Still not supporting

Democrats still not supporting GOP bill to end the shutdown

A statement from a powerful federal employees’ union calling on Congress to reopen the government didn’t have an immediate effect.

Jordain Carney

Senate Democrats rejected the House-passed, GOP-led stopgap for the 13th time Tuesday, as the pain from the government shutdown is poised to escalate by week’s end.

Lawmakers voted 54-45 on the funding patch, which would float federal operations through Nov. 21. Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — as well as Independent Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats — continued to break ranks to vote in favor of advancing the bill.

It comes as Democrats are under increasing external pressure to vote to reopen the government following a statement Monday from the powerful American Federation of Government Employees that called on Congress to immediately pass a clean stopgap bill and end the shutdown.

Democrats have largely signaled they have no immediate plans to change their position: that they would not vote to resume federal funding until Republicans come to the table to negotiate on a bipartisan compromise on soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act tax credits.

“We are in a health care crisis and Republicans don’t even want to talk about how to fix it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday. “The president isn’t even in town as Americans are about to be devastated by the bills they’ll receive on health care.”

He was referring to the Nov. 1 date when open enrollment begins for Obamacare health plans, with people are expected to be slapped with high premiums absent a deal to extend the insurance subsidies.

But Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, acknowledged Monday evening that AFGE’s statement could have an impact, even if he wasn’t changing his own stance at this time.

“It is in my mind,” said Durbin. “The SNAP program feeds one out of eight Americans.”

Lawmakers are staring down a grim reality that fallout from the shutdown is about to get worse, and there’s no offramp in sight. On Friday, members of the military will miss a paycheck; on Saturday, the government will stop distributing key food aid benefits relied upon by millions of low-income Americans.

And then there are worries that key personnel at airports will stop showing up for work, which could lead to major air travel disruptions as well as potential safety issues.

Republicans will discuss holding votes on stand-alone bills to lessen certain elements of shutdown pain, such as paying the troops and federal employees, during a closed-door lunch Tuesday with Vice President JD Vance.

A growing number of Democrats have signaled they would be willing to support legislation from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that would fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for the duration of the shutdown.

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday, “there’s not a high level of interest in doing carve outs, or so-called ‘rifle shots.’ I think most people realize the way to get out of this mess is to vote to open up the government.”

Republicans are not expected to give Hawley’s proposal a vote this week, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal scheduling.

Ultimately, with the shutdown all-but-guaranteed to cross the one-month mark, Republicans want to keep maximum pressure on Democrats to reopen the government by making conditions on the ground as unpleasant as possible.

At the same time, some GOP senators are pushing for the chamber to remain in session beyond its normal Thursday afternoon exit time to make progress on reaching an agreement to end the impasse. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) urged her colleagues to stop treating the shutdown as business-as-usual during a floor speech Monday.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), asked Tuesday about Murkowski’s remarks, said he was willing to stay in session through the weekend if it would result in Democrats supporting the GOP stopgap.

They’ll oppose

Senate Republicans say they’ll oppose Trump’s Kuwait ambassador pick

This could be the second nominee in a month to fall victim to Republican opposition amid past comments perceived to be antisemitic.

Benjamin Guggenheim

At least three Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will oppose President Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to Kuwait, Amer Ghalib, likely derailing his confirmation for the position.

It would be the second time this month that a Trump nominee has been tanked by members of the president’s own party over concerns about a history of allegedly antisemitic remarks.

Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., made headlines in 2024 for endorsing Trump in his capacity as the mayor of the only U.S. city run entirely by Muslims. He was excoriated by Republicans as well as Democrats during his confirmation hearing last Thursday, where he had to answer for past comments suggesting Israel deserved to be attacked by Hamas and for allegedly complimenting members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the late dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein.

“I was a ‘no’ even before the hearing,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said in an interview Monday.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made clear during the hearing that he would vote against Ghalib’s nomination. Sen. John Cornyn, another Texas Republican, said in a Monday interview he too would give a thumbs down to Trump’s pick.

Assuming all Democrats vote “no,” Ghalib can afford to lose only three Republicans on the Senate floor before Vice President JD Vance is brought in to break a tie. As it currently stands, Ghalib would not even have GOP support to advance out of Senate Foreign Relations, where only two Republicans can oppose a nominee on an otherwise party-line vote.

