Trump meeting Russ Vought to discuss cutting ‘Democrat agencies’ and whether cuts will be permanent
Donald Trump is up and truthing as the White House presses on with seizing the opportunity provided by the shutdown to axe federal jobs and Democratic spending priorities. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump writes this morning.
He said he has a meeting today with Russell Vought, “of Project 2025 fame” who is now the head of the office for management and budget, “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent”.
Vought was central to the Project 2025 blueprint – which Trump sought to distance himself from during his campaign – and has been on a years-long quest to dismantle the federal workforce and consolidate power for the president. Since Trump took office in January, he has worked alongside the so-called “department of government efficiency” to implement many aspects of the plan including slashing through the federal government.
As we reported yesterday – day one of the shutdown – he’s already started slashing blue state infrastructure spending, cancelling $8bn in climate-related funding to 16 blue states and freezing $18bn for two huge New York City construction projects. And he told a call with House Republicans that mass firings would begin either today or tomorrow and would target agencies that don’t align with the president’s priorities.
Here’s Trump’s Truth Social post:
I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DJT
Key events
Senate majority leader John Thune says that the Senate will come back on Friday to vote once again on reopening the government, but adds that weekend votes to reopen the government are unlikely.
“If that fails, then we’ll give them the weekend to think about it. We’ll come back and we’ll go again on Monday,” the South Dakota Republican said.
Judge denies Kilmar Ábrego García’s bid for asylum in the US
An immigration judge in Baltimore has denied Kilmar Ábrego García’s bid for asylum, but he has 30 days to appeal.
Ábrego’s case has drawn national attention since the 30-year-old was wrongfully deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March. The Salvadorian national has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he originally immigrated to the US illegally as a teenager. According to court documents, he was fleeing gang violence.
Following widespread pressure, the Trump administration returned him to the US in June. Upon his return, however, he immediately faced criminal charges related to human smuggling, allegations that his lawyers have rejected.
Ábrego was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday while awaiting trial. But the Trump administration announced new plans to deport him to Uganda and then Eswatini.
Then Ábrego was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during a scheduled immigration check-in in Baltimore, which was one of the conditions of his release.
Trump administration officials have waged a relentless public relations campaign against Ábrego, repeatedly referring to him as a member of the MS-13 gang, among other things, despite the fact that he has not been convicted of any crimes.
Here is my colleague Chris Stein’s report detailing the US government shutdown stretching into its second day and Donald Trump hailing the funding lapse as an “unprecedented opportunity” to further his campaign of firing federal workers and downsizing departments.
‘It’s going to get more and more painful,’ says Mike Johnson, as he claims Trump and Vought making cuts ‘reluctantly’
Speaking to reporters this morning, House speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that lawmakers are no closer to a deal on government funding and, standing at a podium emblazoned with the words, “The Democrat shutdown”, continued to lay blame for the shutdown squarely on the opposition.
He continued to insist that the Republicans had nothing to negotiate over because they’re pushing for a “clean” continuing resolution, which doesn’t include any new GOP provisions and would just maintain government funding at the current levels.
Johnson reiterated his point yesterday that Chuck Schumer had “handed the keys to the kingdom” to the executive. The White House said today that federal layoffs will probably be “in the thousands”. Johnson said:
The president takes no pleasure in this … When Congress turns off the funding and the funding runs out, it is up to the commander in chief, the president of the United States, to determine how these resources will be spent … He doesn’t want to do it.
Johnson also claimed the White House’s budget director, Russell Vought, is making cuts to the federal government “reluctantly”. (A reminder that Trump said earlier this morning that he couldn’t believe the Democrats had given him ‘this unprecedented opportunity’ to – with Vought – cut ‘many Democrat agencies’ perhaps permanently). Back to Johnson, who said:
Russ does this reluctantly … He takes no pleasure in this, because he has to sit down and decide, because he’s in charge of that office, which policies, personnel, and which programs are essential and which are not. That’s not a fun task and he’s not enjoying that responsibility.
