The Latest: Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from firing workers during shutdown
President Donald Trump’s administration for now must stop firing workers during the government shutdown, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the emergency order after federal agencies on Friday started issuing layoff notices aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. The layoff notices are part of an effort by Trump’s Republican administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
Meanwhile, the ongoing government shutdown is delaying the announcement of the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for tens of millions of beneficiaries. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the 2024 Social Security COLA announcement will now be Oct. 24. It is timed to the September Consumer Price Index, which also has not yet been released.
The Latest:
Trump floats idea of attending Supreme Court arguments in the case against his tariffs
Trump says it’s “one of the most important cases in U.S. history” because losing means the country “will be a weakened, troubled financial mess for many, many years to come.”
But a win will turn the U.S. into the “most powerful economic country in the world.”
“That’s why I think I’m going to go to the Supreme Court to watch it. I’ve not done that,” the president said.
States and small businesses have challenged Trump’s sweeping tariffs, a centerpiece of his economic agenda. The court has agreed to hear the case in November.
Trump rehashes grievances over FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, special counsel Jack Smith
President Donald Trump is lashing out anew over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2022 and the subsequent prosecutions of him by special counsel Jack Smith.
Trump is calling the two criminal cases against him — one accusing him of retaining classified documents, the other of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election — the “worst weaponization” of the criminal justice system against a political opponent “in the history of the world.”
Trump says there’s never been anyone treated worse in the history of politics.
He also repeated his frequent verbal attacks on Smith, who was appointed by the Biden administration Justice Department to investigate Trump.
Smith has recently spoken out publicly and defended the legitimacy of the investigations.
Brown University rejects invitation to join White House 'compact'
The Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island is the latest to turn down the Trump administration proposal, which offered favorable access to funding in exchange for a wide range of commitments.
Brown President Christina Paxson said in a letter Wednesday to administration officials the deal would curtail academic freedom and undermine the university’s independence.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology backed away from the proposal last week after its president said it would restrict free speech and campus autonomy.
Brown and MIT were among nine universities invited this month to become “initial signatories” to the proposal.
NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani makes direct appeal to Trump on Fox News
Midway through his first interview on Fox News, Mamdani, the democratic mayoral nominee, said he wanted to “speak directly” to Trump.
He then turned toward the camera and offered to build “partnership” with the White House.
“I will not be a mayor like Mayor Adams who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won’t be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo who will call you to ask how to win this election,” the 33-year-old Democratic socialist continued.
“I can do those things on my own. I will however be a mayor who’s ready to speak at any time to lower the cost of living.”
A spokesperson for Trump said the president was not watching the interview when it aired Wednesday.
Trump has accused Mamdani of being a “communist” and a “total nut job” and threatened to have him arrested if Mamdani wins election.
Trump says judge who didn’t jail ex-DOGE staffer’s assailants should ‘be ashamed’
The two 15-year-olds who pleaded guilty to assaulting former DOGE staffer Edward Coristine in August were sentenced to probation by a federal judge on Tuesday.
The attack is widely considered a key factor in Trump’s decision to flood the streets of Washington with National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers in an attempt to crack down on crime.
Asked about the judge’s decision not to incarcerate the 15-year-old boy and 15-year-old guard, Trump said, “wow” and called it a “terrible” decision.
“I think the judge should be ashamed of himself,” Trump said in response to a question during an Oval Office appearance with Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, to discuss the administration’s crime-fighting initiatives.
DOGE is the Department of Government Efficiency, once led by Elon Musk at Trump’s direction, to cut the size of government.
Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather than agree to new reporting rules
Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. The U.S. government has called the new rules “common sense.”
News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.
Many of the reporters waited to leave together at a 4 p.m. deadline set by the Defense Department to get out of the building. As the hour approached, boxes of documents lined a Pentagon corridor and reporters carried chairs, a copying machine, books and old photos to the parking lot from suddenly abandoned workspaces. Shortly after 4, about 40 to 50 journalists left together after handing in badges.
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FBI agents to get paid in shutdown
The president and his FBI director said Wednesday that key personnel at the bureau will get paid as the government shutdown continues.
“Special agents at the FBI are going to receive their paychecks,” Patel added.
Trump says India will stop buying Russian oil
The U.S. president said he received assurances directly from Prime Minister Modi in a conversation on Wednesday.
“There will be no oil. He’s not buying oil,” Trump said. The change won’t take immediately, but “within a short period of time.”
The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has been pushing India to stop buying Russian oil to escalate pressure on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.“If India doesn’t buy oil, it makes it much easier,” he said.
