Government shutdown nears, congressional leaders to meet at White House

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are heading to the White House for a meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday in a late effort to avoid a government shutdown, but both sides have shown hardly any willingness to budge from their entrenched positions. If government funding legislation isn’t passed by Congress and signed by Trump on Tuesday night, many government offices across the nation will be temporarily shuttered and nonexempt federal employees will be furloughed, adding to the strain on workers and the nation’s economy. Trump, ahead of the meeting, made it clear he had no intention to negotiate on Democrats’ current terms. “They’re going to have to do some things because their ideas are not very good ones,” the president said Monday. Republicans are daring Democrats to vote against legislation that would keep government funding mostly at current levels, but Democrats have held firm. They’re using one of their few points of leverage to demand Congress take up legislation to extend health care benefits. “We finally got our meeting. We hope they’re serious about getting something real done on health care,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said as he departed the Capitol for the White House. Trump has shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands on health care, even as he agreed to hold a sit-down meeting Monday with Schumer, along with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. The Republican president has said repeatedly he fully expects the government to enter a shutdown this week. “If it has to shut down, it’ll have to shut down,” Trump said Friday. “But they’re the ones that are shutting down government.” The Trump administration has tried to pressure Democratic lawmakers into backing away from their demands, warning that federal employees could be permanently laid off in a funding lapse. “Chuck Schumer said a few months ago that a government shutdown would be chaotic, harmful and painful. He’s right, and that’s why we shouldn’t do it,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Still, Democrats argued Trump’s agreement to hold a meeting shows he’s feeling the pressure to negotiate. They say that because Republicans control the White House and Congress, Americans will mostly blame them for any government shutdown. Democrats are pushing for an extension to Affordable Care Act tax credits that have subsidized health insurance for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The credits, which are designed to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people, are set to expire at the end of the year. At a Monday news conference, Jeffries, a New York Democrat, called health care cuts a “five-alarm fire” that is rippling across communities nationwide. “We’re not going to simply go along to get along with a Republican bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans who are already living with this Trump economy, where costs aren’t going down but they’re going up,” he said. The pandemic-era ACA subsidies are set to expire in a matter of months if Congress fails to act. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits but want changes. Thune said Sunday that the program is “desperately in need of reform” and Republicans want to address “waste, fraud and abuse.” He has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. It remains to be seen whether the White House meeting will help or hurt the chances for a resolution. Negotiations between Trump and Democratic congressional leaders have rarely gone well, and Trump has had little contact with the opposing party during his second term. The most recent negotiation in August between Schumer and the president to speed the pace of Senate confirmation votes for administration officials ended with Trump telling Schumer to “go to hell” in a social media post.

Texas House approves redrawn maps sought by Trump ahead of 2026 elections

The Texas House on Wednesday approved redrawn congressional maps that would give Republicans a bigger edge in 2026, muscling through a partisan gerrymander that launched weeks of protests by Democrats and a widening national battle over redistricting. The approval came at the urging of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade revision of congressional maps to give his party a better chance at holding onto the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. The maps, which would give Republicans five more winnable seats, need to be approved by the GOP-controlled state Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott before they become official. But the Texas House vote had presented the best chance for Democrats to derail the redraw. Democratic legislators delayed the vote by two weeks by fleeing Texas earlier this month in protest, and they were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday’s session. The approval of the Texas maps on an 88-52 party-line vote is likely to prompt California’s Democratic-controlled state Legislature this week to approve of a new House map creating five new Democratic-leaning districts. But the California map would require voter approval in November. Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new Texas map in court and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month.

Appellate judges question Trump’s authority to impose tariffs without Congress

Appellate court judges expressed broad skepticism Thursday over President Donald Trump’s legal rationale for his most expansive round of tariffs. Members of the 11-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington appeared unconvinced by the Trump administration’s insistence that the president could impose tariffs without congressional approval, and it hammered its invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to do so. “IEEPA doesn’t even mention the word ‘tariffs’ anywhere,” Circuit Judge Jimmie Reyna said, in a sign of the panel’s incredulity to a government attorney’s arguments. Brett Shumate, the attorney representing the Trump administration, acknowledged in the 99-minute hearing “no president has ever read IEEPA this way” but contended it was nonetheless lawful. The 1977 law, signed by President Jimmy Carter, allows the president to seize assets and block transactions during a national emergency. It was first used during the Iran hostage crisis and has since been invoked for a range of global unrest, from the 9/11 attacks to the Syrian civil war.Trump says the country’s trade deficit is so serious that it likewise qualifies for the law’s protection. In sharp exchanges with Shumate, appellate judges questioned that contention, asking whether the law extended to tariffs at all and, if so, whether the levies matched the threat the administration identified. “If the president says there’s a problem with our military readiness,” Chief Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore posited, “and he puts a 20% tax on coffee, that doesn’t seem to necessarily deal with (it).” Shumate said Congress’ passage of IEEPA gave the president “broad and flexible” power to respond to an emergency, but that “the president is not asking for unbounded authority.” But an attorney for the plaintiffs, Neal Katyal, characterized Trump’s maneuver as a “breathtaking” power grab that amounted to saying “the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants so long as he declares an emergency.” No ruling was issued from the bench. Regardless of what decision the judges’ deliberations bring, the case is widely expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump weighed in on the case on his Truth Social platform, posting: “To all of my great lawyers who have fought so hard to save our Country, good luck in America’s big case today. If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE “DEAD,” WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’' In filings in the case, the Trump administration insists that “a national emergency exists” necessitating its trade policy. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized federal court in New York, was unconvinced, however, ruling in May that Trump exceeded his powers.