A fourth GOP opponent could be incoming. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), who also harshly questioned Ghalib on his views on Israel at the recent hearing, was noncommittal when asked how he would vote on the nominee.

“We’ll have some conversations with Senator [Jim] Risch on that one,” Ricketts said, referring to the Senate Foreign Relations chair.

Last week, the Trump administration withdrew its nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, after POLITICO reported on texts that showed him making racist and antisemitic remarks to fellow Republicans.

A lawyer for Ingrassia did not confirm the authenticity of the texts and said they “could be manipulated or are being provided with material context omitted.”

Regarding Ghalib’s prospects, the White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Risch also did not immediately respond to questions about whether the Idaho Republican would support Ghalib and if the nominee would appear on the agenda for an upcoming markup.

Daylight saving time permanent?

Cotton blocks Trump-backed effort to make daylight saving time permanent

A bipartisan group of lawmakers sought unanimous consent approval for a bill that would stop the changing of the clocks.

Benjamin Guggenheim

Sen. Tom Cotton wasn’t fast enough in 2022 to block Senate passage of legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent. Three years later, he wasn’t about to repeat that same mistake.

The Arkansas Republican was on hand Tuesday afternoon to thwart a bipartisan effort on the chamber floor to pass a bill that would put an end to changing the clocks twice a year, including this coming Sunday.

“If permanent Daylight Savings Time becomes the law of the land, it will again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans,” said Cotton in his objection to a request by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to advance the bill by unanimous consent.

“For many Arkansans, permanent daylight savings time would mean the sun wouldn’t rise until after 8:00 or even 8:30am during the dead of winter,” Cotton continued. “The darkness of permanent savings time would be especially harmful for school children and working Americans.”

A cross-party coalition of lawmakers has been trying for years to make daylight saving time the default, which would result in more daylight in the evening hours with less in the morning, plus bring to a halt to biannual clock adjustments.

President Donald Trump endorsed the concept this spring, calling the changing of the clocks “a big inconvenience and, for our government, A VERY COSTLY EVENT!!!”

His comments coincided with a hearing, then a markup, of Scott’s legislation in the Senate Commerce Committee. It set off an intense lobbying battle in turn, pitting the golf and retail industries — which are advocating for permanent daylight saving time — against the likes of sleep doctors and Christian radio broadcasters — who prefer standard time.

Joined by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) in calling for the Senate to pass the bill Tuesday, Scott cited states’ rights as a major reason for his support for the so-called “Sunshine Protection Act.”

“It allows the people of each state to choose what best fits their needs and the needs of their families,” said Scott. “The American people are sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year. It’s confusing, unnecessary and completely outdated.”

There was hope earlier this year that momentum was growing for the quixotic legislative campaign after progress stalled following senators’ success in 2022 to pass a version of Scott’s bill by unanimous consent — an outcome typically reserved for noncontroversial bills that took lawmakers by surprise.

Cotton on Tuesday decried the “abject failure” of the last time Congress enacted permanent daylight saving time in 1974, pledging to always oppose legislation that would do just that.

He said he took “full responsibility” for dropping the ball in 2022, explaining he hadn’t adequately communicated the extent of his opposition and that he had expected another senator to object.

Launch alternative bill

Democrats launch alternative bill to save SNAP funding

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) introduced legislation to keep food aid flowing during the shutdown. It rivals a plan from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)

Grace Yarrow

Senate Democrats are preparing to introduce their own bill to keep food aid benefits flowing for millions of Americans during the government shutdown ahead of a Nov. 1 funding cliff.

The legislation, led by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), could draw Democratic support away from a rival bipartisan plan by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), which pushes USDA and the Treasury Department to fully fund November benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative.

Luján’s bill, on the other hand, would require the administration to fund both SNAP and a separate food aid program serving low-income women and children. It would also require that states be reimbursed for funding benefits during the shutdown.

Most of the Democratic caucus, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), have signed onto the latest legislation, though it notably has yet to pick up any Republican co-sponsors.

Their latest move comes after the Trump administration recently concluded it doesn’t have the legal authority to tap a USDA contingency fund to pay for billions of dollars worth of food aid next month. If Congress or the White House doesn’t step in with more money, SNAP benefits would lapse for the first time in modern history.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday that it would cost the department $9.2 billion to fund November SNAP benefits, administrative costs and nutrition block grants for U.S. territories — and she emphasized that USDA does not have those dollars on hand.