Patel hails capture of Abbey Gate bombing suspect even as prosecutor in case has been fired
Patel is trumpeting the FBI’s arrest in the early days of the Trump administration of a suspect in the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers and roughly 170 Afghan civilians in 2021.
Mohammad Sharifullah was brought to the U.S. earlier this year to face prosecution in federal court in Virginia.
Patel praised the capture during a news conference at the White House on Wednesday focused on violent crime. What he did not mention was that a key prosecutor in the case, Michael Ben’Ary, was fired earlier this month by the Justice Department.
Ben’Ary, who was chief of the national security section in the Eastern District of Virginia, was fired just hours after Julie Kelly, a conservative writer and activist, shared online that he previously worked as senior counsel to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco during the Biden administration.
Trump won’t rule out US strikes on Venezuelan soil
The president said of U.S. strikes against boats off of Venezuela, “We are certainly looking at land now.”
A series of recent U.S. strikes have sunk vessels the White House says were carrying drugs from Venezuela. Asked if such attacks may eventually target mainland Venezuela, Trump said, “I don’t want to tell you, exactly.”
But he suggested that land attacks were an option “because we’ve got the sea well under control.”
The president also said he’d authorized the CIA to operate in Venezuela.
Asked if the agency could “take out” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Trump was noncommittal, saying it was “a ridiculous question” for him to answer.
FBI director touts efforts to crackdown on violent crime
Patel joined Trump in the Oval Office to tout federal law enforcement’s efforts to combat crime across the U.S. He cited the arrests of 8,700 people accused of violent crimes and more than 2,200 guns seized as part of “Operation Summer Heat,” a three-month FBI initiative.
Current and former FBI officials say the bureau’s heightened focus on immigration and violent crime, areas typically worked by other local and federal agencies, risks drawing attention and resources from the sophisticated threats for which the FBI is uniquely responsible for confronting.
Spotted in the Oval: Newt!
Some of the people with Trump for his event on crime were expected — the FBI director, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Stephen Miller, a top White House official who oversees homeland security.
Unexpected? Newt and Callista Gingrich.
The former GOP House speaker and presidential candidate, along with his wife, were spotted along the edges of the Oval Office. Callista Gingrich, in particular, was seen nodding along as Patel rattled off crime statistics.
Callista Gingrich served as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See in Trump’s first administration and is now his ambassador to Switzerland.
Trump, Patel begin Oval Office event on crime
The president and the FBI director kicked off the event to announce the results of a law enforcement effort called “Operation Summer Heat.”
The event began about 40 minutes behind schedule. Operation Summer Heat was a three-month initiative to crack down on violent crime across the country between June and September.
“Just as we’re forging peace and stability abroad, we’re also restoring peace and safety and stability at home,” Trump said.
White House budget chief says cuts in federal workforce during shutdown will ‘probably end up being north of 10,000’
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in an interview Wednesday on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that many more workforce cuts, known was RIFS or reductions-in-force plans, are planned as long as the shutdown continues.
He said court filings last week that showed at least 4,000 people were being fired are “just a snapshot and I think it will get much higher. We’re going to keep those RIFS rolling throughout this shutdown because we think it’s important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer and the American people.”
Vought also said: “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy. Not just the funding, but the bureaucracy, that we now have an opportunity to do that.”
Trump and Patel set to appear at unusual White House news conference
Trump is set to appear at the White House with FBI Director Kash Patel for a news conference.
The topic of the Wednesday gathering has not been disclosed but it’s historically unusual for the president and the FBI to appear together at a White House news conference.
Typically, FBI directors like to keep a degree of separation from the White House as a way to stress their independence in investigations and decision-making from the president and his administration. That separation was certainly the case with the two FBI directors who served during Trump’s first administration, James Comey and Christopher Wray, both of whom oversaw criminal investigations that touched Trump and his allies.
But Patel is a proud Trump loyalist who has not been shy about his desire to carry out Trump’s agenda or promoting his personal friendship with him. The FBI under his watch this year has also investigated several of Trump’s political enemies, including Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Sen. Fetterman backs Trump for Nobel Peace Prize
“Isn’t it the prize to create or generate more peace?” Fetterman, a Democratic senator, said. “The vast majority of people in Israel believes that he deserves that.”
Fetterman’s comments came after Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the prize last week. Trump had also sought the honor.
While some Republicans and world leaders have pushed for Trump to receive the prize, Fetterman was a rare voice of support from across the aisle — something the Pennsylvania senator has done more than once this year.