Court allows Trump to lay off nearly 1,400 Education Department employees

The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to put his plan to dismantle the Education Department back on track — and to go through with laying off nearly 1,400 employees. With the three liberal justices in dissent, the court on Monday paused an order from U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston, who issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs and calling into question the broader plan. The layoffs “will likely cripple the department,” Joun wrote. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed. The high court action enables the administration to resume work on winding down the department, one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises. In a post Monday night on his social media platform, Trump said the high court “has handed a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country.” He said the decision will allow his administration to begin the “very important process” of returning many of the department’s functions “BACK TO THE STATES.” The court did not explain its decision in favor of Trump, as is customary in emergency appeals. But in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor complained that her colleagues were enabling legally questionable action on the part of the administration. “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Sotomayor wrote for herself and Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan. The secretary of education lauds the decision Education Secretary Linda McMahon said it’s a “shame” it took the Supreme Court’s intervention to let Trump’s plan move ahead. “Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” McMahon said in a statement. A lawyer for the Massachusetts cities and education groups that sued over the plan said the lawsuit will continue, adding no court has yet ruled that what the administration wants to do is legal. “Without explaining to the American people its reasoning, a majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have dealt a devastating blow to this nation’s promise of public education for all children. On its shadow docket, the Court has yet again ruled to overturn the decision of two lower courts without argument,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement. The Supreme Court has handed Trump one victory after another in his effort to remake the federal government, after lower courts have found the administration’s actions probably violate federal law. Last week, the justices cleared the way for Trump’s plan to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce. On the education front, the high court has previously allowed cuts in teacher-training grants to go forward. Separately on Monday, more than 20 states sued the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs and more. Education Department employees are on leave Education Department employees who were targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency’s staff. Joun’s order had prevented the department from fully terminating them, though none had been allowed to return to work, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Without Joun’s order, the workers would have been terminated in early June. The Education Department had said earlier in June that it was “actively assessing how to reintegrate” the employees. A department email asked them to share whether they had gained other employment, saying the request was meant to “support a smooth and informed return to duty.” The current case involves two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump’s plan amounted to an illegal closure of the Education Department. One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other legal action was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general. The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws.

Court clears the way for Trump’s plans to downsize the federal workforce

The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s plans to downsize the federal workforce despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs. The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency. The court said in an unsigned order that no specific cuts were in front of the justices, only an executive order issued by Trump and an administration directive for agencies to undertake job reductions. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a “demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.” Jackson warned of enormous real-world consequences. “This executive action promises mass employee terminations, widespread cancellation of federal programs and services, and the dismantling of much of the Federal Government as Congress has created it,” she wrote. The high court action continued a remarkable winning streak for Trump, who the justices have allowed to move forward with significant parts of his plan to remake the federal government. The Supreme Court’s intervention so far has been on the frequent emergency appeals the Justice Department has filed objecting to lower-court rulings as improperly intruding on presidential authority. The Republican president has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate for the work, and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE. Musk recently left his role. “Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling is another definitive victory for the President and his administration. It clearly rebukes the continued assaults on the President’s constitutionally authorized executive powers by leftist judges who are trying to prevent the President from achieving government efficiency across the federal government,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go. In May, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found that Trump’s administration needs congressional approval to make sizable reductions to the federal workforce. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block Illston’s order, finding that the downsizing could have broader effects, including on the nation’s food-safety system and health care for veterans. Illston directed numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Illston was nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton. The labor unions and nonprofit groups that sued over the downsizing offered the justices several examples of what would happen if it were allowed to take effect, including cuts of 40% to 50% at several agencies. Baltimore, Chicago and San Francisco were among cities that also sued. “Today’s decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy. This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution,” the parties that sued said in a joint statement. Among the agencies affected by the order are the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, the Interior, State, the Treasury and Veterans Affairs. It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.

