U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a spending bill that ends a partial shutdown of the federal government in the Oval Office of the White House, on February 3, 2026, in Washington.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Senate voted on Friday (January 30, 2026) to fund most of the government through the end of September while carving out a temporary extension for Homeland Security funding, giving Congress two weeks to debate new restrictions on federal immigration raids across the country.

With a weekend shutdown looming, President Donald Trump struck a spending deal with Senate Democrats on Thursday (January 29, 2026) in the wake of the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. Democrats said they would not vote for the larger spending bill unless Congress considers legislation to unmask agents, require more warrants and allow local authorities to help investigate any incidents.

“The nation is reaching a breaking point,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. “The American people are demanding that Congress step up and force change.”

As lawmakers in both parties called for investigations into the fatal shootings, Mr. Trump said he didn’t want a shutdown and negotiated the rare deal with Mr. Schumer, his frequent adversary. Mr. Trump then encouraged members of both parties to cast a “much needed Bipartisan YES vote.”

The bill passed 71-29 and will now head to the House, which is not due back until Monday (February 2, 2026). That means the government could be in a partial shutdown temporarily over the weekend until they pass it.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who held a conference call Friday (January 30, 2026) with GOP lawmakers, said he expects the House to vote Monday (February 2, 2026) evening. But what is uncertain is how much support there will be for the package.

Mr. Johnson’s right flank has signalled opposition to limits on Homeland Security funds, leaving him reliant on Democrats who have their own objections to funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without immediate restraints.

Two-week debate over ICE

It was unclear how involved Mr. Trump would be in the negotiations over new restrictions on immigration arrests — or if Republicans and Democrats could find any points of compromise.

Senate Democrats will not support an extension of Homeland Security funding in two weeks “unless it reins in ICE and ends violence,” Mr. Schumer said. “If our colleagues are not willing to enact real change, they should not expect Democratic votes.”

Similarly, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that any change in the homeland bill needs to be “meaningful and it needs to be transformative.” Absent “dramatic change,” Mr. Jeffries said, “Republicans will get another shutdown.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the two sides will “sit down in good faith,” but it will be “really, really hard to get anything done,” especially in such a short amount of time.

“We’ll stay hopeful, but there are some pretty significant differences of opinion,” Mr. Thune said.

Democrats demand change

Irate Democrats have asked the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.

They also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Mr. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was killed by a border patrol agent on January 24, two weeks after protester Renee Good was killed by an ICE officer. Administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, originally said Pretti had aggressively approached officers, but multiple videos contradicted that claim.

Republican pushback

The President’s concessions to Democrats prompted pushback from some Senate Republicans, delaying the final votes and providing a preview of the coming debate over the next two weeks. In a fiery floor speech, Mr. Trump’s ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina warned that Republicans should not give away too much.

“To the Republican Party, where have you been?” Mr. Graham said, adding that ICE agents and Border Patrol agents have been “slandered and smeared.” Several Republicans have said that if Democrats are going to push for restrictions on ICE, they will push for restrictions on so-called “sanctuary cities” that they say do not do enough to enforce immigration.

“There’s no way in hell we’re going to let Democrats kneecap law enforcement and stop deportations in exchange for funding DHS,” said Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., ahead of the vote.

Still, some Republicans said they believe that changes to ICE’s operations were necessary, even as they were unlikely to agree to all of the Democrats’ requests.

“I think the last couple of days have been an improvement,” said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. “I think the rhetoric has been dialled down a little bit in Minnesota.”

Last-minute promises

After Mr. Trump announced the deal with Democrats, Mr. Graham held the spending bills up for almost a day until Mr. Thune agreed to give him a vote on his sanctuary cities bill at a later date.

Separately, Mr. Graham was also protesting a repeal of a new law giving senators the ability to sue the government for millions of dollars if their personal or office data is accessed without their knowledge — as happened to him and other senators as part of the so-called Arctic Frost investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters at the Capitol.

The spending bill, which was passed by the House last week, would repeal that law. But Mr. Graham said Mr. Thune had agreed to consider a separate bill that would allow “groups and private citizens” who were caught up in Jack Smith’s probe to sue.

