Schumer rejects Trump’s claim that bipartisan government shutdown negotiations are under way – as it happened

Before a federal judge blocked Donald Trump from putting members of California’s national guard on the streets of Portland, Oregon, late on Sunday, the state’s Republican party welcomed the planned deployment in celebratory posts on social media.

“President Trump on Sunday deployed 300 California National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon after a judge ruled that the Oregon National Guard could not be deployed to keep federal facilities and personnel in Portland safe,” Oregon Republicans wrote on their official Facebook, Instagram and X accounts.

On all three platforms, the statement was illustrated with an image that seemed designed to support Trump’s false claim that protests against immigration sweeps in Portland are so out of control that the city is “burning to the ground”. On one side of the image, a line of police officers held riot shields; on the other, a crowd of young men held up flares that lit up a night sky filled with red smoke.

On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart.

Read the full story here:

Related: Republicans post photos of fiery Oregon protest – using photos of South America

California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois governor JB Pritzker threatened to withdraw their states from the National Governors Association, urging the group to take a stand against Donald Trump’s efforts to send national guard troops into other states.

“This is precisely the federal and interstate overreach we warned against – gubernatorial authority being trampled, state sovereignty being ignored, and the constitutional balance between states being attacked,” said Pritzker in a statement. “If the President continues overriding Governors to deploy military assets into another state against another Governor’s will, we have abandoned the foundational principles that have protected our Republic for nearly 250 years.”

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Newsom sent a letter to the association on Monday, urging all governors “to denounce this infringement of state sovereignty and unequivocally tell the federal government that it is unacceptable to deploy troops from one state to another, over the objections of the Governor where troops are being sent”.

In the letter, he said that if members of the group can’t unite to condemn Trump’s actions, he will withdraw California’s membership from the group.

Chris Stein and Lauren Gambino report on the US government shutdown entering its second week, which stands without a clear sign of a deal between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate:

The US government shutdown entered its second week as the Senate again rejected rival bills to restart funding and Donald Trump suggested he might be open to negotiating with Democrats over the healthcare subsidies they have put at the heart of the stalemate.

A fifth Senate vote to advance a Republican-written bill that would reopen the government failed on a 52-42 tally – well below the 60-vote threshold needed for advancement. The Democrats’ proposal was defeated in a 50-45 party-line vote. No lawmakers changed their votes from recent days.

Many agencies and departments closed their doors and told employees to stay home last Wednesday, after Congress failed to approve legislation to continue the government’s authority to spend money. The Trump administration warned it was prepared to move forward with plans to slash the federal workforce.

“After five failed votes, Republicans should understand that they cannot go forward unless we come to a bipartisan agreement to address the healthcare crisis,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said in a statement after the afternoon votes.

Democrats have refused to back any bill that does not include an array of healthcare-centered concessions, such as an extension of premium tax credits for people covered by Affordable Care Act health insurance. So far, Congress’s Republican leaders have refused to negotiate over their demands until government funding is restored.

But Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, said he might be willing to strike a deal with Democrats on the ACA subsidies, though he also echoed the conservative claim that “billions and billions” of dollars are being wasted.

“We have a negotiation going on right now with the Democrats that could lead to very good things,” Trump told reporters. “And I’m talking about good things with regard to health care.”

Read the full story here:

Related: US shutdown enters second week as Senate again rejects rival funding bills

Donald Trump signed an executive order to allow construction of an access road to the Ambler mining district in Alaska and unlock domestic supplies of copper and other minerals, reversing an order from former President Joe Biden.

The Biden administration had rejected a 211-mile road intended to enable mine development in the north central Alaskan region. Biden’s interior department had cited risks to caribou and fish populations that dozens of native communities rely on for subsistence.

“This is something that should have been long operating and making billions of dollars for our country and supplying a lot of energy and minerals and everything else that we are talking about,” Trump said earlier today.

