ReportWire

Tag: Democrats

  • Missed paychecks, federal layoffs: The government shutdown heading into another weekend

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    The White House has begun laying off federal workers as the government shutdown drags into the weekend, affecting employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Military families could miss their first paycheck next Wednesday if the government does not reopen. Although the Senate is set to return on Tuesday, the President has publicly assured service members that they will receive pay regardless of the shutdown, though it remains unclear how this will be achieved.Rep. Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, says some people will receive partial paychecks while others won’t receive a check at all. “Real people are being hurt. You got 700,000 federal workers that will receive paychecks today, followed by an additional 400,000 workers on 10/14. That’s their last paycheck. That is the last paycheck they’re going to have until the Democrats reopen the government,” Johnson said.The House Speaker has rejected a standalone bill to pay troops during the shutdown, urging Democrats to support his short-term plan to reopen the government. Democrats have repeatedly voted against this measure, demanding health care extensions.Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Minority Leader, said, “Extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, address the Republican health care crisis, reopen the government, pay our troops, pay our hardworking federal employees, and enact a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people.”The Agriculture Department has stated that the WIC program, which provides food benefits for women, infants, and children, will continue operating “for the foreseeable future” using tariff revenue to remain functional.PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiPiFmdW5jdGlvbigpeyJ1c2Ugc3RyaWN0Ijt3aW5kb3cuYWRkRXZlbnRMaXN0ZW5lcigibWVzc2FnZSIsKGZ1bmN0aW9uKGUpe2lmKHZvaWQgMCE9PWUuZGF0YVsiZGF0YXdyYXBwZXItaGVpZ2h0Il0pe3ZhciB0PWRvY3VtZW50LnF1ZXJ5U2VsZWN0b3JBbGwoImlmcmFtZSIpO2Zvcih2YXIgYSBpbiBlLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdKWZvcih2YXIgcj0wO3I8dC5sZW5ndGg7cisrKXtpZih0W3JdLmNvbnRlbnRXaW5kb3c9PT1lLnNvdXJjZSl0W3JdLnN0eWxlLmhlaWdodD1lLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdW2FdKyJweCJ9fX0pKX0oKTs8L3NjcmlwdD4=

    WASHINGTON —

    The White House has begun laying off federal workers as the government shutdown drags into the weekend, affecting employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

    Military families could miss their first paycheck next Wednesday if the government does not reopen. Although the Senate is set to return on Tuesday, the President has publicly assured service members that they will receive pay regardless of the shutdown, though it remains unclear how this will be achieved.

    Rep. Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, says some people will receive partial paychecks while others won’t receive a check at all.

    “Real people are being hurt. You got 700,000 federal workers that will receive paychecks today, followed by an additional 400,000 workers on 10/14. That’s their last paycheck. That is the last paycheck they’re going to have until the Democrats reopen the government,” Johnson said.

    The House Speaker has rejected a standalone bill to pay troops during the shutdown, urging Democrats to support his short-term plan to reopen the government. Democrats have repeatedly voted against this measure, demanding health care extensions.

    Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Minority Leader, said, “Extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, address the Republican health care crisis, reopen the government, pay our troops, pay our hardworking federal employees, and enact a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people.”

    The Agriculture Department has stated that the WIC program, which provides food benefits for women, infants, and children, will continue operating “for the foreseeable future” using tariff revenue to remain functional.

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  • Missed paychecks, federal layoffs: The government shutdown heading into another weekend

    [ad_1]

    The White House has begun laying off federal workers as the government shutdown drags into the weekend, affecting employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Military families could miss their first paycheck next Wednesday if the government does not reopen. Although the Senate is set to return on Tuesday, the President has publicly assured service members that they will receive pay regardless of the shutdown, though it remains unclear how this will be achieved.Rep. Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, says some people will receive partial paychecks while others won’t receive a check at all. “Real people are being hurt. You got 700,000 federal workers that will receive paychecks today, followed by an additional 400,000 workers on 10/14. That’s their last paycheck. That is the last paycheck they’re going to have until the Democrats reopen the government,” Johnson said.The House Speaker has rejected a standalone bill to pay troops during the shutdown, urging Democrats to support his short-term plan to reopen the government. Democrats have repeatedly voted against this measure, demanding health care extensions.Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Minority Leader, said, “Extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, address the Republican health care crisis, reopen the government, pay our troops, pay our hardworking federal employees, and enact a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people.”The Agriculture Department has stated that the WIC program, which provides food benefits for women, infants, and children, will continue operating “for the foreseeable future” using tariff revenue to remain functional.PHNjcmlwdCB0eXBlPSJ0ZXh0L2phdmFzY3JpcHQiPiFmdW5jdGlvbigpeyJ1c2Ugc3RyaWN0Ijt3aW5kb3cuYWRkRXZlbnRMaXN0ZW5lcigibWVzc2FnZSIsKGZ1bmN0aW9uKGUpe2lmKHZvaWQgMCE9PWUuZGF0YVsiZGF0YXdyYXBwZXItaGVpZ2h0Il0pe3ZhciB0PWRvY3VtZW50LnF1ZXJ5U2VsZWN0b3JBbGwoImlmcmFtZSIpO2Zvcih2YXIgYSBpbiBlLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdKWZvcih2YXIgcj0wO3I8dC5sZW5ndGg7cisrKXtpZih0W3JdLmNvbnRlbnRXaW5kb3c9PT1lLnNvdXJjZSl0W3JdLnN0eWxlLmhlaWdodD1lLmRhdGFbImRhdGF3cmFwcGVyLWhlaWdodCJdW2FdKyJweCJ9fX0pKX0oKTs8L3NjcmlwdD4=

    WASHINGTON —

    The White House has begun laying off federal workers as the government shutdown drags into the weekend, affecting employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

    Military families could miss their first paycheck next Wednesday if the government does not reopen. Although the Senate is set to return on Tuesday, the President has publicly assured service members that they will receive pay regardless of the shutdown, though it remains unclear how this will be achieved.

    Rep. Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, says some people will receive partial paychecks while others won’t receive a check at all.

    “Real people are being hurt. You got 700,000 federal workers that will receive paychecks today, followed by an additional 400,000 workers on 10/14. That’s their last paycheck. That is the last paycheck they’re going to have until the Democrats reopen the government,” Johnson said.

    The House Speaker has rejected a standalone bill to pay troops during the shutdown, urging Democrats to support his short-term plan to reopen the government. Democrats have repeatedly voted against this measure, demanding health care extensions.

    Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Minority Leader, said, “Extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, address the Republican health care crisis, reopen the government, pay our troops, pay our hardworking federal employees, and enact a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people.”