Published – January 31, 2026 03:59 pm IST

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (November 11, 2025) extended an order blocking full SNAP payments, amid signals that the government shutdown could soon end and food aid payments resume.

The order keeps in place at least for a few more days a chaotic situation. People who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed their families in some states have received their full monthly allocations, while others have received nothing.

The order will expire just before midnight Thursday (November 13).

The Senate has approved a bill to end the shutdown and the House of Representatives could vote on it as early as Wednesday (November 12). Reopening the government would restart the program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries, but it’s not clear how quickly full payments would resume.

The justices chose what is effectively the path of least resistance, anticipating the federal government shutdown will end soon while avoiding any substantive legal ruling about whether lower court orders to keep full payments flowing during the shutdown are correct.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only one of the nine justices to say she would have revived the lower court orders immediately, but didn’t otherwise explain her vote. Jackson signed the initial order temporarily freezing the payments.

Beneficiaries in some states have received their full monthly allocations while in others they have received nothing. Some states have issued partial payments.

How quickly SNAP benefits could reach recipients if the government reopens would vary by state. But states and advocates say that it’s easier to make full payments quickly than partial ones.

Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst at the advocacy group Share Our Strength, also said there could be some technical challenges for states that have issued partial benefits to send out the remaining amount.

An urgent need for beneficiaries

In Pennsylvania, full November benefits went out to some people on Friday. But Jim Malliard, 41, of Franklin, said he had not received anything by Monday (November 10).

Mr. Malliard is a full-time caretaker for his wife, who is blind and has had several strokes this year, and his teenage daughter, who suffered severe medical complications from surgery last year.

That stress has only been compounded by the pause in the $350 monthly SNAP payment he previously received for himself, his wife and daughter. He said he is down to $10 in his account and is relying on what’s left in the pantry — mostly rice and ramen.

“It’s kind of been a lot of late nights, making sure I had everything down to the penny to make sure I was right,” Mr. Malliard said. “To say anxiety has been my issue for the past two weeks is putting it mildly.” The political wrangling in Washington has shocked many Americans, and some have been moved to help.

“I figure that I’ve spent money on dumber stuff than trying to feed other people during a manufactured famine,” said Ashley Oxenford, a teacher who set out a “little food pantry” in her front yard this week for vulnerable neighbors in Carthage, New York.

SNAP has been the center of an intense fight in court

The Trump administration chose to cut off SNAP funding after October due to the shutdown. That decision sparked lawsuits and a string of swift and contradictory judicial rulings that deal with government power — and impact food access for about 1 in 8 Americans.

The administration went along with two rulings on Oct. 31 by judges who said the government must provide at least partial funding for SNAP. It eventually said recipients would get up to 65% of their regular benefits. But it balked last week when one of the judges said it must fund the program fully for November, even if that means digging into funds the government said need to be maintained in case of emergencies elsewhere.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to pause that order.

An appeals court said Monday that full funding should resume, and that requirement was set to kick in Tuesday night before the top court extended the order blocking full SNAP payments.

Congressional talks about reopening government

The U.S. Senate on Monday (November 10) passed legislation to reopen the federal government with a plan that would include replenishing SNAP funds. Speaker Mike Johnson told members of the House to return to Washington to consider the deal a small group of Senate Democrats made with Republicans.

President Donald Trump has not said whether he would sign it if it reaches his desk, but told reporters at the White House on Sunday (November 9) that it “looks like we’re getting close to the shutdown ending.”

Still, the Trump administration said in a Supreme Court filing Monday (November 10) that it shouldn’t be up to the courts.

“The answer to this crisis is not for federal courts to reallocate resources without lawful authority,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the papers. “The only way to end this crisis — which the Executive is adamant to end — is for Congress to reopen the government.”

After Tuesday’s ruling, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media: “Thank you to the Court for allowing Congress to continue its swift progress.” The coalition of cities and nonprofit groups who challenged the SNAP pause said in a court filing Tuesday that the Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, is to blame for the confusion.

“The chaos was sown by USDA’s delays and intransigence,” they said, “not by the district court’s efforts to mitigate that chaos and the harm it has inflicted on families who need food.”

