Trump calls Senate bill a ‘very big victory’ in Arlington cemetery remarks
The president has congratulated House speaker Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader John Thune on the upper chamber’s passage of a short-term spending bill to reopen the government.
“Congratulations to you and to John and to everybody on a very big victory,” Trump said during his remarks at Arlington National Cemetery. “We’re opening up our country. Should have never been closed, should have never been closed.”
A reminder that the House is considering the legislation today, and could schedule a vote as early as tomorrow.
Key events
Joseph Gedeon
A Utah judge has handed Democrats a win in the continuing national fight over voting districts by ordering a new map that creates a House seat in a Democratic-leaning area, in a state where Republicans currently control all four positions.
The judge, Dianna Gibson, ruled just before a midnight deadline on Monday that a revised map submitted by the Republican-controlled state legislature “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats”, throwing out lawmakers’ second attempt to draw fair districts.
Instead, Gibson approved an alternative proposal drawn by the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government. It consolidates Salt Lake county – which includes the state’s largest city – largely within a single district, rather than dividing the Democratic-voting population center among all four seats.
The decision is a setback for Republicans in what they had assumed was secure territory, and breathes new life into Democrats’ attempts to reclaim the House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections. Democrats need to flip just three seats nationally to gain control of the chamber from the GOP majority.
Republicans have already locked in advantages in nine seats across Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. They have more potential gains looming in Indiana, Kansas, Florida and Louisiana. Democrats have mounted their own counteroffensive, with California voters last week overwhelmingly backing a ballot measure that could hand the party five additional seats. Virginia’s Democratic-controlled legislature is also moving on a plan that could yield two or three more seats for the party.
We’re getting some of the first pictures from Donald Trump’s visit to the largest military cemetery in the country to commemorate US veterans.
Senate bill to reopen government includes provision to allow senators to sue for seized phone records
Tucked into the in the short-term funding bill which just passed the Senate, is a key provision that offers a legal path for senators to sue if federal law enforcement seeks out a lawmaker’s phone records or device data without proper notification.
“Any Senator whose Senate data, or the Senate data of whose Senate office, has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any Federal department or agency,” the text reads.
Under “limited retroactive applicability” this provision could offer redress to the Republican senators who allege their phone records were seized as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s 2023 investigation into the Capitol insurrection.
The bill’s text says that each “violation” could result in at least $500,000 in damages.
In a short while, we’ll hear from Donald Trump as he attends a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery and delivers remarks. We’ll bring you the latest as that gets under way.
As government shutdown is poised to end, House prepares for vote on short term funding bill
We’re now waiting for the House to schedule a vote on the Senate-passed spending bill that will reopen the government and keep it funded through January. Republican speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Monday that he thinks he has the votes in the lower chamber to secure the bill’s passage.
A reminder that Johnson told members to start making plans to return to Washington, since the House has been on recess for more than 50 days, at the speaker’s behest.
Trump continues to lambast Chicago, repeating calls to send in national guard
Donald Trump also took to Truth Social in the early hours of Tuesday morning to repeat that Chicago’s murder and crime rate has decimated the city. In this instance, he focused on retail.
“The Miracle Mile Shopping Center in Chicago, once considered our Nation’s BEST, now has a more than 28% vacancy factor, and is ready to call it quits unless something is done about the murder and crime, which is prevalent throughout the City,” the president wrote. “CALL IN THE TROOPS, FAST, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!”
Notably, according to data compiled by the Council of Criminal Justice, in the first half of 2025 (January-June), Chicago’s homicide rate was 33% lower than it was for the same period in 2024.
Melody Schreiber
As flu season begins in the US, following the deadliest flu outbreak in children outside of a pandemic since record-keeping began in 2004, pediatricians are taking the lead on vaccine messaging.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not plan to resume its “wild to mild” flu vaccination campaign, which was halted in the midst of the record-breaking flu season.