    The Agriculture Department has stated that the WIC program, which provides food benefits for women, infants, and children, will continue operating “for the foreseeable future” using tariff revenue to remain functional.

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  • Pain for federal workers as government shutdown continues

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    Pain for federal workers as government shutdown continues – CBS News










































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    Federal employees will receive reduced paychecks this week as the government shutdown continues. Taurean Small has more.

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  • Dwelling on the 2024 Defeat Is a Waste of Time for Democrats

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    These two people are not going to be on any 2026 ballots.
    Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

    Look, I get it: There are many reasons Democrats feel the need to look back at the electoral calamity of 2024. The Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, has books to sell. Joe Biden loyalists feel they must rehabilitate his tarnished image. Operatives and donors who were knee-deep in the Biden or Harris campaigns naturally have scores to settle and grudges to air. And above all, the ideological warriors of the Democratic left and center want to blame each other for the debacle, just as they’ve blamed every Democratic defeat large or small on each other since about 1968.

    In wallowing in the 2024 defeat, Democrats are avidly assisted by Republicans experiencing intense Schadenfreude at their misery. The GOP is deeply invested in spinning the close 2024 results into an irreversible realignment that will make Donald Trump and his heirs masters of the universe until the end of time.

    So I’m not under the illusion that Democrats will be able to eschew 2024 reminiscences altogether. But they should give it a try. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the Democratic National Committee was slow-walking its official “autopsy report” on 2024 until 2025 elections are over, out of concern that negative discussion of the party (and, for that matter, of the accuracy or inaccuracy of the “autopsy” itself) might affect organizers’ morale or even voter turnout. Here’s a better idea: Democrats should put off any official 2024 “autopsy” until late November 2026, when the midterms are done.

    This recommendation does not stem from a preoccupation with vibes or a belief that Democrats can’t handle bad news or division over what happened in 2024. The more basic truth is that much of what happened in 2024 is probably irrelevant to what will happen in 2026, and revisiting it all is just a big, fat waste of time, at least until the next presidential election cycle arrives. Here’s why.

    Midterm elections are fundamentally different than presidential elections in multiple ways. Basically, different electorates show up for each. Presidential election turnout is invariably higher (it was 67 percent in 2020 and 64 percent in 2024). Voters who participate in presidential but not midterm elections are often referred to as “low-propensity voters.”

    Until very recently, Republicans had an advantage among the “high-propensity voters” most likely to show up for midterms. But in the Trump era, that advantage has shifted to Democrats. So a lot of the endless debate over Trump’s gains among low-propensity voters in 2024 might not even be relevant to the 2026 electorate.

    Presidential elections are mostly comparative, i.e., a choice between two candidates representing the two major parties (although perceptions of the party controlling the White House have a significant effect on that choice). Midterm elections are mostly referenda on the party in power, particularly when that party has trifecta control in D.C., as Republicans do today. So polls showing that voters favor one party or the other on certain issues can be a bit misleading; their perceptions of the president’s performance on those issues is more germane.

    This is why at least some of the fretting about the supposed weakness of the “Democratic brand” coming out of 2024 is probably excessive. In a first-past-the-post system dominated by two major parties, the “out” party will benefit from any and all misgivings about the “in” party. Trump’s persistently underwater job-approval numbers help explain why he’s trying to rig the midterms through gerrymandering and voter suppression.

    There is also a tendency, which is real but hard to quantify, for voters who are aligned with or even support the agenda of the president’s party to vote against it as a “check against presidential power.” This helps explain why the party controlling the White House almost always loses congressional seats (and often governorships and state legislatures) in midterms.

    The situation facing voters next year isn’t going to resemble the one that existed in the very strange 2024 election. Whether their “brand” is weak or strong, Democrats are not going to be led by 81-year-old Joe Biden and then by a relatively untested Kamala Harris. Yes, some Democrats believe they have too many old politicians in office or running for office, but it’s a different problem from a historically old man being the accepted head of the party and the most powerful person in the world.

    Similarly, it makes a world of difference that Democrats will not control the White House and Congress in 2026. There is an ineradicable group of voters (growing larger with younger cohorts) who are profoundly unhappy with the status quo and will swing between the two parties based on who controls the country. This “I hate everything” vote was a millstone for Democrats in 2024. It won’t be in 2026.

    The 2024 election was fought over seven battleground states that were seriously contested by both parties: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump carried all of them, which created the mirage of a landslide (as though all those 75 million Democratic votes didn’t actually count). In the 2026 midterms, the big battle will be over competitive Senate and especially House races. Of the nine Senate races deemed competitive by Cook Political Report, just three are in 2024 battleground states. Thirty-nine House races are rated as competitive by Cook. Eleven are in 2024 battleground states. Different strokes (and messages) may be appropriate for different folks.

    Without a deep dive into the particulars of 2024, Democrats clearly made some mistakes that you don’t need an “autopsy” to identify. It’s been obvious at least since the swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 that falling silent in the face of relentless opposition attacks is almost always a very bad idea — see the Harris-Walz campaign’s decision to look the other way or change the subject as the Trump-Vance campaign relentlessly pounded her using clips from the bizarre 2019 interview in which Harris appeared enthusiastic about spending taxpayer dollars on gender-assignment surgery for prisoners who were also illegal immigrants. I’m reasonably sure future candidates won’t make that mistake.

    The single biggest reason 2024 is relatively useless as a model for 2026 is that Trump won in no small part because a significant slice of voters simply did not buy Democratic claims that he was dangerously authoritarian, cruel, and indifferent to the suffering he wanted to inflict on noncriminal immigrants and people dependent on government help to make ends meet. Some remembered his first term as relatively benign (aside from a pandemic for which he was not blamed), while others, particularly younger voters, thought all politicians were pretty much the same.

    We’ve now had more than nine months of dramatic proof that Democratic warnings about Trump 2.0 were, if anything, understated. That won’t matter to Trump’s MAGA base; indeed, their own anger and hostility to democracy seem stronger than ever. But it will matter to many of the same swing voters who opened the door to Trump’s return to power.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • NJ governor race enters final stretch as candidates trade barbs

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    Last week in Nutley, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Jack Ciattarelli pitched his gubernatorial candidacy to more than 100 people crowded inside Mamma Vittoria banquet hall.

    Ciattarelli, who is making his third bid for the state’s top job, opened his remarks by referencing a group of protestors gathered outside on Franklin Avenue in this Essex County town.

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    “How disappointed are they going to be in 28 days?” Ciattarelli said to applause from the crowd of his supporters. “Because I’m here to tell you right here, right now, in 28 days, we’re declaring victory. We’re winning this race.”