“On day one, he signed a very important executive order unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential,” the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, said on Monday. “And this is part of the continuation. There’s a number of things that have already happened with Alaska that are moving forward. There’s more to come. But big milestone today in reversing this Biden-era decision about the Ambler Road.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer rejected President Donald Trump’s claim that negotiations with Democrats are underway.

“Trump’s claim isn’t true – but if he’s finally ready to work with Democrats, we’ll be at the table,” Schumer said in a statement. “For months, Democrats have been calling on Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to come to the table and work with us to deliver lower costs and better healthcare for the American people.”

He added: “If President Trump and Republicans are finally ready to sit down and get something done on healthcare for American families, Democrats will be there – ready to make it happen.”

Earlier today, Trump told reporters that “we are speaking with Democrats” regarding the ongoing government shutdown and that “some good things could happen with health care.”

“Just hang in there, because I think a lot of good things could happen, and that could also pertain to health care,” Trump said.

JB Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor, said today that the federal immigration agents have “terrorized” people in his state in recent months.

“They aren’t receiving any orders from Trump to cease and desist their aggressive behavior. Remember, they answer only to Trump, not to the people of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “Their plan all along has been to cause chaos that and then they can use that chaos to consolidate Donald Trump’s power. They think they can fool us all into thinking that the way to get out of this crisis that they created is to give them free rein.”

Addressing reporters today, Illinois governor JB Pritzker said today that he plans to use “every lever” to resist the “power grab” from the Trump administration to quell protests in Chicago by deploying national guard troops.

The state has now filed a lawsuit to block the president’s move to federalize troops. Earlier, a federal judge did not block the deployment immediately, but has given the justice department two days to respond in writing to the state’s temporary restraining order motion. The next hearing is set for Thursday.

Per my earlier post, noting that the Chicago mayor has signed an executive order which prevents federal immigration agents from using city property for immigration staging, the White House has responded, calling the move “a sick policy” that “coddles criminal illegal alien killers, rapists, and gangbangers who prey on innocent Americans”.

Donald Trump has announced that all “Medium and Heavy Duty Trucks” coming to the US from other countries will be subject to a 25% tariff starting 1 November.

The cause of a huge fire at the beachfront home of a South Carolina judge who had reportedly been subjected to death threats is being investigated by state law enforcement investigators.

The blaze at the home of Diane Goodstein – a Democrat-appointed circuit court judge – erupted on Saturday, sending three members of her family to the hospital, including her husband, a former state senator.

However, Goodstein, 69, was walking her dogs at the time the blaze erupted at the three-story home in the luxury gated community on Edisto Beach in Colleton county.

A spokesperson for the South Carolina state law enforcement division (Sled) confirmed it was investigating a fire in the county. “The investigation is active and ongoing. More information may be available as the investigation continues,” a Sled spokesperson told FITSNews.

For his part, John Kittredge, the South Carolina chief justice, told the outlet: “At this time, we do not know whether the fire was accidental or arson. Until that determination is made, Sled chief Mark Keel has alerted local law enforcement to provide extra patrols and security.”

Goodstein, who has served on the state judicial bench since 1989, in September issued a temporary injunction on the release of the state’s voter files to the Trump administration-led US justice department.

Goodstein’s ruling was later publicly criticized by an assistant attorney general for the justice department’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon. The division has been at the forefront of efforts to acquire information, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers and social security numbers, of more than 3 million registered voters under an executive order targeting “non-citizen voter registration”.

Related: Fire destroys home of South Carolina judge who had received death threats

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the layoffs that the president has telegraphed will be an “unfortunate consequence” of the government shutdown – of which the administration continues to blame Democratic members of congress.

“This conversation about layoffs would not be happening right now if the Democrats did not vote to shut the government down,” Leavitt said.

The administration, including Russ Vought, who leads the Office of Management and Budget, has said that the sweeping reductions-in-force (RIFs) would come as a byproduct of the government shutdown if Trump feels that negotiations to pass a funding extension remain at a standstill.

The Senate will reconvene later today, where the dueling stopgap bills are poised to be rejected again. “We hope that the vote will not fail, because this administration wants to reopen the government. We don’t want to see people laid off,” Leavitt added.