Even as places such as Australia and Japan report severe flu seasons, there has also been a drop in global virus samples shared with the US, which help scientists understand which viruses and variants are circulating and how they are mutating.
In the 2024-25 flu season, 280 children died from influenza – making it the second-deadliest pediatric flu season on record in the US, second only to the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic. The CDC classified it as a “high severity season”.
A total of 109 children were diagnosed with encephalopathy, or brain swelling, related to flu infection, with one-third of those patients suffering acute necrotizing encephalopathy. Three-quarters of the patients with brain swelling needed to be admitted to the intensive care unit, and one in five died from the condition.
Among the children who were eligible for the vaccine, 89% had not been fully vaccinated.
The CDC is launching a new national campaign to “raise awareness and empower Americans with the tools they need to stay healthy during the respiratory virus season”, said Emily Hilliard, press secretary for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Hilliard did not mention the role of vaccines or respond to a request for more information about the campaign.
Pediatricians and other trusted figures are stepping into the communications gaps.
“We saw a really bad season last year, and I worry that this season could be even worse,” said Jonathan Miller, associate chief of primary care at Nemours Children’s Health and president of the Delaware chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Trump says the US would be on the hook for trillions of dollars if tariffs are reversed
As the supreme court deliberates on the fate of Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs – which he maintains are a matter of “national security” as justices appeared skeptical during oral arguments on the case last week – the president said that the US would be forced to hand “in excess of three trillion dollars” if the levies are scrapped, in a late night post on Truth Social.
He added:
It would not be possible to ever make up for that kind of a ‘drubbing.’ That would truly become an insurmountable National Security Event, and devastating to the future of our Country – Possibly non-sustainable!
However, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the total revenue of Trump’s tariffs is around $227bn, as of now.
The president is in Washington today, and will attend a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of Veterans Day. He’s set to deliver remarks at 11am ET while he’s there, so we’ll bring you the latest as that happens.
According to the White House schedule, Trump doesn’t have any further engagements.
Trump scolds air traffic controllers and blames rivals for economy
Gabrielle Canon
Gabrielle Canon is climate reporter and extreme weather correspondent for Guardian US
Donald Trump chastised overwhelmed air traffic controllers, cast blame and doubt in response to poor economic indicators and claimed that increased access to food stamps had put “the country in jeopardy”, in an exclusive interview on Fox News Monday evening.
Speaking with Laura Ingraham, the president shared his thoughts on a wide range of topics from housing mortgages to foreign policy, interspersed with insults flung at his political opponents that were teed up by Ingraham’s questions, including Gavin Newsom, the California governor, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader.
During the conversation, which aired as the Senate voted to end the longest government shutdown in US history, the president also discussed his vision for addressing the healthcare subsidies that have been at the heart of the funding impasse.
Democrats have been pushing for an extension to the tax credits that make Affordable Care Act healthcare premiums more affordable for millions of Americans, which are set to expire at the end of the year. Republicans have condemned the credits, saying they only enrich insurers.
“I want the money to go into an account for people where they buy their own health insurance,” he told Ingraham, suggesting the strategy could be called “Trump Care”. “They’re gonna feel like entrepreneurs. They’re actually able to go out & negotiate their own insurance.”
You can read more here:
Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn (£760m) after accusations that the corporation was failing in its duty of impartiality over the editing of the US president’s speech on 6 January 2021 for a Panorama programme.
Lawyers for the US president said that the BBC must retract the Panorama documentary by Friday or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1bn, according to reports. The BBC has confirmed it had received a letter and said it will respond in due course.
You can read all of the latest in our UK politics blog.
Trump asks supreme court to throw out jury’s finding in E Jean Carroll lawsuit
Donald Trump asked the US supreme court on Monday to throw out a jury’s finding in a civil lawsuit that he sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.
Trump’s lawyers argued in a lengthy filing with the high court that allegations leading to the $5m verdict were “propped up” by a “series of indefensible evidentiary rulings” that allowed Carroll’s lawyers to present “highly inflammatory propensity evidence” against him.