    It’s less than four weeks until New Jersey voters decide whether Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman, or Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill will become our next governor in a race that has become increasingly bitter as both sides claim the other is lying about their record. Rising costs, immigration, Sherrill’s military record, and Ciattarelli’s support of President Donald Trump have dominated the campaign in its most recent weeks.

    The two are competing on Nov. 4 to replace outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who is wrapping up his two terms as governor in January and cannot seek a third term this year. Vic Kaplan, a Libertarian, and Joanne S. Kuniansky, representing the Socialist Workers Party, will also be on the ballot.

    Sherill told reporters during a campaign stop at Kean University Monday that the large turnout for June’s six-person Democratic gubernatorial primary indicated how eager the party is to remain in power for a third straight term.

    “That’s the kind of enthusiasm we’re seeing on the ground. We are working to get that, take that enthusiasm and ensure that every single person gets to the polls,” she said.

    Polling edge

    Since polling ramped up at the start of September, surveys of the contest have usually shown Sherrill with a sizable single-digit lead.

    Though some polls have suggested a closer race — including a tied result from an Emerson College poll released last month — Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll director Dan Cassino believes Sherrill has the edge.

    “I think we do see Democrats freaking out and getting worried and being nervous because they’re Democrats in New Jersey and that is their species’ being,” Cassino said. “I don’t think we have any particular reason for them to be nervous, but I think they very much are.”

    An Axios report cited private conversations with unnamed Democrats to say the party is increasingly concerned that Sherrill could lose the race. Sherrill brushed the criticism off on Monday, suggesting national Democrats “are in a different place.”

    “This is just the kind of, I think, electorate that is ready to fight hard for the things we care about, and I think we’ll see those results in November,” she said.

    Ashley Koning, director of Rutgers University’s Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, warned the race would come down to turnout — something next to impossible to forecast.

    “Turnout has never been something that’s predictable, but it certainly is not predictable now, and when you overlay the national political context on top of our race in this state, it is incredibly difficult to get a good handle on where this actually is, other than of course it’s close,” Koning said.

    Polls of New Jersey’s 2021 gubernatorial race — when Murphy faced Ciattarelli — mostly missed the mark. Though Real Clear Politics’ polling average showed Murphy up 7.8 points over Ciattarelli, the governor won reelection by just 3.2 points.

    Pollsters have made some changes to prevent another miss. Fairleigh Dickinson University’s poll began weighting its results by education and region to more accurately reflect attitudes across the state, Cassino said, though the effect of such changes is so far untested.

    There are other reasons to think the race will be close, and the candidates’ increasing acrimony numbers near the top of the list.

    Sherrill and Ciattarelli have launched ads seeking to tar their opponent in what Cassino said is a bid to drive down turnout among their rival’s base.

    “The fact that it’s turned negative tells you both candidates think this race is up for grabs,” Cassino said, later adding, “This is trying to winnow the electorate down to just the most committed voters because both sides think they have an advantage there.”

    Rough and tumble

    Turnout in this year’s governor’s race is expected to be low, as is typical for the state’s odd-year elections. In 2021, just 40% of the state’s eligible voters cast ballots in the general election.

    But the campaigns’ turn toward mudslinging could also just reflect the growing bitterness of American politics.

    “I think that’s what politics is nowadays. I think we have seen more and more nationalized campaigns, including here in the Garden State,” said Koning. “This is just what politics is. This is what it’s expected to be, and that civility and decorum that used to once, potentially, accompany it is gone.”

    Ben Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship, said this year’s negativity hasn’t reached any high-water marks.

    “Negative campaigns, contrasts over policies happen all the time. Personal attacks are unfortunate, but they happen in this game. We’re not playing tiddlywinks here,” he said. “This is New Jersey politics. It’s a rough-and-tumble sport.”

    Trump could also prove an unpredictable variable in the race.

    Sherrill has invoked him often on the campaign trail, hoping to tap the same animus that helped propel her to her first congressional term in 2018. On Monday, she criticized the effect of Trump’s tariffs and the continued federal government shutdown, which Democrats blame on Republicans and Republicans blame on Democrats.

    “Voters are seeing Trump is costing them an incredible amount of money, and every time they go to Jack to say, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ his response is largely, ‘I agree with it,'” she said.

    Ciattarelli’s mentions of Trump have largely been to mock Sherrill for her focus on him.

    “If you get a flat tire on the way home today, it’s President Trump’s fault,” Ciattarelli joked in Nutley. “There’s nothing this woman won’t blame on President Trump.”

    Historically, New Jersey backs the governor who doesn’t share the president’s party affiliation. Murphy bucked that trend to win reelection in 2021, but at least some of that win can be attributed to the pandemic, Dworkin said.

    The state also rarely selects a governor from the same party three times in a row. New Jersey last did so when Gov. Richard Hughes was elected to succeed Gov. Robert Meyner in 1961.

    “I think the fact that we’re really not sure which one of these kinds of trends is going to be dominant reflects the closeness of the race,” Dworkin said.

    New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.

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    Nikita Biryukov and Sophie Nieto-Munoz, New Jersey Monitor

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  • Jeffries blasts

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    Jeffries blasts “dirty partisan bill” and continues to blame Republicans about shutdown – CBS News










































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    Senate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is slamming Republicans and blaming them for the government shutdown as senators leave D.C. CBS News’ Nikole Killion reports.

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  • Janet Mills chances of beating Susan Collins in Maine, according to polls

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    Maine Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, is preparing to launch a challenge to longtime GOP Senator Susan Collins in what is likely to become one of the most closely watched races of the midterms, the Associated Press reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with her plans.

    Jordan Wood, a Democrat who announced his Senate campaign earlier this year, reacted to the report in a statement to Newsweek.

    “Primaries are an important part of the democratic process because they give voters a real choice for our future. Since launching the campaign, we’ve organized more than 30 events across the state and voters consistently tell me they want an open and vibrant primary process. With so much at stake, Mainers want to decide which candidate can defeat Susan Collins, defend our democracy from Donald Trump, and deliver for working families,” he said.

    Newsweek reached out to spokespersons for Collins, Mills and other Senate candidates for comment via email.

    Why It Matters

    Maine generally leans Democratic, having backed former Vice President Kamala Harris by about seven points last November, but Collins has handily won reelection in the past due to her more moderate policy positions and close ties to the state. Democrats, however, believe 2026 has the potential to be her closest race yet as President Donald Trump’s approval slips nationwide, and as he remains unpopular in the Pine Tree State.

    National Democrats view Mills, who has also won by wide margins in her two gubernatorial races, as a top recruit for the race. But others are less sold on the idea of her candidacy, believing that other Democrats already in the race such as Graham Platner, whose campaign has garnered nationwide attention, could make for a stronger candidate.

