Senate fails to pass bill to keep essential federal workers and troops paid throughout government shutdown
The Senate has failed to pass legislation that would keep federal workers deemed essential and troops paid throughout the ongoing government shutdown – now in its 23rd day.
With a 54-45 vote, the upper chamber didn’t meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the Shutdown Fairness Act, introduced by Republican senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Three Democratic senators, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Georgia senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, broke ranks with their party and voted in favor of the bill.
Key events
Leavitt highlights Snap lapsing during shutdown, repeats misleading claims about immigrant healthcare
The White House press secretary highlighted that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) funding is set to lapse on 1 November if the government shutdown continues.
“Democrats are solely responsible for all of this unnecessary pain,” Leavitt said, before repeating the misleading claim that they are trying to “give taxpayer funded health care benefits to illegal aliens, some of whom are violent criminals”.
It’s important to note two things here:
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Democrats are trying to reverse several health care policies enacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). As I’ve reported, this includes allowing lawfully present noncitizens – which includes several groups, such as refugees and asylum seekers, those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking who are awaiting visas or documentation – to still enroll in certain federal health care programs. All of these immigrants have entered the country legally and are accounted for by the federal government.
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Undocumented immigrants remain ineligible for federally funded health insurance, and are only able to receive emergency Medicaid treatment, according to longstanding US laws. This is emergency care physicians are mandated to provide to individuals who do not have an eligible immigration status, but would otherwise qualify for Medicaid. According to a recent analysis by KFF, emergency Medicaid spending accounted for less than 1% of the program’s total expenditure between 2017 and 2023.
Trump to meet with China’s Xi Jinping on 30 October
The president will hold a bilateral meeting with China’s Xi Jinping on Thursday 30 October, the White House said. This will take place in Busan, South Korea, while both attend the Apec summit.
Senate fails to pass bill to keep essential federal workers and troops paid throughout government shutdown
The Senate has failed to pass legislation that would keep federal workers deemed essential and troops paid throughout the ongoing government shutdown – now in its 23rd day.
With a 54-45 vote, the upper chamber didn’t meet the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the Shutdown Fairness Act, introduced by Republican senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Three Democratic senators, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Georgia senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, broke ranks with their party and voted in favor of the bill.
Trump confirms he is holding off immigration enforcement surge
The president has confirmed that he is no longer carrying out an immigration enforcement surge in San Francisco, following a statement from the city’s mayor.
Trump said he was prepared to launch the effort but “friends who live in the area” called him and asked him not to go forward with that plans.
“I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around,” he added in his post on Truth Social.
He went on to write:
I told him I think he is making a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals that the Law does not permit him to remove. I told him, “It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?” The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject.
Judge extends block on national guard in Chicago indefinitely
A reminder that national guard troops won’t be deploying in the Chicago area anytime soon unless the US supreme court intervenes because a judge extended her temporary restraining order indefinitely.
Elsewhere, it will be at least days before the national guard could be deployed in Portland, Oregon, and federal appeals judges are weighing whether hundreds of California national guard members should remain under federal control.
Trump ‘calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco’, mayor says
Dani Anguiano
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said that Donald Trump told him late Wednesday evening that he was cancelling plans for a “federal deployment” to the city.
“In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning,” Lurie said in a statement.
San Francisco has been preparing for a major federal immigration enforcement operation after recent media reports indicated the administration planned to send more than 100 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agents to the region. Trump had pledged to deploy the national guard to the city in recent weeks as well.
Lurie said in a statement that during a phone call on Wednesday, he told the president the city was “on the rise” and that a federal deployment would negatively affect San Francisco.
“Visitors are coming back, buildings are getting leased and purchased, and workers are coming back to the office. We have work to do, and we would welcome continued partnerships with the FBI, DEA, ATF, and U.S. Attorney to get drugs and drug dealers off our streets, but having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery,” Lurie said in a statement.
Here’s some more context on Trump’s deployment of national guard troops in Democratic cities from the Associated Press:
Trump has deployed the guard to Washington DC, and Memphis, Tennessee, to help fight what he says is rampant crime.
Los Angeles was the first city where Trump deployed the guard, arguing it was necessary to protect federal buildings and agents as protesters fought back against mass immigration arrests.
He has also said they are needed in Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Lawsuits from Democratic officials in both cities have so far blocked troops from going out on city streets.
As protests ramp up in the California Bay Area, governor Gavin Newsom’s office told people should memorize contact information in case they’re detained.
“Act intelligently, take care of yourself, and don’t give them the pretext they’re looking for to intensify their repression,” Newsom’s office said in a post on X.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he plans to deploy national guard troops to the San Francisco to quell crime. On Sunday he told Fox News the city “was truly one of the great cities of the world” before it went “wrong” and “woke”.