“This isn’t controversial. Well, now, it’s controversial for a Democrat. You’re not allowed to say this,” Fetterman added.
Judge temporarily blocks the Trump administration from firing workers during the government shutdown
President Donald Trump’s administration for now must stop firing workers during the government shutdown, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the emergency order after federal agencies on Friday started issuing layoff notices aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. The layoff notices are part of an effort by Trump’s Republican administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
Illston said the administration was acting without thinking through its decisions.
“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” she said. It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”
▶ Read more about government shutdown firings
Shutdown shows Education Department isn’t needed, McMahon says
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the federal shutdown offers evidence that her agency is “unnecessary.”
In a social media post on Wednesday, McMahon said the shutdown has forced agencies to evaluate what work is really needed. She made the comment days after her department started firing hundreds of workers amid mass layoffs across the government.
“Two weeks in, millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon said.
McMahon said no federal education funding was affected by the layoffs.
Advocates say the firings threaten to disrupt the flow of federal money to America’s schools. The cuts eliminated teams that disburse federal money and answer questions on federal education laws.
Democrats, and one Republican, push back on White House budget office’s argument on pay for furloughed employees
More than 150 congressional Democrats, along with Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, are sending a letter to White House budget director Russell Vought to push back on his argument that furloughed federal employees may not receive backpay once the government reopens.
The lawmakers quote a 2019 law — signed by President Donald Trump during his first term — that states furloughed employees “shall be paid” once the lapse in funding ends.
“The law is clear: all impacted government employees, regardless of excepted or furloughed status, are entitled to back pay after a government shutdown ends,” the lawmakers write.
Senator calls for investigation on whether airport video violates a federal ethics law
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is calling on an office focused on political corruption to investigate whether the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is violating federal law by airing a video in airports blaming Democrats for a government shutdown.
In the video, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says Democrats in Congress are refusing to fund the government, “and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”
Cantwell said the video violates a law known as the Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities by federal employees.
The video, Cantwell says is “intended to misleadingly malign the Trump Administration’s political opponents, convince Americans to blame “Democrats in Congress” for the ongoing government shutdown, and influence their future votes — all while omitting the fact that Republicans currently control the White House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives.”
Several airports around the country have refused to air the video.
Vance comments on Politico report about offensive messages from Young Republicans’ members: ‘Kids do stupid things, especially young boys’
The vice president instead said people should focus on the messages that Virginia Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones wrote in 2022 suggesting that a prominent Republican get “two bullets to the head.”
Vance said Jones’ comments are “1000 times worse than what a bunch of young people, a bunch of kids say in a group chat, however offensive it might be” and that anyone ”distracted” by the Politico story should, “Grow up.”
“Focus on the real issues. Don’t focus on what kids say,” he said.
Politico reported that in a trove of messages, leaders of Young Republican groups around the country reportedly said, ‘I love Hitler’ and talked about raping enemies, along with other racist or offensive comments.
“The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” Vance said. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do. And I really don’t want to us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive, stupid joke is cause to ruin their lives.”
Vice President JD Vance will appear on Turning Point USA’s college tour
Vance appeared as a guest Wednesday on The Charlie Kirk Show, where he discussed his friendship with the assassinated activist who encouraged young voters to embrace conservatism.
Vance said he will join Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, at Turning Point USA events at the University of Mississippi on Oct. 29 and Auburn University in Alabama on Nov. 5.
House Democrats tap constituents to make their case on shutdown
To make their case that Congress must address health care as part of funding the government, House Democrats turned Wednesday to a nurse, a Medicaid recipient and a recipient of health insurance coverage provided through the Affordable Care Act.
The trio joined House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democrats on the Capitol steps as the shutdown extended to its 15th day.
Heather Brauth, a nurse from Connecticut and the first of the three guest speakers, said a health care crisis is just around the corner because of looming cuts to Medicaid and the expiration of enhanced tax credits for those who get coverage through ACA exchanges. She said up to 15 million people could lose coverage and millions more see higher premiums.
“It’s clear that the cuts coming down the pike have the capacity to dismantle and destabilize our currently understaffed and struggling health care system,” Brauth said.
Illinois governor suggests feds violated ruling limiting use of tear gas
Gov. JB Pritzker suggested federal agents may have violated a ruling by a federal judge last week that said they could not use tear gas, pepper spray and other weapons on journalists and peaceful protesters after a coalition of news outlets and protesters sued over the actions of federal agents during protests outside a Chicago-area ICE facility.