    What To Know

    Maine is likely a must-win for Democrats hoping to reclaim control of the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority. Collins is the only Republican in a Harris-won state up for reelection. Democrats also view an open race in battleground North Carolina as a prime pickup opportunity, but other potential flips would require them to win more conservative territory.

    Mills will bring high name recognition into the race, as voters are already familiar with her from her stint as attorney general and governor. She flipped the governor’s office in 2020, winning by about seven points, and won reelection in 2022 by nearly 13 points against former Governor Paul LePage. She is unable to run for reelection due to term limits.

    But she may face a competitive primary against Platner, Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban and Wood, the former President of End Citizens United, all of whom have already announced their campaigns.

    Polling on the Senate race remains limited despite its importance for the midterms.

    Polls have generally found that Mills enjoys stronger approval than Collins.

    A University of New Hampshire poll from over the summer found that 14 percent of Mainers view Collins favorably, while 57 percent view her unfavorably. An additional 26 percent were neutral. Meanwhile, 51 percent of Mainers view Mills favorably and 41 percent unfavorably. Only 7 percent were neutral on Mills, according to the survey, which surveyed 846 Mainers between June 19 and June 23. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

    A Pan Atlantic Research poll yielded better results for Collins, finding that 49 percent of Mainers view her favorably and 45 percent view her unfavorable. It found that 52 percent of respondents viewed Mills favorably, while 44 percent viewed her unfavorably. It surveyed 840 likely voters from May 12 to May 26, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

    Morning Consult found earlier this year that Mills had a net approval rating of +2—making her the least popular Democratic governor in the country—though Collins’ approval was -16. That poll took place from April to June of this year, and the sample sizes varied by state.

    Polls in 2020 were notably off in Maine. Although surveys showed former Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon with a lead, Collins ended up prevailing with just over 50 percent of the vote.

    Mills, viewed as a more centrist Democrat, engaged in a high-profile debate with the White House over Trump’s efforts to deny states funding over transgender athletes, telling him “We’ll see you in court.”

    What People Are Saying

    Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, wrote on X Thursday: “Graham Platner is a great working class candidate for Senate in Maine who will defeat Susan Collins. It’s disappointing that some Democratic leaders are urging Governor Mills to run. We need to focus on winning that seat & not waste millions on an unnecessary & divisive primary.”

    Pollster Adam Carlson wrote on X in August: “Sometimes to take out a modern political anomaly like Susan Collins, you need to try something different Janet Mills has been a good governor, but she’s 77, not especially popular, and has been in politics since 1980 Graham’s background might be unusual, but he’s got the juice.”

    Commentator Russel Drew wrote on X on Friday: “We need to see some new, legit polling about #MESEN. The oyster farmer is absolutely an interesting candidate, but Gov. Mills has already won statewide twice. F*** our feelings. Let’s see the data.”

    Anna Palmer, CEO of Punchbowl News, said during The Daily Punch podcast: “This is a huge get for Senat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is on a recruiting tear. But Mills will have to contend with a crowded field of Democratic challengers who didn’t wait to jump in while she made up her mind. This is something that Democrats have been waiting for, and it seemed like she was taking her sweet time to get into the race, and now it is finally here. This could potentially be a problem for Susan Collins.”

    What Happens Next?

    Mills and other candidates will spend the coming months making their cases to voters about why they are the best candidate to challenge Collins in the Senate race. Forecasters give Collins an edge—both the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball classify the race as leaning Republican.

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  • The Shutdown Is Pushing Air Safety Workers to the Limit

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    “We will never compromise on safety. When staffing constraints arise, the FAA will slow down air traffic at impacted airports to ensure operations remain safe,” FAA spokesperson Hannah Walden tells WIRED, adding that Transportation secretary Sean Duffy “said that air traffic controllers who report to work will be paid. Regarding reductions in force (RIFs), DOT has been clear for months: safety critical positions—including air traffic controllers—have and will continue to be exempt from any RIFs.”

    In a written statement, a spokesperson for the TSA said of employees working without pay: “It’s unfortunate they have been put in this position due to political gamesmanship. Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government.”

    On Thursday, Duffy suggested on Fox Business News that controllers and other workers who don’t come to work during the shutdown would be fired. “If we have a continual small subset of controllers that don’t show up to work, and they’re the problem children … if we have some on our staff that aren’t dedicated like we need, we’re going to let them go,” said Duffy.

    One air traffic controller described this week’s working conditions as “pretty much the same” but with “an undercurrent of fear that the dipshits in charge will use this as an excuse to decertify our union and take away all bargaining rights.”

    Air traffic workers know that accusations of coordinated activity and sick-outs, or informal labor actions that could violate long-standing bargaining agreements with the government, are especially perilous right now, as federal officials threaten the status of public sector unions. The Trump administration suddenly ended TSA workers’ collective bargaining agreement in March, before a court preliminarily halted the move in June. Workers worry that taking an absence, even when it’s needed, could have long-term consequences for their union—and therefore, their working conditions.

    The National Air Traffic Controllers Association did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. But a pop-up on the public union’s website notes that it “does not endorse, support, or condone any federal employees participating in or endorsing a coordinated activity that negatively affects the capacity” of the National Airspace System.

    Jones, the TSA agent and union leader, says his group won’t organize sick-outs. But employees may have to call out if the lack of pay means “they don’t have the means to commute into work,” he says.

    “We are sick and tired of being political pawns for Washington,” adds Jones.

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    Aarian Marshall

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  • Do Democrats want hospitals paid extra to treat immigrants?

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    House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., escalated his blame of Democrats for the federal government’s ongoing shutdown.

    “As a condition for ending the Democrat shutdown, Democrats want hospitals paid MORE to treat illegal aliens than American citizens — including young pregnant women,” Johnson said in an Oct. 5 X post.

    He pointed to the Democrats’ proposal to reverse Republican spending bill health care provisions signed into law this summer.

    “Republicans made it illegal for Medicaid to reimburse care for illegal aliens at higher rates than for U.S. citizens. Democrats are now demanding to reverse that,” Johnson said in the X post. 

    He made a similar statement in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the same day.

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    A spokesperson for Johnson pointed to Section 71117 in the Republican law that Democrats want to repeal. The provision limits the way states can use taxes levied on health care providers to finance Medicaid costs. States share Medicaid costs with the federal government. 

    But health care experts said the section doesn’t address hospital reimbursement for providing services to immigrants illegally in the U.S.

    It “affects state financing mechanics, not coverage for undocumented patients,” University of California, Los Angeles health policy professor Arturo Bustamante said. “Reversing it wouldn’t suddenly increase payments for care to undocumented patients; it would just give states more flexibility in how they finance their Medicaid programs.”