Democratic officials from 25 states and the District of Columbia have already challenged the administration’s decision not to tap emergency funds in court. Meanwhile, senators are focused on finding short-term solutions with the government shutdown now in its fifth week.

“Let me be clear: the Trump administration has the authority and the funds to keep SNAP running,” Luján said in a statement. “If they refuse to act, millions of Americans will go hungry. Ensuring Americans don’t go hungry should not be a partisan issue, yet the Trump administration is playing politics with people’s lives.”

Luján’s home state of New Mexico has the highest level of dependence on SNAP, with around 21 percent of its population having received benefits last year.

GOP leaders have not signaled that they’ll give any SNAP standalone funding bill a vote. Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that it’d be a “waste of time” to vote on standalone funding patches during the ongoing shutdown.

Hawley told reporters previously that it’s up to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to decide whether his bill will receive a floor vote.

“I mean, he controls the floor, obviously, and this is only going to pass with a vote,” Hawley said, adding that the Senate won’t be able to unanimously pass the legislation due to individual concerns with the bill.

Votes against

Senate votes against Trump’s 50 percent tariff on Brazil

The vote comes while the president is in Asia touting his trade agenda.

Daniel Desrochers

The Senate once again rebuked President Donald Trump on tariffs, a vote that comes as the president is in Asia touting tariffs and notching progress on trade agreements.

Senators on Tuesday voted 52-48 to terminate the national emergency Trump declared in order to impose 50 percent tariffs on most Brazilian goods in July. Five Republican Senators joined the Democrats in the vote: Thom Tillis (N.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Rand Paul (Ky.), the measure’s co-sponsor.

The vote — the first in a series of three expected resolutions aiming to block President Trump’s tariffs on Brazil and Canada as well as his widespread global tariffs — comes amid bubbling tension in the Senate over how Trump’s trade war has affected farmers and small businesses.

Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments over whether Trump has overstepped his authority by using an emergency law to impose tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

“Emergencies are like war, famine [and] tornadoes,” said Paul, the most vocal opponent of Trump’s tariffs in the Senate. “Not liking someone’s tariffs is not an emergency. It’s an abuse of the emergency power and it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”

But the vote remains largely symbolic: Republican leaders in the House have blocked the chamber from voting to overrule the tariffs until March, protecting Republican members who are facing blowback from home state farmers and small businesses angry over the economic impact.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a co-sponsor on the Canada and global tariff resolutions, said he is hearing rising discontent among “Republican senators who go home and they just feel like they’re getting hit by a trade wrecking ball.”

“People come up and say ‘the tariffs are killing us.’ You go to the grocery store and everybody’s up in arms,” continued Wyden, a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade issues.

Trump announced that he would impose a 50 percent tariff in July, in response to what he felt was an unfair legal case against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — a Trump ally — over his role in attempting to overturn the results of the country’s 2022 election, as well as over a Brazil’s policies on digital content, which has ensnared U.S. social media companies.

In his order imposing the tariffs, Trump declared a national emergency over “the scope and gravity of the recent policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Brazil constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

That order has received pushback from some in Congress, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who argued that by allowing the president to declare an emergency over a country’s treatment of a political ally would open the door to broader use of national emergencies to govern.

“Don’t lie and say there’s an energy emergency when there isn’t,” said Kaine, who sponsored the resolution. “Don’t lie and say Brazil’s prosecution of a president is an emergency when it’s not. Don’t use the lie to increase the price of coffee by 40 percent in a year. Don’t use the lie to punish a country with whom we have a trade surplus. Don’t lie and don’t hurt my citizens.”

They’ll vote yes on Proposition 50

Most Californians say they’ll vote yes on Proposition 50

The survey from the Public Policy Institute of California comes days before a special election for Democrats’ redistricting campaign in the state.

By Juliann Ventura

More than half of likely voters are planning to support California Democrats’ redistricting ballot measure next week, a new poll shows.

The survey from the Public Policy Institute of California comes as Democrats in the state and nationwide move to counter President Donald Trump’s push to redraw congressional lines in red states ahead of next year’s midterm elections. The Trump administration announced earlier this week that it was sending election monitors to California, marking an escalation in the state’s redistricting push — though the president has otherwise been largely quiet about it.

