeopardizing the safety of their own citizens by allowing illegal aliens to circumvent the legal process,” Pamela Bondi, the attorney general, said in a statement.
The justice department added that Minnesota’s policies of refusing to cooperate with immigration authorities are illegal under federal law and have resulted in the release of so-called “dangerous criminals”. Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention.
The Minnesota cities of Minneapolis, St Paul and Hennepin county join the ranks of Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and the states of New Jersey and Colorado: Democratic led jurisdictions which are facing similar lawsuits over their sanctuary city policies.
A Trump administration court filing in June – amid demonstrations against immigration raids – called Los Angeles’s sanctuary city ordinance “illegal” and asked that it be blocked from being enforced to allow the White House to crack down on what it calls a “crisis of illegal immigration”.
Over the summer, the justice department sent letters to 13 states it classified as “sanctuary jurisdictions”, including California and Rhode Island, and 22 local governments, from Boston to Seattle, informing their leaders that they could face prosecution or lose federal funding for “undermining” and “obstructing” federal immigration agents.
Pentagon review reportedly confirms Aukus submarines pact is safe
The Aukus submarine deal will proceed as planned after reportedly surviving the Pentagon’s review of the security pact.
The Japan-based Nikkei Asia reported the Trump administration would retain the original timeline for the $368bn program, which includes the US selling three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia from 2032.
A US Department of Defense official would not confirm the report when contacted by Guardian Australia.
“The Aukus initiative is still under review. We have no further Aukus updates to announce at this time,” the official said.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, acknowledged the review was still under way but was confident Aukus had the support of the US and the UK – the third partner in the pact.
“We know that Aukus is in the interests of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States,” Albanese said from Abu Dhabi, the last stop in an overseas trip that has included visits to the two Aukus allies.
“It is about a partnership which is in the interest of all three nations which will make peace and security in our region so much stronger.”
US deports planeload of Iranians after deal with Tehran, New York Times says
The Trump administration is deporting a planeload of about 100 Iranians back to Iran from the United States, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing two senior Iranian officials involved in the negotiations and a US official with knowledge of the plans.
Iranian officials said that a US-chartered flight, took off from Louisiana on Monday night and was scheduled to arrive in Iran by way of Qatar sometime on Tuesday, the report added.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
US government to shut down within hours if no funding deal agreed
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that a high-stakes meeting between Donald Trump and top congressional Democrats on Monday resulted in no apparent breakthrough in negotiations to keep the government open, with JD Vance declaring afterwards: “I think we are headed into a shutdown.”
Democrats, who are refusing to support the GOP’s legislation to continue funding beyond Tuesday unless it includes several healthcare provisions, struck a more optimistic tone after the Oval Office encounter, which also included the Republican leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives.
The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he had outlined his concerns about the state of healthcare in the country to Trump, and said: “He seemed to, for the first time, understand the magnitude of this crisis.
“We hope he’ll talk to the Republican leaders and tell them: we need bipartisan input on healthcare, on decisions into their bill. Their bill does not have these – they never talked to us.”
But there was little sign that Republicans had shifted from their demands that Senate Democrats vote for their bill that would keep the government open until 21 November, so that long-term funding talks may continue. The GOP passed that bill through the House on a near party-line vote earlier this month, but it needs at least some Democratic support to advance in the Senate.
“This is purely and simply hostage-taking on behalf of the Democrats,” said the Senate majority leader John Thune. Referring to the Republican funding proposal, Thune said: “We could pick it up and pass it tonight, and pass it tomorrow before the government shuts down.”
Vance sought to pin the blame for any shutdown on the Democrats, saying: “I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing. I hope they change their mind, but we’re gonna see.”
Trump has not yet commented publicly on the meeting, which was not opened to reporters. In an interview earlier in the day with CBS News, the president said “I just don’t know how we are going to solve this issue,” and alleged the Democrats “are not interested in waste, fraud and abuse”.
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
Donald Trump announced his proposed 20-point peace plan for Gaza, and held a public appearance with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he approved the plan. Neither leader took questions on the plan from journalists.
Hamas negotiators reportedly received a copy of the plan today, but have not yet responded.
The plan calls for a transitional government of Gaza that would involve international figures, including Trump and the former UK prime minister Tony Blair, whose inclusion sparked some immediate pushback, given his historic role in supporting the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and the history of British colonization in the region.
The pending US government shutdown may be more severe for Americans than in the past, as the Trump administration is threatening to permanently fire federal employees during the shutdown, rather than simply furlough them temporarily.
Airlines and other aviation groups warned that the federal government shutdown could immediately affect airline passengers, as well as slow the pipeline of air-traffic-controllers currently in training to fill a huge gap in these crucial jobs.
YouTube, following the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter/X, is caving to a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump in response to the platforms deactivating his profiles after the 6 January insurrection in Washington. YouTube will pay $24.5m to settle the lawsuit: more than $20m of that is reportedly expected to fund the construction of a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom at the White House.
The Trump administration announced it was filing a lawsuit against Minnesota for the state’s immigration sanctuary policies, following similar lawsuits against Los Angeles and New York.
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