    Democrats also want to reverse another section of the GOP bill, 71110, that affects hospital reimbursements for emergency care provided to immigrants. This can include immigrants illegally in the U.S. but is not limited to them. It also includes other noncitizens with legal status, such as permanent residents who have a waiting period before they qualify for Medicaid.

    The 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act requires hospitals to provide emergency services to stabilize patients regardless of their ability to pay or immigration status. States and the federal government reimburse hospitals for care provided to immigrants who meet all Medicaid requirements except for their immigration status; immigrants in the country illegally are not eligible to receive Medicaid. Those reimbursements are called Emergency Medicaid.

    The Republican law didn’t end hospitals’ obligation to provide emergency care. Starting in 2026, it will reduce federal government reimbursements to hospitals for certain noncitizens’ emergency care, leaving states to cover a larger portion. The Democrats’ budget proposal restores reimbursements to previous levels.

    Importantly, the Democratic proposal would not require that hospitals be paid extra to treat immigrants illegally in the U.S. It calls for states to receive the same amount of federal funding to cover Emergency Medicaid that they had received before the Republican law, health care experts said.

    “I’m not aware of hospitals getting paid more for emergency care for undocumented immigrants,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a health think tank, said. By lowering how much the federal government covers, he added, Republicans are “just shifting costs to states.”

    Law enforcements stand outside the hospital emergency after a shooting near the adjoining campuses of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of Emory University in Atlanta on, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP )

    Republican law limits amount hospitals are reimbursed for emergency care for immigrants 

    Most Emergency Medicaid spending is for childbirth. In all, spending on Emergency Medicaid represented less than 1% of total Medicaid spending in fiscal year 2023, according to KFF.

    The Republican law’s changes to Emergency Medicaid reimbursements are focused on states that expanded Medicaid to cover a larger pool of people.

    Forty states and Washington, D.C., expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, making adults ages 19 to 64, without dependent children and with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, eligible. The federal government covers 90% of Medicaid costs for people included under the expansion, and states cover the rest. 

    For patients covered under regular Medicaid, and in states without the expansion, the federal government generally covers 50% to 77% of Medicaid costs.

    The Republican law limits the amount the federal government reimburses hospitals for emergency care provided to patients who would be eligible for expanded Medicaid if not for their immigration status. Rather than cover 90% of costs, starting in 2026, the federal government will cover the rate it covers for non-Medicaid expansion care.

    “Reducing the match rate for this care does not change the reimbursement for hospitals but instead shifts more of the costs to states,” said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

    Our ruling

    Johnson wrote on X, “As a condition for ending the Democrat shutdown, Democrats want hospitals paid MORE to treat illegal aliens than American citizens.”

    Federal law requires that emergency care be provided to anyone who needs it, regardless of insurance or immigration status. The federal and state governments reimburse hospitals for emergency care provided to immigrants who meet all Medicaid requirements except for their immigration status.

    Republicans’ new spending law calls for the federal government to cover a smaller portion of hospital reimbursements for emergency care to noncitizens who would be eligible for expanded Medicaid if not for their immigration status. 

    The GOP law doesn’t change hospital reimbursements. It shifts costs to states. Democrats want to reverse that. 

    Health care experts said a reversal wouldn’t mean hospitals would be reimbursed more for emergency care provided to immigrants illegally in the U.S. The federal government would cover the same share of care provided to anyone requiring emergency care, regardless of immigration or citizenship status.

    We rate the statement False.

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  • With Trump threats on back pay, another blow to public servants

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    WASHINGTON — Sidelined by political appointees, targeted over deep state conspiracies and derided by the president, career public servants have grown used to life in Washington under a constant state of assault.

    But President Trump’s latest threat, to withhold back pay due to workers furloughed by an ongoing government shutdown, is adding fresh uncertainty to the beleaguered workforce.

    Whether federal workers will ultimately receive retroactive paychecks after the government reopens, Trump told reporters on Tuesday, “really depends on who you’re talking about.” The law requires federal employees receive their expected compensation in the event of a shutdown.

    “For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” the president said, while adding: “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

    It is yet another peril facing public servants, who, according to Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, Russ Vought, may also be the target of mass layoffs if the shutdown continues.

    The government has been shut since Oct. 1, when Republican and Democratic lawmakers came to an impasse over whether to extend government funding at existing levels, or account for a significant increase in healthcare premiums facing millions of Americans at the start of next year.

    White House officials say that, on the one hand, Democrats are to blame for extending a shutdown that will give the administration no other choice but to initiate firings of agency employees working on “nonessential” projects. On the other hand, the president has referred to the moment as an opportunity to root out Democrats working in career roles throughout the federal system.

    Legal scholars and public policy experts have roundly dismissed Trump’s latest efforts — both to use the shutdown as a predicate to cut the workforce, and to withhold back pay — as plainly illegal.

    And Democrats in Congress, who continue to vote against reopening the government, are counting on them being right, hoping that courts will reject the administration’s moves while they attempt to secure an extension of healthcare tax credits in the shutdown negotiations.

    If the experts are wrong, thousands of government workers could face a profound cost.

    “Senior leaders of the Trump administration promised to put federal employees in trauma, and they certainly seem intent on keeping that promise,” said Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.

    “According to a law that Trump himself has signed, furloughed employees are entitled to back pay,” Moynihan said. “There is no real ambiguity about this, and the idea only some employees in agencies that Trump likes would receive back pay is an illegal abuse of presidential power.”

    A day after the shutdown began, Trump wrote on social media that he planned on meeting with Vought, “of Project 2025 fame,” to discuss what he called the “unprecedented opportunity” of making “permanent” cuts to agencies during the ongoing funding lapse.

    A lawsuit brought in California against Vought and the OMB, by a coalition of labor unions representing over 2 million federal workers, is challenging the premise of that claim, arguing the government is “deviating from historic practice and violating applicable laws” by using government employees “as a pawn in congressional deliberations.” But whether courts can or will stop the effort is unclear.

    Sen. John Thune, the majority leader and a Republican from South Dakota, said last week that Democrats should have known the risk they were running by “shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought.”

    “We don’t control what he’s going to do,” he told Politico.

    The White House has sent mixed messages on its willingness to negotiate with Democrats since the shutdown began. Within a matter of hours earlier this week, the president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that there was nothing to negotiate, before Trump said that dialogue had opened with Democratic leadership over a potential agreement on healthcare.

    Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, taught and trained prospective public servants for 45 years.

    “What is happening is profoundly discouraging for young students seeking careers in the federal public service,” he said. “Many of the students are going to state and local governments, nonprofits, and think tanks, but increasingly don’t see the federal government as a place where they can make a difference or make a career.”

    “All of us depend on the government, and the government depends on a pipeline of skilled workers,” Kettl added. “The administration’s efforts have blown up the pipeline, and the costs will continue for years — probably decades — to come.”