Of the 56 percent of likely voters who plan to support the Nov. 4 measure, 95 percent disapprove of how Trump is handling his job, while 86 percent approve of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s performance as governor. Forty-three percent of voters say they will be voting no on Proposition 50, according to the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos.

Regardless of political party, nearly 70 percent of likely voters say that the outcome of the special election is “very important” to them.

The Prop 50 campaign has made resisting Trump the primary focus of its messaging in an effort to drive Democrats to the polls in an off-year election. The survey showed strong partisan divides, with 84 percent of Democrats saying they will vote for the measure and 89 percent of Republicans saying they will oppose it. Fifty-five percent of independents plan to vote yes.

The survey was based on responses from 1,707 adults and 943 likely voters in California from Oct. 7-14. The margin of error for the entire sample was 3 percent at the 95 percent confidence level and 4.1 percent for the likely voters.

Killed dozens of African migrants

Amnesty says US strike on Yemen prison that killed dozens of African migrants may be war crime

The Central Command has yet to offer any explanation for the strike on the prison.

By Associated Press

 An American airstrike in April on a prison run by Yemen’s Houthi rebels that killed over 60 detained African migrants should be investigated as a possible war crime, activists said Wednesday.

The call by Amnesty International renews scrutiny on the April 28 strike in Yemen’s Saada province. The attack came as part of an intense campaign of airstrikes waged under U.S. President Donald Trump targeting rebels for disrupting shipping through the Red Sea corridor amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The U.S. military’s Central Command has yet to offer any explanation for the strike on the prison, which previously had been hit by a Saudi-led coalition also fighting against the Houthis and had been known to hold detained African migrants trying to reach Saudi Arabia through the war zone.

“We take all reports of civilian harm seriously and are working to release the assessment results for Operation Rough Rider soon,” said U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for Central Command.

After the strike, the Houthis displayed debris likely from two, 250-pound precision-guided GBU-39 small-diameter bombs used by the U.S. military, Amnesty said. Survivors interviewed by Amnesty, all Ethiopian migrants detained while trying to reach Saudi Arabia, told the rights group that they saw no Houthi fighters posted inside the building.

Amnesty said the strike appeared to be an “indiscriminate attack” as it assessed there was no clear military objective. International law prohibits striking sites like hospitals and prisons unless the structures are being used to plan attacks or stockpile weapons — and even then, every precaution should be made to avoid hurting civilians.

Amnesty said the Houthis recently put the death toll in the strike at 61, lower than the 68 it initially reported. Gunfire could be heard in footage filmed after the airstrikes, with the Houthis saying their guards fired warning shots around the time of the strikes.

The April strike recalled a similar strike by a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis in 2022 on the same compound, which caused a collapse killing 66 detainees and wounding 113 others, a United Nations report later said. The Houthis shot dead 16 detainees who fled after the strike and wounded another 50, the U.N. said.

The Houthis denied any misconduct in the April strike, but Amnesty noted the rebels’ “ongoing crackdown on ... activists, journalists, human rights defenders and humanitarian workers” limited its ability to investigate. The Houthis hold at least 59 United Nations staffers and more aid group workers, with the rebels seizing electronics at U.N. offices in recent days. The Iranian-backed rebels, under economic pressure, also increasingly have been threatening Saudi Arabia in recent weeks as well.

“I didn’t actually believe that it was possible that the U.S. would carry out an airstrike on the same compound, resulting in a significant level of civilian harm,” said Kristine Beckerle, Amnesty’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “It kind of defies belief that the U.S. would not have known.”

The U.S. airstrikes against the Houthis began over the rebels’ attacks on shipping under President Joe Biden. However, the attacks sharply escalated under Trump’s Operation Rough Rider, hitting some 1,000 targets in Yemen.

Those strikes hit power stations, mobile phone infrastructure and military targets in Yemen. However, activists say the attacks also killed civilians, particularly an April strike on an oil depot that killed more than 70 people.

Airwars, a United Kingdom-based group studying casualties in aerial warfare, believes strikes in the Operation Rough Rider at least 224 civilians during the weekslong campaign — nearly as many civilians killed over more than 20 years of American strikes on the country.