Published – November 12, 2025 09:25 am IST

The U.S. Senate took a major step toward ending the longest government shutdown in American history when it cleared the way for a formal debate on a motion to resume funding to federal agencies.

The development represents significant progress toward ending a government shutdown that has dragged on for over 40 days, halted funding to federal programs and disrupted air travel and other essential industries.

The breakthrough late Sunday (November 9, 2025) came after Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached a stopgap agreement to fund the government through January, after wrangling over healthcare subsidies, food benefits and Mr. Trump’s firings of federal employees.

Following the deal the Republican-led chamber approved a procedural vote by 60 votes to 40, putting a hard limit on how much longer senators can discuss the legislative measure.

It gave lawmakers a maximum of 30 more hours to conduct debate before voting on the motion, which will only need 50 votes to pass.

It will still need approval from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives before it lands on President Donald Trump’s desk — a process which could take days.

As the news emerged, Mr. Trump told reporters when he arrived at the White House after a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida: “It looks like we’re getting very close to the shutdown ending.”

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia was among the eight who joined Republicans to support the measure, saying: “I need a moratorium on the punishing of the federal workforce.”

Virginia is home to 300,000 federal workers, and the deal would restore all furloughed employees and reverse reductions-in-force layoffs by the Mr. Trump administration.

The bill to keep the government funded at pre-shutdown levels “will protect federal workers from baseless firings, reinstate those who have been wrongfully terminated during the shutdown, and ensure federal workers receive back pay” as required by law, Mr. Kaine added.

Fellow Democrat Chuck Schumer could not be persuaded and voted against the measure, saying that “Republicans have spent the past 10 months dismantling the healthcare system, skyrocketing costs, and making every day harder for American families.”

But Republican Senator John Thune celebrated the win, and what it could mean for Americans facing intense financial strain.

“After 40 days of uncertainty, I’m profoundly glad to be able to announce that nutrition programs, our veterans, and other critical priorities will have their full-year funding,” Mr. Thune said.

Stock markets rallied Monday (November 10, 2025) on hopes the shutdown could be nearing an end, with Tokyo and Hong Kong up more than 1% and European bourses higher in early trade.

Federal services in demand

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said earlier Sunday (November 9, 2025) that if the shutdown continued, the number of flights being cut would multiply — even as Americans gear up to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday later this month.

Mr. Duffy warned that US air travel could soon “slow to a trickle,” as thousands more flights were cancelled or delayed over the weekend.

The number of cancellations both within the United States as well as to and from the country had surpassed 3,000, with more than 10,000 delays, by Sunday (November 9, 2025) evening, according to data from tracking platform FlightAware.

Without a deal, Mr. Duffy warned that many Americans planning to travel for the November 27 Thanksgiving holiday are “not going to be able to get on an airplane, because there are not going to be that many flights that fly if this thing doesn’t open back up.”

It could take days for flight schedules to recover after the shutdown finally ends and federal funding, including salaries, starts to flow again.

According to lawmakers, the bill would restore funding for the SNAP food stamp program which helps more than 42 million lower-income Americans pay for groceries.

It would also ensure a vote on extending healthcare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.

Many Democrats in the House and beyond the beltway have opposed the deal.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that the average monthly SNAP benefit is $177 per beneficiary and the average monthly healthcare benefit under the Affordable Care Act is up to $550 per person.

“People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives,” the Democrat wrote on X.

“Working people want leaders whose word means something.”

Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom also panned the move with one word on X: “Pathetic.”

Published – November 10, 2025 07:22 am IST

Offshore wind energy is on track to triple globally by 2030, offering a rare climate success story amid global energy uncertainty, according to a new report by Ember, an energy and climate think tank based in the U.K., in collaboration with the Global Offshore Wind Alliance (GOWA). Released on October 30, ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the report urges governments to turn targets into action, as shortfalls loom and the pace of deployment has to accelerate sixfold to meet climate goals. 

The report finds that 27 countries have now set national offshore wind targets, amounting to 263 GW (gigawatts), rising to 395 GW when China’s forecasted capacity is included, and nearly reaching the 413 GW deemed necessary by the International Renewable Energy Agency to stay on track with the 1.5°C pathway (of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels). 