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    Michael Wilner

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  • ICE detention oversight agency temporarily closed

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    The Trump administration is pushing forward with its immigration crackdown even as the government shutdown drags on. But the Washington Post reports the Office of Detention Oversight, which inspects the safety of ICE detention centers, is currently closed. Doug MacMillan, corporate accountability reporter for the Washington Post, joined CBS News to discuss.

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  • Supreme Court hears arguments in mail-in ballot case

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    Supreme Court hears arguments in mail-in ballot case – CBS News










































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    The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a lawsuit challenging an Illinois mail-in voting law. CBS News legal reporter Katrina Kaufman has more.

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  • Who Can Lead the Democrats?

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    Kamala Harris almost won in 2024. So why does her new book feel like another defeat?

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    Amy Davidson Sorkin

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  • Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi dodges Democrats’ questions in combative Senate hearing

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    WASHINGTON  — Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi struck a defiant tone Tuesday during a Senate hearing where she dodged a series of questions about brewing scandals that have dogged her agency.

    Bondi, a Trump loyalist, refused to discuss her conversations with the White House about the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey and the deployment of federal troops to Democrat-run cities.

    She deflected questions about an alleged bribery scheme involving the president’s border advisor and declined to elaborate on her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

    In many instances, Bondi’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee devolved into personal attacks against Democrats, who expressed dismay at their inability to get her to answer their inquiries.

    “This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answers to serious questions about the cover-up of corruption about the prosecution of the president’s enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said toward the end of the nearly five-hour hearing. “When will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions?”

    Her testimony came as the Justice Department faces increased accusations that it is being weaponized against President Trump’s political foes.

    It marked a continuation of what has become a hallmark of not just Bondi, but most of Trump’s top officials. When pressed on potential scandals that the president has taken great pains to publicly avoid, they almost universally turn to one tactic: ignore and attack the questioner.

    That strategy was shown in an exchange between Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who wanted to know who decided to close an investigation into Trump border advisor Tom Homan. Homan reportedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents after indicating he could get them government contracts. Bondi declined to say and shifted the focus to Padilla.

    “I wish that you loved your state of California as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi said. “We’d be in really good shape then because violent crime in California is currently 35% higher than the national average.”

    In between partisan attacks, the congressional hearing allowed Bondi to boast about her eight months in office. She said her focus has been on combating illegal immigration, violent crime and restoring public trust in the Justice Department, which she said Biden-era officials weaponized against Trump.

    “They wanted to take President Trump off the playing field,” she said about the effort to indict Trump. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day. We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime.”

    She defended the administration’s deployment of federal troops to Washington, D.C., and Chicago, where she said troops had been sent on Tuesday. Bondi declined to say whether the White House consulted her on the deployment of troops to American cities but said the effort is meant to “protect” citizens from violent crime.

    Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) asked about the legal justification for the military shooting vessels crossing the Carribbean Sea off Venezuela. The administration has said the boats are carrying drugs, but Coons told Bondi that “Congress has never authorized such a use of military force.”

    “It’s unclear to me how the administration has concluded that the strikes are legal,” Coons said.

    Bondi told Coons she would not discuss the legal advice her department has given to the president on the matter but said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “is a narcoterrorist,” and that “drugs coming from Venezuela are killing our children at record levels.”

    Coons said he was “gravely concerned” that she was not leading a department that is making decisions that are in “keeping with the core values of the Constitution.” As another example, he pointed to Trump urging her to prosecute his political adversaries, such as Comey.

    Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) the top Democrat on the committee, raised a similar concern at the beginning of the hearing, saying Bondi has “systematically weaponized our nation’s leading law enforcement agency to protect President Trump and his allies.”

    “In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history,” Durbin said. “It will take decades to recover.”

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    Ana Ceballos

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  • Early takeaways as Bondi wraps testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee

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    Early takeaways as Bondi wraps testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee – CBS News










































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    Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. CBS News justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane has a recap.

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  • Stephen Miller leads GOP charge equating Democrats to ‘domestic terrorists’

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    WASHINGTON — President Trump rocked American politics at the outset of his first campaign when he first labeled his rivals as enemies of the American people. But the rhetoric of his top confidantes has grown more extreme in recent days.

    Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff, declared over the weekend that “a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country” is fueling an historic national schism, “shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general.”

    “The only remedy,” Miller said, “is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”

    It was a maxim from an unelected presidential advisor who is already unleashing the federal government in unprecedented ways, overseeing the federalization of police forces and a sweeping deportation campaign challenging basic tenets of civil liberty.

    Miller’s rhetoric comes amid a federal crackdown on Portland, Ore., where he says the president has unchecked authority to protect federal lives and property — and as another controversial Trump advisor harnesses an ongoing government shutdown as pretext for the mass firing of federal workers.

    Russ Vought, the president’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, plays the grim reaper in an AI video shared by the president, featuring him roving Washington for bureaucrats to cut from the deep state during the shutdown.

    His goal, Trump has said, is to specifically target Democrats.

    As of Monday afternoon, it was unclear exactly how many federal workers or what federal agencies would be targeted.

    “We don’t want to see people laid off, but unfortunately, if this shutdown continues layoffs are going to be an unfortunate consequence of that,” White House press secretary Karoline Levitt said during a news briefing.

    ‘A nation of Constitutional law’

    Karin Immergut, a federal judge appointed by Trump, said this weekend that the administration’s justification for deploying California National Guard troops in Portland was “simply untethered to the facts.”

    “This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote, chiding the Trump administration for attempting to circumvent a prior order from her against a federal deployment to the city.

    “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition,” she added: “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

    The administration is expected to appeal the judge’s decision, Leavitt said, while calling the judge’s ruling “untethered in reality and in the law.”

    “We’re very confident in the president’s legal authority to do this, and we are very confident we will win on the merits of the law,” Leavitt said.

    If the courts were to side with the administration, Leavitt said local leaders — most of whom are Democrats — should not be concerned about the possibility of long-term plans to have their cities occupied by the military.

    “Why should they be concerned about the federal government offering help to make their cities a safer place?” Leavitt said. “They should be concerned about the fact that people in their cities right now are being gunned down every single night and the president, all he is trying to do, is fix it.”

    Moments later, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he does not believe it is necessary yet, he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act “if courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up.”

    “Sure, I’d do that,” Trump said. “We have to make sure that our cities are safe.”

    The Insurrection Act gives the president sweeping emergency power to deploy military forces within the United States if the president deems it is needed to quell civil unrest. The last time this occurred was in 1992, when California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush to send federal troops to help stop the Los Angeles riots that occurred after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King.