He added this warning regarding the longer the government stays shut down:
It’s going to get more and more painful. Because the resources run out and more and more things have to be reduced and eliminated.
‘A tactic to punish’: Trump revives family separations amid drive to deport millions
Maanvi Singh
The Trump administration has revived the practice of separating families in order to coerce immigrants and asylum seekers to leave the US, attorneys and former immigration officials allege.
In several cases, officials have retaliated against immigrants who challenged deportation orders by forcibly separating them from their children, a Guardian investigation found. The officials misclassified the children as “unaccompanied minors” before placing them in government-run shelters or foster care.
The new practice has taken effect as the administration has also issued stringent new limits on who can take custody of unaccompanied minors – which advocates say keep thousands of children away from their relatives.
“This is a tactic to punish people for not acquiescing,” said Faisal Al-Juburi, head of external affairs at the legal aid group Raíces.
It’s a tactic to get immigrants to relent, to agree to self-deport.
The recent separations echo the “zero tolerance” policy of the first Trump administration, when the US systematically separated more than 5,600 children from their parents and caregivers at the US-Mexico border. Images of agents pulling children from their parents’ arms and placing them in overcrowded metal cages sparked domestic and international outrage, and Donald Trump ended the policy.
But seven years later, hundreds of parents have still been unable to reunify with their children; the administration lost track of many of the families it tore apart. Though the new separations so far appear less pervasive than the original policy, experts and attorneys said that it could result in another crisis of prolonged, permanent separations.
“I would say that the main difference is just that the separations are now happening all over the country, as opposed to at the border, concentrated in areas where you could visibly go see it,” said Michelle Brané, a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official who served under the Biden administration. “But the rest of it is not that different. The objective is still to be cruel and send a message that people should not come to the US – that they should leave.”
You can read Maanvi’s full, harrowing piece here:
White House asks universities to commit to Trump’s priorities in exchange for preferential access to funding
The White House has asked nine top universities to sign a 10-point agreement, aligning with the administration’s priorities, to gain preferential access to federal funds, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Key measures outlined in the memo, dubbed the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”, include commitments to make create a “more welcoming environment for conservatives” on campus, cap international enrollment, accept the government’s definition of gender and apply it to campus bathrooms, locker rooms and women’s sports teams, and to end “the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions”.
Signing on would give universities priority access to some federal grants, but government money would not be limited solely to those schools, a White House official told the Associated Press. Colleges that agree would also have priority access to White House events and discussions with officials.
The 10-page proposed agreement was sent yesterday to some of the country’s most selective public and private universities: Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the University of Southern California, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia. It was not clear how these schools were selected or why, and whether similar offers might go out to other colleges.
The administration has used its control of federal funding as leverage at several other colleges, cutting off research money at schools including Harvard and Columbia as it has sought changes to the schools’ governance and policies.
Russell Vought, who also headed the office of management and budget during Trump’s first term, has worked alongside the “department of government efficiency” to dramatically slash through federal agencies and purge employees since Trump took office again in January.
A key architect of Project 2025, the controversial conservative manifesto to guide a second Trump term, has a Christian nationalist world view and a deep distaste for civil servants, seeking to reshape the federal government in line with his ideological vision – to dismantle the federal workforce, appoint Trump loyalists who will not block his agenda, and consolidate power for the president.
You can read more about him here:
Karoline Leavitt also spoke on Fox News this morning, where she was asked whether Donald Trump’s threats of cuts were just a negotiating tactic. “Oh, it’s very real,” she replied.
“The Democrats should know that they put the White House and the president in this position,” she went on. “And if they don’t want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government. It’s very simple. Pass the clean continuing resolution and all of this goes away.
“We would not be having these discussions here at the White House today [about mass layoffs and agency cuts] if not for the Democrats voting to shut the government down. This is an unfortunate consequence.”
US government layoffs ‘likely to be in the thousands’, says White House
US government layoffs could be in the thousands, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has said, as the federal government entered the second day of the shutdown. She did not provide details.
Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House and as the bipartisan blame game rages on, she added:
These discussions and these conversations, these meetings would not be happening if the Democrats had voted to keep the government open.