U.S. Army Gen. Michael Kurilla, CENTCOM’s former commander, promised details on civilian casualties in the Yemen campaign “absolutely” would be made public during congressional testimony in June, though that has yet to happen.

“One of the things that was relatively devastating is again you’re talking about people who left Ethiopia to travel to Yemen because they’re trying to get to the Gulf” to earn money for their families back home, Beckerle said. “They have to have their family send money to them in Yemen to deal with the effects of the injury.”

Violations of court orders limiting use of force.

Border Patrol chief leading Trump immigration crackdown in Chicago ordered to report daily to federal judge

In a tense hearing, Gregory Bovino faced scrutiny for alleged violations of court orders limiting use of force.

By Shia Kapos

 U.S. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, the face of “Operation Midway Blitz” cracking down on illegal immigration, must report daily to a federal judge after reports of combative enforcement, including using tear gas.

Bovino appeared Tuesday for a tense hearing before U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago. She questioned him about reports of aggressive immigration enforcement and the federal agents’ treatment of protesters, journalists and even children during the ongoing “immigration blitz.”

The hearing was part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by local media organizations alleging that federal agents have violated prior court orders restricting their use of force. Those orders forbid agents from using tear gas or “riot control” weapons without giving two warnings and from deploying them against people who pose no immediate threat.

“They don’t have to like what you’re doing. And that’s OK. That’s what democracy is,” Ellis said during the hearing, referring to protesters or others who might be voicing opposition to federal agents on the ground. “They can say they don’t like what you’re doing, that they don’t like how you’re enforcing the laws, that they wish you would leave Chicago and take the agents with you. They can say that, and that’s fine. But they can’t get teargassed for it.”

While Bovino’s immigration enforcement efforts came under scrutiny Tuesday, President Donald Trump threatened to send “more than the National Guard” to combat crime in blue cities like Chicago. Some National Guard members have already been sent to Illinois, though they have yet to be deployed to the streets. The president has also sent the National Guard into Washington, D.C., and is seeking to send troops to Portland, Oregon.

In Chicago, the judge, an Obama appointee, imposed a new requirement: Bovino must meet with her every weekday to update her on the immigration enforcement efforts. “Mr. Bovino’s going to be here every day at 6 to tell me what happened,” she said.

From the outset of the hourlong hearing, Ellis made clear her expectations. “My role is not to tell you that you can or cannot enforce validly passed laws by Congress,” she said. “My role is simply to see that any enforcement of those laws is done in a manner that is consistent with your obligations under the law.”

The judge reminded Bovino of rules that state he must “leave journalists alone. If they’re doing their job, they need to be left alone to do their job.”

Bovino agreed. “We’re on the same page,” he said.

Bovino listened intently while on the stand, and at least once took time to gaze across the courtroom, which was crowded with reporters and a few onlookers.

Outside the courthouse, a few protesters waved signs reading “Stop ICE Brutality” and “Judge Sara Ellis is a Boss.”

Inside, the tone was serious as Ellis read anecdotes aloud from reports that federal agents had used tear gas in Chicago neighborhoods during Halloween festivities. “Kids were tear gassed on their way to celebrate Halloween,” the judge said, referring to an incident in the Old Irving Park neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. “Those kids were dressed up in their Halloween costumes. You can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered.”

Halloween was on the judge’s mind as she told government attorneys: “I do not want to get violation reports from the plaintiffs that show that agents are out and about on Halloween where kids are present and tear gas is being deployed.”

For his part, Bovino responded throughout the informational hearing with “yes ma’am,” and challenged only when asked about tear gas being used. “Your honor, I believe that each situation is dependent on the situation. I’d like to know more about what happened.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs moved to ban tear gas altogether, but Ellis said for now she would not decide. “If [federal agents] are using tear gas, they better be able to back it up,” she said. “And if they can’t, then they will lose that as something they can use.”

Ellis raised concerns from the public that federal agents haven’t identified themselves. “I instructed all agents under my command to place an identifier conspicuously somewhere on their uniform,” Bovino replied. Ellis suggested IDs appear “in a conspicuous location” in at least two places, and Bovino agreed.

Ellis demanded that Bovino deliver use-of-force reports and body-worn camera footage compiled since Sept. 2.