Supreme Court win for girl with epilepsy expected to make disability lawsuits

A teenage girl with a rare form of epilepsy won a unanimous Supreme Court ruling on Thursday that’s expected to make it easier for families of children with disabilities to sue schools over access to education. The girl’s family says that her Minnesota school district didn’t do enough to make sure she has the disability accommodations she needs to learn, including failing to provide adequate instruction in the evening when her seizures are less frequent. But lower courts ruled against the family’s claim for damages, despite finding the school had fallen short. That’s because courts in that part of the country required plaintiffs to show schools used “bad faith or gross misjudgment,” a higher legal standard than most disability discrimination claims. The district, Osseo Area Schools, said that lowering the legal standard could expose the country’s understaffed public schools to more lawsuits if their efforts fall short, even if officials are working in good faith. The family appealed to the Supreme Court, which found that lawsuits against schools should have the same requirements as other disability discrimination claims. Children with disabilities and their parents “face daunting challenges on a daily basis. We hold today that those challenges do not include having to satisfy a more stringent standard of proof than other plaintiffs,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. The court rebuffed the district’s argument, made late in the appeals process, that all claims over accommodations for people with disabilities should be held to the same higher standard — a potentially major switch that would have been a “five-alarm fire” for the disability rights community, the girl’s lawyers said. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote separately to say he would be willing to consider those arguments at some point in the future, though he didn’t say whether they would win. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, saw it differently. Sotomayor wrote in another concurrence that adopting those higher standards more broadly would “eviscerate the core” of disability discrimination laws. The girl’s attorney Roman Martinez, of Latham & Watkins, called Thursday’s ruling a win for the family and “children with disabilities facing discrimination in schools across the country.” He added that “it will help protect the reasonable accommodations needed to ensure equal opportunity for all.” Judge blocks plan to allow immigration agents in New York City jail A judge blocked New York City’s mayor from letting federal immigration authorities reopen an office at the city’s main jail, in part because of concerns the mayor invited them back in as part of a deal with the Trump administration to end his corruption case. New York Judge Mary Rosado’s decision Friday is a setback for Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who issued an executive order permitting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to maintain office space at the Rikers Island jail complex. City lawmakers filed a lawsuit in April accusing Adams of entering into a “corrupt quid pro quo bargain” with the Trump administration in exchange for the U.S. Justice Department dropping criminal charges against him. Rosado temporarily blocked the executive order in April. In granting a preliminary injunction, she said city council members have “shown a likelihood of success in demonstrating, at minimum, the appearance of a quid pro quo whereby Mayor Adams publicly agreed to bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (”ICE”) back to Rikers Island in exchange for dismissal of his criminal charges.” Rosado cited a number of factors, including U.S. border czar Tom Homan’s televised comments in February that if Adams did not come through, “I’ll be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’ ” Adams has repeatedly denied making a deal with the administration over the criminal case. He has said he deputized his first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, to handle decision-making on the return of ICE to Rikers Island to make sure there was no appearance of any conflict of interest. Rosado said that Mastro reports to Adams and “cannot be considered impartial and free from Mayor Adams’ conflicts.” Mastro said in a prepared statement Friday the administration was confident they will prevail in the case. “Let’s be crystal clear: This executive order is about the criminal prosecution of violent transnational gangs committing crimes in our city. Our administration has never, and will never, do anything to jeopardize the safety of law-abiding immigrants, and this executive order ensures their safety as well,” Mastro said. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is running in the Democratic primary for mayor, called the decision a victory for public safety. “New Yorkers are counting on our city to protect their civil rights, and yet, Mayor Adams has attempted to betray this obligation by handing power over our city to Trump’s ICE because he is compromised,” she said in a prepared statement.

Arizona prosecutors ordered to send fake elector case back to grand jury

Arizona prosecutors pressing the case against Republicans who are accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election results in President Donald Trump’s favor were dealt a setback when a judge ordered the case be sent back to a grand jury. Arizona’s fake elector case remains alive after Friday’s ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sam Myers, but it’s being sent back to the grand jurors to determine whether there’s probable cause that the defendants committed the crimes. The decision, first reported by the Washington Post, centered on the Electoral Count Act, a law that governs the certification of a presidential contest and was part of the defendants’ claims they were acting lawfully. While the law was discussed when the case was presented to the grand jury and the panel asked a witness about the law’s requirements, prosecutors didn’t show the statute’s language to the grand jury, Myers wrote. The judge said a prosecutor has a duty to tell grand jurors all the applicable law and concluded the defendants were denied “a substantial procedural right as guaranteed by Arizona law.” Richie Taylor, a spokesperson for Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat whose office is pressing the case in court, said in a statement that prosecutors will appeal the decision. “We vehemently disagree with the court,” Taylor said. Mel McDonald, a former county judge in metro Phoenix and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, said courts send cases back to grand juries when prosecutors present misleading or incomplete evidence or didn’t properly instruct panel members on the law. “They get granted at times. It’s not often,” said McDonald, who isn’t involved in the case. In all, 18 Republicans were charged with forgery, fraud and conspiracy. The defendants consist of 11 Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona, two former Trump aides and five lawyers connected to the former president, including Rudy Giuliani. Two defendants have already resolved their cases, while the others have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Trump wasn’t charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator. Most of the defendants in the case also are trying to get a court to dismiss their charges under an Arizona law that bars using baseless legal actions in a bid to silence critics. They argued Mayes tried to use the charges to silence them for their constitutionally protected speech about the 2020 election and actions taken in response to the race’s outcome. Prosecutors said the defendants didn’t have evidence to back up their retaliation claim and that they crossed the line from protected speech to fraud. Eleven people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried the state in the 2020 election. President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document later was sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored. Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.