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and former TV talk show host, testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury retailer across the street from Trump Tower.
The jury also found Trump liable for defaming Carroll when he made comments in October 2022 denying her allegation.
Trump’s lawyers, led by Justin D Smith, a St Louis, Missouri-based attorney, called Carroll’s claims a “politically motivated hoax”.
They accused the trial judge, Lewis A Kaplan, of warping federal evidence rules to bolster Carroll’s “implausible, unsubstantiated assertions”. They said by upholding the verdict, the second US circuit court of appeals was in conflict with other federal appeals courts on how such rules should be applied.
You can read the full story here:
The funding legislation extends government funding at current levels through January 2026 along with three year-long provisions that will fund programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the USDA and FDA, and legislative branch operations.
The continuing resolution also includes language to stop mass federal firings and reverse dismissals that occurred during the shutdown – prohibiting additional reductions until the end of January – and guarantees back pay to workers who have spent weeks without paychecks.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he would abide by the terms of the deal, including provisions reinstating federal workers who had received reductions-in-force notice.
“We’re going to be opening up our country very quickly,” Trump said. “The deal is very good.”
Democrats have been fighting for the permanent extension of subsidies that support Americans relying on the Affordable Care Act, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Without an extension of the tax credits, millions of Americans could see sharp rises in their healthcare premiums or lose their marketplace coverage entirely.
You can read the full story by my colleagues, Gabrielle Canon and Lauren Gambino, here:
CNN has interviewed Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator from Arizona, and asked for his reaction to the defections.
“I believe and hope that those eight senators are going to do everything they can, whatever they were able to get, in terms of leverage, in terms of favor from these Republicans, that they’re gonna be able to deliver that (better health care deal)” he said.
Senate Democrats had resisted efforts to reopen the government, aiming to pressure Republicans into agreeing to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans, which have made private health insurance less costly for millions of Americans. They are set to expire at the end of the year.
The mounting effects of the shutdown – which has sidelined federal workers and affected food aid, parks and travel – as well as individual political considerations from Democratic senators seem to have pushed the chamber toward an agreement.
The House of Representatives will need to pass the bill before Donald Trump is able to sign it into effect.
How US senators voted on the shutdown-ending budget bill
You can find out how every senator voted in the funding bill here:
As we mentioned in the opening post, eight senators in the Democratic caucus worked with Republicans to craft the deal to reopen the US government.
They were Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and independent Angus King of Maine who caucuses with the Democrats.
You can read about why these Democrats broke rank in this story about the defections by my colleague Joseph Gedeon.
Senate passes funding package to end government shutdown as Democrats face party backlash
Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of US politics. The Senate has passed a critical funding bill that could end the longest government shutdown in US history within days.
The breakthrough came after some Senate Democrats broke with their party to strike a deal with Republicans, in a move that has enraged many in their caucus.
Some Democrats are now calling for the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, to resign, even though he voted against the deal, as many in the party are furious that the agreement does not include any extensions on healthcare subsidies.
California governor Gavin Newsom – considered a top contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination – was among those who criticized the deal, saying on Monday he had “deep disappointment, deep concern about my party right now”.
“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” said congressman Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley region of California. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
The bill passed in a 60-40 vote on Monday evening, on day 41 of the shutdown, with nearly all Republicans (bar Kentucky’s Rand Paul) joining seven Democrats and an Independent senator – who splintered from the party to approve a compromise deal that would fund most federal agencies until the end of January.
Republicans – who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate – needed the deal to get over the 60-vote minimum threshold.
The US president, Donald Trump, has expressed support for the deal, and speaker Mike Johnson has urged members of the House – which has been on an extended recess since the shutdown began – to return in preparation for a vote and a swift delivery to the president’s desk.
The shutdown has had devastating impacts on a variety of services, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, millions at risk of losing Snap food assistance benefits and many other Americans facing travel disruption amid flight delays and cancellations.
Stay with us as we bring you the latest political developments.