While the U.S. faces policy reversals and market headwinds, momentum elsewhere remains strong. Europe leads with 15 countries targeting 99 GW by 2030, and Asia is rapidly scaling up. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam collectively target 41 GW, with Japan alone planning to reach 41 GW by 2040, including 15 GW of floating offshore wind. 

India has set a national offshore wind target of 30-37 GW by 2030, according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. While no post-2030 targets have been proposed yet, the country’s bidding trajectory signals growing ambition in the sector.

China, although lacking a national target, is surging ahead provincially. Eleven coastal provinces have set 2025 targets totaling 64 GW, and the recent Beijing Declaration 2.0 commits to installing 15 GW annually from 2026 to 2030, nearly double its previous pace. Guangdong province alone is targeting 66 GW by 2030. 

The report also highlights the growing importance of floating offshore wind, with seven countries setting specific targets. The U.K. and Portugal aim for 5 GW and 2 GW respectively by 2030, while France, Norway, Korea, the U.S., and Japan have post-2030 ambitions. Japan’s floating wind target of 15 GW by 2040 is among the most ambitious globally. 

Subnational momentum is also rising, with 27 States and provinces setting their own goals. In the U.S., 11 States have a combined target of 84 GW, including California (25 GW by 2045), and New York (9 GW by 2035). These subnational efforts are helping to offset federal-level uncertainty and delays. 

Despite the sector’s challenges, including cost inflation, supply chain bottlenecks, and delays in securing permits, the report stresses that clear and credible targets are essential to anchor offshore wind within national energy strategies and attract investment.

However, the Global Wind Energy Council and the International Energy Agency have both revised their forecasts downward, warning that most countries may miss their 2030 goals unless deployment accelerates significantly. 

“Offshore wind already delivers 83 GW of energy capacity across the world, enough to power 73 million homes. Government targets have been fundamental to help drive the scale-up of the offshore wind industry this decade. To countries thinking about agreeing to new targets or extending existing targets, the message is clear — now is the time to act, to help spur the next wave of growth,” Dave Jones, chief analyst at Ember, said.,  

“Offshore wind targets have proven to be powerful drivers in accelerating deployment, giving governments, investors, and industry the pipeline visibility needed to plan and invest with confidence. Pipelines deliver projects, and projects deliver progress on energy and climate goals,” Amisha Patel, Head of Secretariat at GOWA, said.  

“Despite recent obstacles facing the sector, the fundamentals of offshore wind energy have not changed. We are now seeing positive momentum building and concrete steps being taken worldwide to advance offshore wind, a technology with decades of proven success at scale,” she said. 

The report also identifies 88 countries with offshore wind potential, including emerging markets such as Brazil, Chile, Morocco, New Zealand, and Azerbaijan. Morocco is set to build Africa’s first offshore wind farm (1 GW) by 2029, while Brazil is preparing for its first offshore wind auction in 2026. These developments signal a growing global appetite for offshore wind beyond traditional markets. 

“With Brazil joining GOWA at COP28 in Dubai and now holding the COP30 Presidency, we call on the Presidency to truly make this a COP of implementation, and encourage governments to recognise offshore wind as a cornerstone of the clean energy transition,” Ms. Patel said. 

Published – October 30, 2025 07:46 pm IST

The White House budget office said on Friday (October 10, 2025) that mass firings of federal workers have started, an attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown dragged into a 10th day.

Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on the social media site X that the “RIFs have begun,” referring to reduction-in-force plans aimed at reducing the size of the federal government.

A spokesperson for the budget office said the reductions are “substantial” but did not offer more details.

Employees at the departments of Education, Treasury, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, were set to receive the notices, according to spokespeople for the agencies and union representatives for federal workers.

The aggressive move by Trump’s budget office goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown and escalates an already politically toxic dynamic between the White House and Congress. Talks to end the shutdown are almost nonexistent.

Typically, federal workers are furloughed but restored to their jobs once the shutdown ends, traditionally with back pay. Some 750,000 employees are expected to be furloughed during the shutdown, officials have said.

Firings focused on Democrat-oriented areas

In comments to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday night, Mr. Trump said many people would be losing their jobs, and that the firings would be focused on Democrat-oriented areas, though he didn’t explain exactly what that meant.