Asked specifically which agencies would be targeted, Leavitt said, “We’re looking at agencies that don’t align with the president’s values” and “that we feel are a waste of the taxpayer dollar”.
Trump will draw red line for any Hamas response, says White House
The Trump administration hopes and expects Hamas to approve its plan for Gaza and Donald Trump will draw a red line for any response from the group, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has said.
“It’s a red line that the president of the United States is going to have to draw, and I’m confident that he will,” Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News when asked about Hamas potentially walking away from the plan.
Trump gave Hamas “three or four days” on Tuesday to accept his peace plan for Gaza. Should they reject the plan, Trump has said Israel has his full backing to “finish the job” in Gaza, where Israel’s assault has already killed well over 66,000 Palestinian people.
AFP has reported that some Hamas officials want amendments, including on the plan’s requirement for the group to disarm, while others want to accept the deal because, as one source tells the agency, “the important thing is to have a ceasefire guaranteed by Trump”.
The US is not putting money into Argentina but only providing a credit swap line, treasury secretary Scott Bessent also told CNBC this morning.
What the US is doing, just to be clear: We are giving them a swap line. We are not putting money into Argentina, OK?
Donald Trump will meet with Argentina’s president Javier Milei in two weeks, Argentina said on Tuesday, as Milei seeks to secure the credit swap line from the US that has rankled some Republicans as Argentina offloaded billions of dollars in soy to China.
Earlier, Bessent said in an X post that he was looking forward to meeting Argentine economy minister Luis Caputo’s team in Washington to advance discussions on options for financial support.
“The @USTreasury is fully prepared to do what is necessary, and we will continue to watch developments closely,” Bessent said in his post.
The US did not maintain strategic interests in the western hemisphere in recent decades and now has a chance to support Argentina, Bessent said.
He praised Milei as having done a “fantastic job” and said he was sure the right-wing leader would do well in upcoming elections.
“Now Argentina is a beacon down there. And there’s a chance now for many other countries to come along – Bolivia, Ecuador, I think Colombia – after the elections. So what you don’t want are these failed economic models,” Bessent said.
Argentina votes on 26 October in legislative midterm elections, in which Milei’s party aims to gain seats to strengthen its minority position.
In his interview this morning with CNBC Scott Bessent also said that he could “guarantee” there wouldn’t be an agreement between Republicans and Democrats to extend Obamacare subsidies as a way to end the government shutdown. But he said there could be an agreement to talks.
Democrats are negotiating “like terrorists”, the treasury secretary claimed, adding: “They want to say, ‘This is what we have to have, and if we don’t get it, we’re going to close down the government.’”
He then called Senate Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries “weak” and “discombobulated”, and accused them of using the shutdown as an opportunity.
President Trump, in the first nine months now, has been unstoppable. They’ve tried to stop him in the courts, they tried to stop him in the press, and now they’re trying to stop him with the shutdown.
Since the US government shut down at midnight on Wednesday, tens of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed (told not to work), while others must work without pay until Congress passes a budget. The shutdown will have a wide range of effects on government services and programs as well as the US economy, from national parks to travel and housing.
My colleague Marina Dunbar explains what it means for everyday people:
Treasury secretary Bessent says GDP could take a hit from government shutdown
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has been speaking on CNBC this morning, and said that US GDP could take a hit from the government shutdown, which is one day two with no end in sight. He told CNBC Squawk Box:
This isn’t the way to have a discussion, shutting down the government and lowering the GDP. We could see a hit to the GDP, a hit to growth and a hit to working America.
Government shutdowns usually have little economic impact, but many commentators have pointed out that this one could be different due to Donald Trump’s threats to make some federal government furloughs permanent. Asked by CNBC about whether Trump was considering that, Bessent called it a “talking point” (though Trump has confirmed that himself).
Facing repeated questions about the timing and extent of the layoffs that the administration could carry out in the coming days, Bessent said only, “I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the president to use all the levers” available to him.