Karoline Leavitt said that the ruling from Karin Immergut, a Trump-appointed federal judge, was “untethered in reality”.

Immergut temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying any national guard units to Oregon, saying that there was no evidence that recent protests necessitated the presence of national guard troops.

Leavitt said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Portland has been “really under siege by these anarchists”.

“They have been disrespecting law enforcement. They’ve been inciting violence,” she added. “We are appealing that decision, as you know, we expect a hearing on it pretty quickly, and we’re very confident in the president’s legal authority to do this.”

Leavitt went on to criticize Democratic leaders throughout the country, like JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom, for pushing back against the administration’s use of federal troops in blue cities.

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

Karoline Leavitt branded the ongoing technical talks in Egypt between negotiators, including special envoy Steve Witkoff, as “incredible”.

“The president wants to see a cease fire. He wants to see the hostages released, and the technical teams are discussing that as we speak, to ensure that the environment is perfect to release those hostages,” Leavitt said. “They’re going over the list of both the Israeli hostages and also the political prisoners who will be released. And those talks are underway, and the President is very much on the ball and is being apprised of this situation.”

At today’s press briefing, Karoline Leavitt continued to repeat the misleading claims from the president and congressional Republicans that the Democrats’ version of a stopgap funding bill is seeking to fund health care for “illegal aliens”.

This is not accurate, as we’ve reported extensively. Undocumented immigrants remain ineligible for federally funded health insurance. The Democrats’ funding patch seeks to reverse many of the cuts to Medicaid that are set to take effect after Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda passed earlier this year.

This includes allowing lawfully present noncitizens to still enroll in certain federal health care programs. Leavitt called these immigrants “illegal aliens” who “improperly were granted asylum and paroled under the Biden administration”. All of these people have entered the country legally and are accounted for by the federal government.

Karoline Leavitt outlines that President Trump will be hosting the Canadian prime minister Mark Carney on Tuesday for a working meeting here the White House.

On Thursday, the President will host his eighth cabinet meeting, and then he’ll host the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, at the White House for a meeting.

Delegations from Israel, Hamas and the US began indirect negotiations in Cairo today that the US hopes will pave the way for an end to the war in Gaza, facing contentious issues such as demands that Israel pull out of the enclave and Hamas to disarm.

Israel and Hamas have both endorsed the overall principles behind Donald Trump’s plan, under which fighting would cease, hostages go free and aid pour into Gaza. The delegations are also expected to discuss key stipulations of the plan, including “Israeli military withdrawal lines in Gaza and the names of high-profile Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for the remaining 48 hostages”, per the Wall Street Journal.

The plan has the backing of Arab and western states. Trump has called for negotiations to take place swiftly towards a final deal, in what Washington hails as the closest the sides have yet come to ending the conflict.

Last night wrote on Truth Social that talks were “proceeding rapidly” in the lead-up to today’s meeting. “I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST,” Trump said. He has also warned of “MASSIVE BLOODSHED” if a deal is not finalized in the coming days.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the path to bringing the conflict to a close would come in two phases: the first includes the coming meetings and working out logistics of the hostage release. “But that work is happening even as I speak to you this very moment,” he said.

The second, harder part, he added, is working out what happens inside Gaza after Israel withdraws to the agreed upon lines. The plan includes creating a Palestinian technocratic leadership in Gaza.

You can follow all the latest developments on this hugely significant moment for the Middle East here:

Related: Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas begin; Greta Thunberg in Greece after being deported by Israel – Middle East crisis live

According to Illinois’ lawsuit, Donald Trump is deploying the military to Illinois based on a “flimsy pretext” that alleges an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in a suburb of Chicago needs protecting as protests outside the building over Trump’s immigration crackdown continue.

The state argues that the Trump administration as a result cannot satisfy the legal prerequisites to allow it to federalize national guard troops without governor JB Pritzker’s blessing and is violating the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law which sharply limits the use of the military for domestic enforcement.