“It’ll be a lot, and we’ll announce the numbers over the next couple of days,” he said. “But it’ll be a lot of people.” Mr. Trump said that, going forward, “We’re going to make a determination, do we want a lot? And I must tell you, a lot of them happen to be Democrat oriented.” “These are people that the Democrats wanted, that, in many cases, were not appropriate,” he said of federal employees, eventually adding, “Many of them will be fired.” Still, some leading Republicans were highly critical of the administration’s actions.

“I strongly oppose OMB Director Russ Vought’s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who have been furloughed due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, who blamed the federal closure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the announcement “poorly timed” and “yet another example of this administration’s punitive actions toward the federal workforce.” For his part, Mr. Schumer said the blame for the layoffs rested with Mr. Trump.

“Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,” Mr. Schumer said. “They don’t have to do it; they want to. They’re callously choosing to hurt people — the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.”

Agencies hit by new layoffs

The White House had previewed its tactics shortly before the government shutdown began on October 1, telling all federal agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for its review.

It said reduction-in-force plans could apply to federal programs whose funding would lapse in a government shutdown, are otherwise not funded and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” On Friday (October 10), the Education Department was among the agencies hit by new layoffs, a department spokesperson said. A labour union for the agency’s workers said the administration is laying off almost all employees below the director level at the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, while fewer than 10 employees were being terminated at the agency’s Office of Communications and Outreach.

Notices of firings have also taken place at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which leads federal efforts to reduce risk to the nation’s cyber and physical infrastructure, according to DHS, where CISA is housed. The agency has been a frequent Trump target over its work to counter misinformation about the 2020 presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic. DHS said the layoffs were “part of getting CISA back on mission.”

Federal health workers were also being fired, though an HHS spokesman did not say how many or which agencies were being hit hardest. A spokesperson for the EPA, which also has an unspecified number of layoffs, blamed the Democrats for the firings and said they can vote to reopen the government anytime.

An official for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents federal workers and is suing the Trump administration over the firings, said in a legal filing on Friday that the Treasury Department is set to issue layoff notices to 1,300 employees.

The AFGE asked a federal judge to halt the firings, calling the action an abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress.

“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

Democrats have tried to call the administration’s bluff, arguing the firings could be illegal, and had seemed bolstered by the fact that the White House had not immediately pursued the layoffs once the shutdown began.

But Mr. Trump signaled earlier this week that job cuts could be coming in “four or five days.” “If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,” he said Tuesday.

10th day of the shutdown

Meanwhile, the halls of the Capitol were quiet on Friday, the 10th day of the shutdown, with both the House and the Senate out of Washington and both sides digging in for a protracted shutdown fight. Senate Republicans have tried repeatedly to cajole Democratic holdouts to vote for a stopgap bill to reopen the government, but Democrats have refused as they hold out for a firm commitment to extend health care benefits.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested that Mr. Vought’s threats of mass layoffs have been unhelpful to bipartisan talks.

And the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, said in a statement that the “shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers” to lay off workers.

“This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks,” she added.

Still, there was no sign that the top Democratic and Republican Senate leaders were even talking about a way to solve the impasse. Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune continued to try to peel away centrist Democrats who may be willing to cross party lines.

“It’s time for them to get a backbone,” Mr. Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said on Friday.

President Donald Trump has embraced the federal shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to slash spending and shrink government, but new rounds of targeted spending cuts from the White House aimed at Democratic states and priorities are raising concerns among Republicans that they may be at risk of ceding their political advantage.

Republicans in Congress believe they hold the upper hand in a four-day-old stalemate, as Democrats voted against measures to keep the government open because they want to attach additional policy measures. But the sweeping cuts to home-state projects — and the threat of mass federal firings — have some in the GOP worried the White House may be going too far and potentially give Democrats a way out of their tight spot.

“This is certainly the most moral high ground Republicans have had in a moment like this that I can recall, and I just don’t like squandering that political capital when you have that kind of high ground,” GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters this week.