    Subsequent posts from Miller on social media over the weekend escalated the stakes to existential heights, accusing Democrats of allying themselves with “domestic terrorists” seeking to overturn the will of the people reflected in Trump’s election win last year.

    On Monday, in an interview with CNN, Miller suggested that the administration would continue working to sidestep Immergut’s orders.

    “The administration will abide by the ruling insofar as it affects the covered parties,” he said, “but there are also many options the president has to deploy federal resources under the U.S. military to Portland.”

    Other Republicans have used similar rhetoric since the slaying of Charlie Kirk, a conservative youth activist, in Utah last month.

    Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) wrote that posts from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office have reached “the threshold of domestic terrorism,” after the Democratic governor referred to Miller on social media as a fascist. And Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) said Monday that Democrats demanding an extension of healthcare benefits as a condition for reopening the government were equivalent to terrorists.

    “I don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Fine told Newsmax, “and what we’re learned in whether it’s dealing with Muslim terrorists or Democrats, you’ve gotta stand and you’ve gotta do the right thing.”

    Investigating donor networks

    Republicans’ keenness to label Democrats as terrorists comes two weeks after Trump signed an executive order declaring a left-wing antifascist movement, known as antifa, as a “domestic terrorist organization” — a designation that does not exist under U.S. law.

    The order, which opened a new front in Trump’s battle against his political foes, also threatened to investigate and prosecute individuals who funded “any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of antifa.”

    Leavitt told reporters Monday the administration is “aggressively” looking into who is financially backing these operations.

    Trump has floated the possibility of going after people such as George Soros, a billionaire who has supported many left-leaning causes around the world.

    “If you look at Soros, he is at the top of everything,” Trump said during an Oval Office appearance last month.

    The White House has not yet made public any details about a formal investigation into a donors, but Leavitt said the administration’s efforts are under way.

    “We will continue to get to the bottom of who is funding these organizations and this organized anarchy against our country and our government,” Leavitt said. “We are committed to uncovering it.”

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    Michael Wilner, Ana Ceballos

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  • Americans fed up with how Trump, GOP and Democrats are handling shutdown, poll finds

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    A new CBS News poll shows a majority of Americans disapprove of how President Trump and congressional Republicans and Democrats have handled the government shutdown. Willie James Inman reports on that and Mr. Trump’s latest National Guard moves.

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  • Government Shutdown Enters Fifth Day as Democrats and Republicans Remain at an Impasse

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    Republican and Democratic lawmakers at an impasse on reopening the federal government provided few public signs Sunday of meaningful negotiations talking place to end what has so far been a five-day shutdown.

    Leaders in both parties are betting that public sentiment has swung their way, putting pressure on the other side to cave. Democrats are insisting on renewing subsidies to cover health insurance costs for millions of households, while President Donald Trump wants to preserve existing spending levels and threatening to permanently fire federal workers if the government remains closed.

    The squabble comes at a moment of troubling economic uncertainty. While the U.S. economy has continued to grow this year, hiring has slowed and inflation remains elevated as Trump’s import taxes have created a series of disruptions for businesses and employers have hurt confidence in his leadership. At the same time, there is a recognition that the nearly $2 trillion annual budget deficit is financially unsustainable yet there has to be a coalition around the potential tax increases and spending cuts to reduce borrowing levels.

    House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, among those appearing on the Sunday news shows, said there have been no talks with Republican leaders since their White House meeting Monday.

    “And unfortunately, since that point in time, Republicans, including Donald Trump, have gone radio silent,” Jeffries said. “And what we’ve seen is negotiation through deepfake videos, the House canceling votes, and of course President Trump spending yesterday on the golf course. That’s not responsible behavior.”

    Trump was asked via text message by CNN’s Jake Tapper about shutdown talks. The Republican president responded with confidence but no details.

    “We are winning and cutting costs big time,” Trump said in a text message, according to CNN.

    His administration sees the shutdown as an opening to wield greater power over the budget, with multiple officials saying they will save money as workers are furloughed by imposing permanent job cuts on thousands of government workers, a tactic that has never been used before.

    Even though it would Trump’s choice, he believes he can put the blame on the Democrats for the layoffs because of the shutdown.

    “It’s up to them,” Trump told reporters on Sunday morning before boarding the presidential helicopter. “Anybody laid off that’s because of the Democrats.”

    While Trump rose to fame on the TV show “The Apprentice” with is catchphrase of “You’re fired,” Republicans on Sunday claimed that the administration would take no pleasure in letting go of federal workers, even though they have put funding on hold for infrastructure and energy projects in Democratic areas.

    “We haven’t seen the details yet about what’s happening” with layoffs, House Speaker Mike Johnson said on NBC. “But it is a regrettable situation that the president does not want.”

    Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said that the administration wants to avoid the layoffs it had indicated could start on Friday, a deadline that came and went without any decisions being announced.

    “We want the Democrats to come forward and to make a deal that’s a clean, continuing resolution that gives us seven more weeks to talk about these things,” Hassett said on CNN. “But the bottom line is that with Republicans in control, the Republicans have a lot more power over the outcome than the Democrats.”

    Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California defended his party’s stance on the shutdown, saying on NBC that the possible increase in health care costs for “millions of Americans” would make insurance unaffordable in what he called a “crisis.”

    But Schiff also noted that the Trump administration has withheld congressionally approved spending from being used, essentially undermining the value of Democrats’ seeking compromises on the budgets as the White House could decline to not honor Congress’ wishes. The Trump administration sent Congress roughly $4.9 billion in “ pocket rescissions ” on foreign aid, a process that meant the spending was withheld without time for Congress to weigh in before the previous fiscal year ended last month.

    “We need both to address the health care crisis and we need some written assurance in the law, I won’t take a promise, that they’re not going to renege on any deal we make,” Schiff said.

    The television appearances indicated that Democrats and Republicans are busy talking, deploying internet memes against each other that have raised concerns about whether it’s possible to negotiate in good faith.

    Vice President JD Vance said that a video putting Jeffries in a sombrero and thick mustache was simply a joke, even though it came across as mocking people of Mexican descent as Republicans insist that the Democratic demands would lead to health care spending on immigrants in the country illegally, a claim that Democrats dispute.

    Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for any federal health care programs, including insurance provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Still, hospitals do receive Medicaid reimbursements for emergency care that they are obligated to provide to people who meet other Medicaid eligibility requirements but do not have an eligible immigration status.

    The challenge, however, is that the two parties do not appear to be having productive conversations with each other in private, even as Republicans insist they are in conversation with their Democratic colleagues.

    On Friday, a Senate vote to advance a Republican bill that would reopen the government failed to notch the necessary 60 votes to end a filibuster. Johnson said the House would close for legislative business next week, a strategy that could obligate the Senate to work with the government funding bill that was passed by House Republicans.