And she ordered him to wear a camera himself. “The camera is your friend,” the judge said.

Bovino had acknowledged that he hadn’t been wearing one. “How about by Friday you get one for yourself?” Ellis asked. Bovino agreed, saying, “We can get that.”

Barring mass firings

Judge extends order barring mass firings of federal workers during shutdown

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said she found some accounts from impacted federal employees “very affecting.”

By Josh Gerstein, Carmen Paun and Hassan Ali Kanu

A federal judge has indefinitely extended her order banning the Trump administration from mass firing federal employees during the government shutdown.

Following a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted a preliminary injunction blocking reductions in force — better known as RIFs — at most major government agencies.

Barring further action by a higher court, Illston’s decision limits the Trump administration’s ability to continue downsizing the federal government and moves it has made to leverage the ongoing shutdown to cut federal programs and agencies favored by Democrats.

The Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget “and the federal agency defendants are enjoined from issuing any more RIF notices because of the shutdown,” said Illston, a San Francisco-based Clinton appointee. The judge also barred the administration from implementing RIF notices issued during the shutdown and said she might hold further court proceedings to resolve disputes about some RIFs that were in the works just before the shutdown began on Oct. 1.

The Trump administration is expected to appeal Illston’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. OMB spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Justice Department attorney defending the administration at the hearing Tuesday, Michael Velchik, said the firings were lawful and represented the will of the electorate expressed through President Donald Trump’s victory at the polls last year.

“The American people selected someone known above all else for his eloquence in communicating to employees that, ‘You’re fired!’” Velchik said, referring to Trump’s trademark line on his television show, “The Apprentice.”

However, Illston bluntly rejected the administration’s key arguments, including that the lapse in appropriations gave agencies new flexibility to fire workers because unfunded programs are no longer required by law.

“I think that’s completely wrong,” the judge said.

Velchik was undeterred. “I think that’s obviously correct. I think all three branches of government agree on that,” he said.

A lawyer representing the federal employee unions challenging the RIFs said that argument suggests Trump could permanently dismantle every federal agency simply because Congress failed to meet a funding deadline.

“What counsel is arguing is that if Congress lets funding lapse for one day, the president can fire the entire federal government. That is absurd,” the unions’ attorney, Danielle Leonard, said.

On Monday, one of the unions suing, AFGE, shifted its position in the shutdown fight. While it initially joined with other federal employee unions backing Democrats’ resistance to supporting a temporary funding bill, AFGE urged senators to support a three-week funding patch. It fell short in the Senate again Tuesday in a 54-45 vote.

Illston made clear at the outset of the hearing that she intended to issue an injunction that effectively extends a temporary restraining order she issued two weeks ago at the unions’ request. She called it “particularly ironic” that the federal employees sending out the RIF notices appeared to be violating the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits the government from incurring expenses not authorized by Congress, but includes some exceptions for essential activities.

The judge also said she found some accounts from federal RIFed employees “very affecting.”

“I think it’s important that we remember that although we are here talking about statutes and administrative procedure and the like, we are also talking about human lives, and these human lives are being dramatically affected by the activities that we’re discussing this morning,” Illston said.

As an example, she cited an account by a RIFed Department of Housing and Urban Development employee who in a court filing on Oct. 21 wrote that she had never gone through anything as traumatizing as the current experience, including her combat deployment when she was in the Air Force.

The judge also mentioned another account filed in court on Oct. 21 from a RIFed IT specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has been working for the federal government for more than 40 years.

“After 40 years of service, she’s eligible for retirement, but no one at Human Resources can answer her questions about the RIF notice or retiring, because most, if not all, of the HR staff have also been RIFed,” Illston said about the woman. “This is her second RIF notice. She got one earlier in April that was later rescinded.”

That was part of a spring round of RIFs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the time that he sought to downsize the department by about a quarter, to about 62,000 employees.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said earlier this month that he expected the total number of employees fired in connection with the shutdown would “probably end up being north of 10,000.”

Those plans appear to have been scaled back since then, partly due to resistance from other high-level officials in the Trump administration. Trump has said the firings and program terminations are aimed at getting Democrats to cry uncle in the budget fight by targeting constituencies and causes important to them.