The designers of a cryptocurrency launched by the US first lady, Melania Trump, in January were accused in court filings of orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme.
The $MELANIA coins were released for just a few cents each on 19 January, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as US president. Within hours, the $MELANIA coin’s price soared to $13.73. However, it then collapsed almost as quickly, and is now only worth about 10 cents – less than 1% of its peak price.
The plaintiffs say the coin’s creators organized the operation knowing that the digital currency’s value would plummet.
Halligan’s use of text message auto-delete could be illegal
Sam Levine
A top federal prosecutor’s use of an encrypted messaging application with messages set to be automatically deleted after eight hours was potentially illegal, two watchdog groups said.
Lindsey Halligan, the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, used Signal earlier this month to communicate with Anna Bower, a journalist for Lawfare, about the criminal case she is pursuing against the New York attorney general, Letitia James. Bower published the full conversation on Monday evening and said Halligan had set messages to auto-delete after eight hours.
Trump pardons founder of Binance, world’s largest crypto exchange
Nick Robins-Early
Donald Trump issued a pardon for the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday.
“President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency,” a White House statement said. “The war on crypto is over.”
Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in late 2023 to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program and stepped down as CEO of Binance, which paid $4.3bn to settle related allegations. He was sentenced to four months in prison.
‘No ICE or troops in the bay’: Protests over immigration enforcement pick up in Bay Area
Protesters have gathered outside the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, objecting to the 100 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agents that have been sent there to assist with a large-scale immigration enforcement operation.
The plans were first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter.
Today, protesters held signs reading “no ICE or troops in the Bay” and blocked CBP vehicles from entering the base.
A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest developments out of Europe. Currently, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy is addressing EU leaders in Brussels.
As my colleague, Tom Ambrose, reports, so far Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine should be able to use Russia’s frozen assets for domestic weapons production and to purchase European and US weapons. He added that land swaps with Russia were “not acceptable”.
This comes as the US announced new sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, on Wednesday. American companies and individuals will also be barred from doing business with them.
Follow along with the latest below.
David Smith
Donald Trump picked Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary as a personal favour to his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski despite objections that she was “obviously unqualified”, according to a new book.
The factional infighting behind Trump’s cabinet selection, where inexperience was no barrier to success, is detailed by journalist Jonathan Karl in Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Soon after his election victory last November, the book recounts, Trump picked Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security, central to fulfilling his campaign promise of the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Like Pete Hegseth, who landed the job of defense secretary, Noem, then the governor of South Dakota – who faced an outcry over her admission in a book that she once shot a pet dog – had not been on the transition team’s list of possible candidates and had not gone through vetting for the job, Karl writes in Retribution.
“When a surprised Trump advisor asked the president-elect why he had decided to nominate Noem to be secretary of Homeland Security, he had a simple answer. ‘I did it for Corey,’ he said. ‘It’s the only thing Corey asked me for.’”
Lewandowski was Trump’s campaign manager until he was fired in June 2016 after a string of controversies that included being accused of forcibly yanking the arm of a female reporter. Rumours of an affair between Lewandowski and Noem have swirled in Washington for years, though both deny the relationship.
Eric Adams to endorse Andrew Cuomo in final stretch of NYC mayoral race – report
The outgoing mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, will endorse independent nominee Andrew Cuomo in final stretch of the mayoral race, according to the New York Times.
In an interview with the Times, Adams said that he would campaign with Cuomo, in areas where the incumbent is most popular.
“I think that it is imperative to really wake up the Black and brown communities that have suffered from gentrification on how important this race is,” Adams told the Times.
Before dropping out of the race, and offering his endorsement, Adams called Cuomo a “liar and a snake”.
The former governor of New York is still lagging behind frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, in the polls. On Wednesday, in the final debate before election day on 4 November, Mamdani and Cuomo exchanged barbs throughout, and clashed on several issues.
After the debate, Cuomo posted a picture with Adams at a New York Knicks basketball game. Mamdani retorted on social media: “Corruption goes courtside”.
US targets drug-carrying vessel in second strike in two days
The Trump administration carried out another strike on an alleged drug-carrying vessel in the eastern Pacific on Wednesday – the second operation in the geographic region in two days. Three people, who the defense secretary Pete Hegseth identified as “narco-terrorists”, were killed in the strike.
“These strikes will continue, day after day,” Hegseth pledged in a statement. “These are not simply drug runners – these are narco-terrorists bringing death and destruction to our cities.”
On Tuesday, the administration attacked and destroyed two boats on the Pacific side of South America for the first time, killing two people. Both of these operations come after at least seven other strikes in the Caribbean that have killed at least 32 people and raised tensions with Colombia and Venezuela.