As hopes faded on Friday (October 3, 2025) for a quick end to the shutdown — with Democrats holding firm in a key Senate vote — the White House signalled more layoffs and agency cuts could follow. Mr. Trump shared a video on Thursday (October 2, 2025) night portraying budget director Russ Vought as the Grim Reaper. The cuts are raising fresh questions about whether voters want a government that uses discretionary power to punish political opponents — and whether Republicans may face electoral consequences for the White House’s actions.

“There’s the political ramifications that could cause backlash,” Mr. Cramer said in another interview. “It makes everything going forward more difficult for us.” Since the shutdown began, Mr. Trump has moved to cancel $7.6 billion in clean energy grants across 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election. On Friday (October 3, 2025), the administration announced an additional $2 billion cut, this time to a major public transit project in Chicago. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration is also reviewing funding to Portland, Oregon.

“He’s just literally took out the map and pointed to all the blue states,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, told The Associated Press.

Democrats have seized on the shutdown and cuts as evidence of Mr. Trump’s overreach. There could be near-term fallout, including in next month’s governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia. Democratic candidates in both states have linked their GOP opponents to Trump’s policies and criticised them for not standing up to his latest moves.

In New Jersey, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill blasted Republican Jack Ciattarelli over Mr. Trump’s move to block funding for a long-delayed rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, saying it will hurt commuters and put thousands of good-paying union jobs at risk.

“What’s wrong with this guy?” Ms. Sherrill said on Friday (October 3, 2025).

In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger noted the state already has been hit hard by job cuts made by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. She said Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is “refusing to stand up for our workforce and our economy”. Ms. Earle-Sears said Democrats are to blame for the shutdown, and said Ms. Spanberger did nothing to encourage the state’s Democratic senators to stop it.

The administration’s targeting of blue states has already begun to ripple through states like California, where $1.2 billion in funding for the state’s hydrogen hub was scrapped. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said it threatens more than 2,00,000 jobs.

Though Ms. Harris won California handily in 2024, the state includes several competitive House districts that could decide control of the chamber in 2026. Similar districts exist in other states affected by the cuts, including New York and New Hampshire, which also has key gubernatorial and Senate races.

Democratic groups have moved quickly to tie local Republicans to the fallout. American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic group, has highlighted swing-district Republicans in states where cuts have occurred, accusing them of having “sat by and let it happen”. “The cruelty that they might unleash on everyday Americans using the pretence of a shutdown is only going to backfire against them,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an interview with The Associated Press and other outlets at the Capitol.

The cuts are also complicating Senate negotiations, prolonging a shutdown that could leave thousands of federal workers without pay and halt key programs. Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat whom Republicans have tried to sway, said “there’s no question” the cuts have damaged talks.

“If you’re trying to get people to come together and try to find common ground, that’s the absolute wrong way to do it,” said Mr. Peters.

Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, broke from Democrats earlier this week to support the GOP funding bill. He called the cuts “so utterly partisan as to be almost laughable”. “If they overreach, which is entirely possible, I think they’re going to be in trouble with Republicans as well,” said Mr. King.

Many Senate Republicans have not endorsed Mr. Vought’s approach directly, instead blaming Democrats for rejecting funding bills and opening the door to the White House’s more aggressive moves.

“It’s the reason why Republicans have continued to support a continuation,” said GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. “If you’ve noticed, Republicans have solidly supported this short-term continuing resolution because we do not want to see this.”

“It’s not like we promoted it,” said Mr. Rounds. “We’ve done everything we can right now to try to avoid it.”

Published – October 04, 2025 01:52 pm IST

Washington:

The US House of Representatives voted Friday to avert a government shutdown with just hours to spare, with Democrats joining Republicans to advance a funding bill keeping the lights on through mid-March.

Lawmakers sent a package to the Senate that would keep federal agencies running through mid-March — but the upper chamber only has until midnight (0500 GMT) to follow suit or federal agencies will begin shutting.

Although the House is run by the Republicans, who introduced the bill, 34 of the party’s backbenchers voted against it, while almost every Democrat was a yes.

“Today, Democrats stood firm in our commitment to collaboration, not division. The American people deserve a government that works for them,” senior Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson posted on X.

If senators drag their feet, the government will still cease to be funded at midnight, and non-essential operations will start to grind to a halt, with up to 875,000 workers furloughed and 1.4 million more required to work without pay.