Trump meeting Russ Vought to discuss cutting ‘Democrat agencies’ and whether cuts will be permanent
Donald Trump is up and truthing as the White House presses on with seizing the opportunity provided by the shutdown to axe federal jobs and Democratic spending priorities. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump writes this morning.
He said he has a meeting today with Russell Vought, “of Project 2025 fame” who is now the head of the office for management and budget, “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent”.
Vought was central to the Project 2025 blueprint – which Trump sought to distance himself from during his campaign – and has been on a years-long quest to dismantle the federal workforce and consolidate power for the president. Since Trump took office in January, he has worked alongside the so-called “department of government efficiency” to implement many aspects of the plan including slashing through the federal government.
As we reported yesterday – day one of the shutdown – he’s already started slashing blue state infrastructure spending, cancelling $8bn in climate-related funding to 16 blue states and freezing $18bn for two huge New York City construction projects. And he told a call with House Republicans that mass firings would begin either today or tomorrow and would target agencies that don’t align with the president’s priorities.
Here’s Trump’s Truth Social post:
I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DJT
Trump tells Republicans to ‘clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud’
As congressional Democrats hold out for healthcare subsidies, the Trump administration has repeatedly stated that federal workers will face layoffs while the government is shut down.
Late last night, president Donald Trump posted on Truth Social:
Republicans must use this opportunity of Democrat forced closure to clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud. Billions of Dollars can be saved. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Democrats hold firm on healthcare demands as US government remains shut
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. We will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that a vote to end the government shutdown hours after it began failed on Wednesday, as Democrats in the Senate held firm to the party’s demands to fund healthcare subsidies that president Donald Trump and Republicans refuse to extend.
The tally showed cracks in the Democrats’ resolve, but the outcome also left no breakthrough, AP reported. Blame was being cast on all sides on the first day of the shutdown.
The White House and Congress failed to strike an agreement to keep programs and services open, throwing the country into a new cycle of uncertainty.
At the heart of the issue are tax credits that have made health insurance through the Affordable Care Act more affordable for millions of people since the coronavirus pandemic.
The credits are set to expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t extend them, which would more than double what subsidized enrollees currently pay for health insurance premiums, according to analysis.
Meanwhile, as the Trump administration insists it is serious about negotiating an end to the government shutdown, a pair of racist deepfake videos mocking Democratic leaders played on a loop in the White House briefing room for hours on Wednesday.
The videos, posted by Trump on his social media platform on Monday, use fabricated audio to make it seem as if the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called Democrats “woke pieces of shit”, and showed the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, with a fake mustache and sombrero.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, made light of the tactic during a rare appearance in the briefing room. “I think it’s funny. The president’s joking and we’re having a good time. You can negotiate in good faith while also making a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities of the Democrats’ positions, and even poking some fun at the absurdity of themselves.
“I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make the solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop. I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that.”
Jeffries has denounced the memes as racist. Vance retorted: “I honestly don’t even know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
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JD Vance, the vice-president, used false claims to blame Democrats for the government shutdown as the White House warned that worker layoffs were imminent.
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Donald Trump quietly signed an executive order on Monday in which he promised that the United States will defend the nation of Qatar by treating “any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure” of the energy-rich Persian Gulf monarchy “as a threat to the peace and security of the United States”.
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Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, the top Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, and both New Yorkers, accused the Trump administration of retaliating against their constituents by putting billions of dollars to revamp transportation infrastructure on hold.
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Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, said in a statement on Wednesday that “Donald Trump’s unlawful federalization of members of the Oregon National Guard could cost taxpayers up to $10m”.
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The Trump administration said that it was putting a hold on roughly $18bn to fund a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey and the city’s expanded Second Avenue subway project – because of the government shutdown.
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Donald Trump once again shared misinformation about Portland, Oregon, on social media on Wednesday, when he announced that the national guard troops he called up in response to a small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) office in the otherwise tranquil city are “now in place”.
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Lisa Cook, the US Federal Reserve governor, will keep her job for now, despite Donald Trump’s extraordinary bid to remove her from the central bank’s board with immediate effect.