Pritzker said he expected attorneys involved to “go back to court to make sure that is enforced against ICE.
“ICE is causing this mayhem,” he said Wednesday. “They’re the ones throwing tear gas when people are peacefully protesting.”
Pritzker previously denounced Border Patrol agents for using tear gas on protesters who gathered Tuesday after a high-speed chase on a residential street on Chicago’s South Side.
Pritkzer acknowledged that while he tried to “Trump-proof the state as best we could, there are limits to what a state can do” about the federal immigration crackdown. He called conflicts over the crackdown and National Guard deployment “constitutionally difficult to overcome.”
County judge in Chic
ago area bars ICE from arresting people at court
Cook County’s top judge signed an order barring ICE from arresting people at court. Cook County includes Chicago, which has seen a federal immigration crackdown in recent months.
This has been a common tactic for federal agents, who have been stationed outside the county courthouse for weeks, making arrests and drawing crowds of protesters. Local immigration and legal advocates, including the county’s public defender’s office have called for an order like this, saying clients were avoiding court out of fear of being detained.
The order, which takes effect Wednesday, bars the civil arrest of any “party, witness, or potential witness” while going to court proceedings.
Cook County Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Evans said justice “depends on every individual’s ability to appear in court without fear or obstruction.”
House Speaker says military pay will run out
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., says the Pentagon was able to find funds to make Wednesday’s payday, but it’s “not an enduring solution.”
“We will run out of the funds,” the speaker said at the Capitol. Johnson said he was with Trump late Tuesday in the Oval Office, and also spoke with budget chief Russ Vought, and he said they are prioritizing pay for troops and law enforcement.
Trump’s public schedule, according to the White House
— 3 p.m. ET: Trump will hold an Oval Office press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel
— 7:30 p.m.: Trump will host a dinner related to his plans to build White House ballroom
Bessent says U.S. President still expects to meet Chinese leader
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said President Donald Trump still expects to speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea during APEC week.
Resurgent trade tensions have threatened ongoing negotiations over tariffs between the U.S. and China.
Bessent made the comments at a press conference, Wednesday.
China last week expanded export controls on key rare earth minerals, and Trump then announced a 100% tariff on Chinese goods set to take effect on November 1.
Bessent says the shutdown is costing the economy $15B per day
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made the comment at the CNBC Invest in America Forum on Wednesday morning.
“The only thing slowing us down here is the shutdown,” he said.
Early crowd indicates big interest
The crowd outside the Supreme Court before the Voting Rights Hearing was already larger than other crowds long before the doors opened.
Faye Gaskin, 64, with the Mt. Moriah AME Church in Annapolis said she was “here fighting for my grandchildren and the generations to come. If we do nothing, it’ll be a loss. I won’t be able to look myself in the mirror. Much blood has been shed and many lives lost for this.”
Her fellow church goer Linda Nevils, 72, said she was there to try to protect the vote “for our people. Everything comes from that. Where we eat, where we live, where we work.”
The impact reaches beyond congressional districts
The impact of the section of the Voting Right Acts being argued before the Supreme Court isn’t just in how to draw the boundaries for election districts.
It’s often whether to draw them for local offices.
J. Morgan Kousser, a retired history professor at the California Institute of Technology who works on the issue, has tallied 1,363 cases since 1965 where plaintiffs using Section 2 have prevailed in court or reached settlements.
Of those, 937 have been to change at-large elections for local offices to make them district-based. That’s a way to increase minority representation for seats on town councils, school boards, sanitation districts and other government bodies.
The court is hearing the case for a second time
A second round arguments is rare at the Supreme Court and can presage a big change in the law.
The court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case that opened the floodgates to independent spending in political campaigns came after two rounds of arguments.
Arguments will go well beyond the allotted hour
Since returning to the courtroom following the Covid-19 pandemic, the justices have routinely gone beyond the time set aside for arguments.
With questions for four lawyers, the session could even stretch into early afternoon. Arguments will begin shortly after 10 a.m., Eastern time.
Ruling for Louisiana could affect wider re-districting fight
The outcome of the case could have ramifications for an ongoing battle on congressional redistricting that’s already playing out across the nation, starting after Trump urged Texas and other GOP-controlled states to redraw the districts so the party could keep control of the House.
If the court sides with Louisiana, more than a dozen districts could be re-drawn in a way that could benefit Republicans, the Democratically aligned voting-rights groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter have estimated.
The court is expected to make its decision by June, which could lead some states to speedily redraw districts before the midterm elections.