The Democratic-led upper chamber would be expected to follow the House, however, and the main question now is how quickly senators will move.

Congress’s setting of government budgets is always a fraught task, with both chambers closely divided between Republicans and Democrats.

The latest drama intensified after Republican President-elect Trump and tech billionaire Musk, his incoming “efficiency czar,” pressured his party to renege on a funding bill they had hammered out with Democrats.

Two subsequent efforts to find compromise fell short, leaving Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson at the last chance saloon as he huddled with aides to keep government agencies running.

If the bill fails Senate scrutiny, non-essential government functions will be put on ice. Employees in key services like law enforcement would continue working but would only be paid once government functions are back up.

Many parks, monuments and national sites would close at a time when millions of visitors are expected.

– ‘Let it begin’ –
The House-passed bill avoids all that by funding the government until mid-March in a package that includes $110 billion in disaster aid and financial relief for farmers.

It is essentially the same as a bill that failed miserably in a vote Thursday — except without a two-year suspension of the country’s self-imposed borrowing limit demanded by Trump.

Musk appeared again to be doing his best to marshal conservatives against the deal ahead of the House vote, as he posted: “So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?”

The influence of the world’s richest man over the Republicans — and his apparent sway with Trump — has become a focus for Democratic attack, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.

There is growing anger even among Republicans over Musk’s interference after he trashed the original funding agreement in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — on his social media platform X.   

“Last time I checked, Elon Musk doesn’t have a vote in Congress,” Georgia House Republican Rich McCormick told CNN.

“Now, he has influence, and he’ll put pressure on us to do whatever he thinks the right thing is for him. But I have 760,000 people that voted for me to do the right thing for them.”  

The Senate’s expected rubber stamp could take days under the rules governing the upper chamber, unless members agree unanimously to waive normal procedure.

Trump has been clear that he is willing to see a shutdown if he does not get his way.

“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration,” he said on social media.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The US House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a Republican-led funding bill aimed at averting a government shutdown, with federal agencies due to run out of cash on Friday night and cease operations starting this weekend.

The contentious legislation would have suspended the country’s borrowing limit for President-elect Donald Trump’s first two years in office and dozens of debt hawks in the Republican ranks rebelled against their own leadership to sink the package.

It was a defeat for the Republican leader, who with tech billionaire Elon Musk — his incoming “efficiency czar” — had thrown his weight behind the plan.

It was supposed to fix a mammoth bipartisan package that both men had sabotaged on Wednesday amid conservatives’ complaints about extras in the package ballooning its overall cost.

The retooled version was considered under a fast-track method that required two-thirds support but Democrats had been clear that they would deny Republicans the votes they needed to make up for the rebels in their ranks and it failed to win even a straightforward majority.

“The… proposal is not serious, it’s laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said ahead of the vote. The White House described it as a “giveaway for billionaires.”

Republicans will likely try again with a more pared-down version, although the party leadership offered no clear path forward, telling reporters they would have to meet to discuss a Plan C.

A shutdown now looks almost certain — meaning the closure of all manner of federal agencies and potentially sending almost a million workers home without pay over Christmas.   

Funding the government is always fraught and lawmakers are under pressure this time around because they failed to agree on full-year budgets for 2025 despite months of negotiations.

Party leaders had landed on a stopgap bill — known as a “continuing resolution” (CR) — to keep operations functioning through mid-March.

Major Trump donor and ally Musk spent much of Wednesday bombarding his 208 million followers on X with posts trashing the deal, and amplifying complaints from debt hawks in the House who balked at numerous expensive add-ons shoehorned into the package.

Twelve hours later, Trump, who appeared to be playing catch-up, began threatening the reelection prospects of Republicans thinking of supporting the package and demanding out of the blue that the bill increase or even scrap the country’s debt limit.

– Speaker under fire –

Government functions are due to begin winding up at midnight going into Saturday, with an estimated 875,000 workers at risk of being furloughed without pay and essential staff working during the holidays without a paycheck.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has been facing criticism from all sides for his handling of the negotiations and his gavel looks likely to be under threat when he stands for reelection in January.