    “Johnson’s not serious about this,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on CBS. “He sent his all his congressman home last week and home this week. How are you going to negotiate?”

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Sunday that the shutdown on discretionary spending, the furloughing of federal workers and requirements that other federal employees work without pay will go on so long as Democrats vote no.

    “They’ll get another chance on Monday to vote again,” said Thune on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

    “And I’m hoping that some of them have a change of heart,” he said

    Copyright 2025. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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    Associated Press

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  • The Other Demand Democrats Should Make During the Shutdown Fight

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    Here’s the real battleground.
    Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images

    As congressional Democrats sort through their strategic options for managing the current government shutdown, they should keep in mind the unavailability of some prize they might otherwise seek and the variable rewards associated with others. In the real world, Donald Trump isn’t going to reverse the Medicaid cuts enacted in the Republican megabill or permanently eschew Russ Vought’s claims of executive-branch power over spending authority. Now that he’s hailed Vought as the Grim Reaper and labeled Democrats as “the party of Satan,” about the most the opposition can realistically expect is a suspension of mass federal-employee layoffs if the government reopens, and even that’s a stretch. Yes, the most realizable goal is some sort of extension (probably partial) of Obamacare premium subsidies, and that’s a pretty big deal. But that would mean giving up a portion of the Democratic case that Trump is ravaging health-care coverage, so the prize would be shared.

    The limited public concessions Democrats can claim have led some observers to suggest they focus on issues that the public may not perceive as vital but that really would restrict Trump’s ability to act like a dictator while providing relief to his victims. Jonathan V. Last suggests a few at the Bulwark:

    A legislative end to “Kavanaugh stops.”

    Ending qualified immunity for federal law enforcement officers.

    Mandating that federal law enforcement officers cannot wear masks and must display identifying badges/markings at all times.

    Closing the “emergency” loopholes that the administration has claimed for everything from tariffs to acts of war.

    Removing the secretary of state’s discretionary power to revoke visas.

    If, as is entirely possible, it’s exactly these sort of obscure but crucial legal and institutional issues where the White House will be most obstinate, then different calculations might come into play. Ultimately, if Congress or the courts won’t do their part to restrain Trump’s power grabs, the only recourse is a decision by voters to take away his governing trifecta in November 2026, most likely by flipping the House to Democratic control.

    Democrats understand that unique opportunity, which is why they are putting so much emphasis on health-care policy, an area of historic weakness for Republicans and a particular vulnerability for Trump. In focusing their demands for reopening the government on health care, they are in effect rehearsing their midterm message. But there is perhaps one other thing they can do to boost their chances of winning in 2026 that could become a key demand in negotiations to end the shutdown: limiting the administration’s assault on the election system. It’s far too late for Democrats to do much (other than retaliate, as California is doing) about Trump’s unprecedented campaign to convince red states to redraw their congressional maps to shake loose a few more Republican-leaning districts, reducing the number of seats they’d need in order to hang onto the House. But there are other election-rigging measures they should try to prevent.

    Specifically, Democrats could demand a hold on any steps to implement Trump’s dangerous and probably unconstitutional executive order of March 26, which aimed at instituting a national voter-ID system, restricting or even banning voting by mail, and getting rid of voting machines. As election-law wizard Rick Hasen noted immediately: “The aim here is voter suppression pure and simple.” Because of the legal obstacles Trump’s “reforms” face, and since the administration hasn’t done much to put them in place, quietly shelving them might be doable, and would prevent a lot of havoc next year. While they are at it, Democrats should definitely secure a personal pledge from Speaker Mike Johnson that he will not refuse to seat Democratic House candidates whose elections are state-certified on specious grounds that “voter fraud” occurred or that the results are too close to implement. This is the 2027 version of the attempted 2021 Trump election coup I fear most.

    The bigger point here is that all the great messaging and tactical victories Democrats can devise won’t amount to a hill of beans if Trump once again denies the adverse result of an election and this time manages to hang onto total power. Nothing matters more than keeping that from happening.

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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Trump Goes Over the Brink, Labels Democrats the Party of Satan

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    This 2016 Trump supporter was ahead of his time in recognizing Hillary Clinton’s infernal nature.
    Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    In the annals of American politics, Donald Trump is without question among the most polarizing presidents ever. But today he laid his claim to absolute peerlessness by quite literally demonizing the opposition party on Truth Social. Gaze in awe:

    Now just to deal with the most practical matters, this doesn’t sound like a man inclined to enter into bipartisan negotiations to end the current government shutdown, does it? I suppose he could call up Chuck Schumer and tell him it was just a joke, and maybe make a peace offering of vastly increased security for Democratic officeholders who have now been labeled by the most powerful figure in the world as the personification of absolute, ineradicable evil.

    But other than pouring high-octane gasoline on a fire already reaching the rafters after Russell Vought’s threats of mass layoffs of furloughed federal employees (at least in “Democrat Agencies,” as Trump put it), the president’s weird little post will be greeted as gospel truth and a not-so-secret shout-out by two significant elements of the MAGA fringe.

    The first is the QAnon cult, the shockingly large group of subscribers to an elaborate conspiracy theory whereby Trump is secretly battling and will eventually vanquish a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who control world events (not to mention America’s deep state) and are, among other things, hoarding cures for all major diseases. According to QAnon devotees, Trump is constrained for obscure reasons from going public with this cosmic war he is waging on America’s and God’s behalf, but he drops hints from time to time that are greeted with jubilation in QAnon circles. The new tweet acknowledging Satan’s sponsorship of the Democrats will help keep QAnon alive for years; it’s arguably more powerful than Trump’s pardon for the January 6 “patriots,” among whom QAnon folk were very much overrepresented.

    But there’s another and even larger group of MAGA folk overrepresented in the Capitol riot who will tingle just as much as the Q followers at Trump’s identification of Democratic pols as servants of Old Scratch: the “spiritual warriors” of the New Apostolic Reformation. This rapidly strengthening strain of conservative pentecostal theology and worship involves a loose global network of “prophets” and “apostles” whose American leaders are deeply invested in the MAGA movement as an instrument for redemption of a world captured by such evils as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, and “wokeness.” While nearly all NAR leaders believe in active demonic powers that must be combatted by aggressive prayer and religio-political activism, some dance around the line that separates “spiritual warfare” from physical violence. Trump is pushing them across that line. Somebody, or maybe a lot of people, are going to get hurt.

    The good news, if there is any, is that Trump has now hit bottom in his insults aimed at the opposition party. If there’s anything he can do to make the atmosphere more toxic, I will pray to a beneficent God that we are spared it.


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    Ed Kilgore

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