$44,000 taxpayer-funded commute

Meet the Senate aide with a $44,000 taxpayer-funded commute

Sen. Roger Marshall’s chief of staff, Brent Robertson, has taken at least 26 trips to Washington from his home in central Virginia.

By Daniel Lippman

The top aide to Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas charged $44,000 to taxpayers over the past two years in commuting expenses between Washington and Lynchburg, Virginia, where he lives, according to public records.

The reimbursements paid to Brent Robertson are legal and comply with congressional rules governing expense reimbursements, according to experts who reviewed his arrangement, but they also said it was highly unusual and at odds with the intent behind those rules. Typically senior congressional aides are stationed either in Washington or their employer’s home state.

Not so for Robertson, Marshall’s longtime chief of staff, who bought a home about 190 miles from Washington in March 2024.

Between April of that year and the following September, he took 11 trips labeled “Lynchburg VA to Washington DC and Return” and got $16,000 back in expenses from the government, according to Senate expense records. The expenses covered “incidentals,” “transportation” and a “per diem,” which is not usually taxed.

Between October of last year and this past March, Robertson took 15 trips with the same label and got an additional $28,000 in expenses back. He secured a per diem payment of $10,000 for one trip to D.C. between Jan. 14 and Jan. 23, coinciding with the presidential inauguration.

Stanley Brand, an attorney who served as House general counsel under Speaker Tip O’Neill, said it appeared to be “a big, wide loophole” and said he had “never” heard of a similar arrangement.

“What if everybody decided to do that, let their staff live far away from their location, and then just charge it off to the government?” Brand said after reviewing the arrangement at POLITICO’s request.

Robertson declined to comment. Neither Marshall’s office or other experts, including a Senate Democratic aide familiar with official reimbursements, could point to another case where a senior congressional staffer lived outside the Washington area or their employer’s home state and expensed travel costs in this way.

Payton Fuller, a spokesperson for Marshall, said the senator is permitted under Senate rules to designate a remote duty station for his employees, which would allow them to expense work trips to Washington. Marshall’s office shared documentation showing Robertson changing his duty station to Lynchburg before charging the trip expenses.

“After a gang shooting struck his wife’s vehicle outside their D.C. condo, Brent and his family made the decision last year to move to Virginia,” Fuller said in a statement. “Like dozens of other chiefs of staff who have duty stations outside of D.C., and in full accordance and approval of Senate ethics, rules, and guidelines, Brent is reimbursed for official travel to and from his home and duty station in Virginia.”

She declined to comment when asked whether Robertson, who is separately on track to earn more than $220,000 in salary this year, intends to keep charging regular travel to and from his Virginia home to Marshall’s official expense account.

The Republican and Democratic spokespeople for the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees the chamber’s personnel practices, declined to comment.

Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, interim vice president of policy and government affairs at the nonprofit watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, questioned the arrangement after being briefed on the expenses. Robertson’s use of official funds, he said in an interview, “appears as though it’s purely personal, which is not what those funds are supposed to be used for.”

Senate expense rules prohibit spending taxpayer funds for personal use, and Hedtler-Gaudette said the expenses “violate the spirit” of those guidelines. “It would be one thing if he was traveling to Kansas because that’s the state that his boss is the senator from,” he said.

He also raised the concern that arrangements like Robertson’s, that “stretch the definition of what a duty station is and encompass the personal home of every staffer,” could proliferate.

Robertson’s expenses were paid out of Marshall’s Official Personnel and Office Expense Account, a $4 million annual allowance that encompasses staff salaries, representational costs and other office expenses. Marshall has spoken out against federal employees doing remote work and sponsored legislation to curtail the practice.

“I want to make it clear, I’m against teleworking from home,” he said last year. “I’m just against it overall at the government level.”

Robertson’s decision to live in Lynchburg and seek travel expenses back and forth is further complicated by the fact that he continued to own a Washington condo that he claimed as his primary residence until it was sold in May, according to D.C. property tax records. Publicly available copies of his tax bill show that lowered his property tax bills by hundreds of dollars during the period he was claiming travel expenses to and from Lynchburg.

After POLITICO inquired about Robertson claiming a “homestead” tax deduction, Fuller said a “delay in processing” led to the error and that the “issue has been resolved.” Robertson, she said, recently paid about $700 in back taxes and fees owed to the D.C. government.