The Louisiana congressman appeared to have misjudged his own members’ tolerance for the original CR’s spiraling costs, and for allowing himself to have been blindsided by Musk and Trump.

Democrats, who control the Senate, have little political incentive to help Republicans and Jeffries has insisted they will only vote for the bipartisan package, meaning Trump’s party will have to go it alone on any further efforts.

This is something the fractious, divided party — which can afford to lose only a handful of members in any House vote — has not managed in any major bill in this Congress.

While voicing frustration over spending levels, Trump’s main objection to the original CR was that Congress was leaving him to handle a debt-limit increase — invariably a contentious, time-consuming fight — rather than including it in the text.

President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the veteran Democrat “supports the bipartisan agreement to keep the government open… not this giveaway for billionaires that Republicans are proposing at the 11th hour.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Elon Musk’s role in wrecking a bipartisan Congress deal to avert a US government shutdown has underlined his extraordinary influence over the Republican Party and the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

In addition to his usual title of the world’s richest man, Democrats are now describing him as “President Musk.”

Musk has been tapped by Trump to run the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) agency, but the billionaire is throwing his weight around even before the president-elect takes office on January 20.

On Wednesday, shortly after 4:00 am, the hyperactive owner of Tesla and SpaceX used his social platform X to attack the budget bill hammered out by Republicans and Democrats in Congress to keep the federal government operating.

“This bill should not pass,” the 53-year-old Musk wrote in the first of what became a barrage of posts.

“Kill the bill,” he exhorted Republican members of the House of Representatives. “This bill is criminal.”

A number of Republican lawmakers quickly fell in line, with some even engaging in a bit of flattery.

“In five years in Congress, I’ve been awaiting a fundamental change in the dynamic,” Representative Dan Bishop commented on an X post by Musk. “It has arrived.”

Other right-wing members of Congress even went so far as to suggest that the South African-born Musk should take over as House speaker.

Trump himself joined the budget battle later in the day.

The 78-year-old president-elect denounced the spending bill as “ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive.”

The dramatic developments left the country facing a government shutdown just days before Christmas.

Musk rejoiced after the bill was torpedoed. “The voice of the people was heard,” he said. “This was a good day for America.”

He followed up by reposting a picture of himself in front of an American flag with the words “VOX POPULI” and “VOX DEI,” a Latin phrase which translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”

After the intervention, Republicans in Congress on Thursday came up with a new funding package that satisfied Trump — and Musk.

– Who’s in charge? –

Democrats have painted the tech billionaire as unstable and a megalomaniac, and hope calling him “President Musk” will needle Trump.

“Democrats and Republicans spent months negotiating a bipartisan agreement to fund our government,” Senator Bernie Sanders said. “The richest man on Earth, President Elon Musk, doesn’t like it.

“Will Republicans kiss the ring?” Sanders asked. “Billionaires must not be allowed to run our government.”

Democratic Representative Jim McGovern said “at least we know who’s in charge.”

“He’s president and Trump is now vice president,” McGovern said.

Speaking on CNN, David Axelrod, who served as chief strategist for Barack Obama’s White House campaigns, said Musk and Trump need to “get together and decide who the president is.”

Musk’s rapid political ascension is unprecedented. While wealthy patrons have exerted influence before, no unelected businessman has ever wielded such political power.

Musk played a large role in the closing stages of Trump’s presidential campaign, appearing with him at a rally in Pennsylvania on the site where a gunman wounded the Republican candidate, and personally funding a reelection committee.

He has been omnipresent since Trump’s election victory, virtually taking up residence at Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago Florida where the incoming president is mapping out the transition.

Musk and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, a space race rival, dined with Trump on Wednesday evening at Mar-a-Lago.

Musk has not been formally named to Trump’s cabinet but his expansive brief of cutting federal government spending has sparked conflict of interest concerns.

SpaceX, for example, depends for a large part on US government contracts.

Musk’s $270 million in political donations during the November election cycle made him the largest political donor in US history.

But he shelled out far more for Twitter (since re-branded as X) in 2022, paying $44 billion.

“It’s weird to think that Elon Musk will end up having paid far less for the United States Government than he did for Twitter,” joked George Conway, a conservative critic.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)