The lawsuit also argues Trump’s actions violate the US constitution’s 10th amendment, which protects states’ rights, by usurping Pritzker’s role as the commander-in-chief of the national guard in Illinois and by infringing on the state’s authority over local law enforcement.

Context may be everything in the precedent-shattering era of the current US supreme court.

For several years – since conservatives, gained a six-three majority on the bench thanks to Donald Trump’s nominations during his first presidency – the court has been delivering transformative rulings that have reverberated across the social and political landscape.

In 2022, it overturned Roe v Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion that had existed for nearly half-a-century.

In July 2024, in a far-reaching decision, it granted Trump – and, by extension, other US presidents – sweeping immunity from prosecution for all acts, including potential crimes, committed in the course of his official duties.

This year, following his return to the White House, the court has sided with Trump roughly 20 times after administration officials sought relief from lower court rulings that pushed back on his assertion of expansive executive power to implement his agenda.

Now scrutiny on the nine justices is about to reach a new level of intensity as the court begins what is expected to be an unusually fraught term today, amidst the president’s increasingly unfettered forays into authoritarianism.

With the president pushing to prosecute his political enemies, threatening a crackdown on the left on the putative grounds of combating violent extremism, and preparing to deploy military force in Democrat-run cities, the court is due to hear and issue rulings on a slew of ideologically-charged cases.

The survival of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, the legality of transgender surgery, the rights of states to count mail-in ballots at elections, and Trump’s powers to impose his sweeping tariff policy could all be up for grabs in the coming weeks and months.

At stake, some seasoned legal experts say, is the very future of democratic governance in the US.

You can read the rest of Robert’s piece here:

Related: US supreme court begins new term with nation’s democratic governance at stake

On Tuesday, a Christian legal group will urge the US supreme court to overturn a ban on anti-LGBTQ+ “conversion therapy” in a case that could erode protections for transgender and queer youth across the country.

Lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which has opposed abortion and LGBTQ+ rights in high-profile litigation, are representing a woman challenging a 2019 Colorado law that prohibited conversion practices for youth under age 18. The ban applies to licensed clinicians who seek to change a patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity, tactics medical groups have discredited as harmful and ineffective.

ADF’s petition in the case, Chiles v Salazar, cited several scholars to support its argument that conversion practices should once again be permitted. Two of those experts, however, told the Guardian that ADF had “profoundly” misrepresented their research, which discussed the “psychological damage” of conversion therapy.

The family of a deceased researcher, also quoted by ADF, said they were “deeply disturbed” by the “distortion” of his work.

“This is the most upsetting use of my scholarship that has ever happened in my career,” said Clifford Rosky, a University of Utah professor of constitutional law and civil rights. He has worked to ban conversion practices, but ADF nonetheless cited his research on sexual orientation and LGBTQ+ rights, co-authored with renowned sexuality researcher Dr Lisa Diamond, to bolster its petition. “It’s upsetting because this is lethally dangerous to LGBTQ+ kids,” he said.

ADF defended its quotations as “accurate” in a statement.

You can read the rest of Sam’s exclusive report here:

Related: Christian group ‘deceived’ supreme court about LGBTQ+ research, cited scholars say

Illinois has filed a lawsuit this morning seeking to block Donald Trump from deploying hundreds of federalized national guard troops into the streets of Chicago.

The Democratic-led state filed the lawsuit hours after a federal judge in Oregon yesterday temporarily blocked
the Trump administration from sending any national guard troops to police Portland.

The lawsuit took aim at a decision by the Trump administration over the weekend to federalize up to 300 members of the Illinois national guard over the objections of Democratic governor JB Pritzker and another 400 from Texas to deploy into Chicago.

“These advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War’ on Chicago and Illinois are unlawful and dangerous,” the complaint alleged.

The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has challenged speaker Mike Johnson to a debate on the House floor “any day this week in primetime, broadcast live to the American people”.

“It will also give you an opportunity to explain your my way or the high way approach to shutting the government down, when Democratic votes are needed to resolve the impasse that exists,” Jeffries wrote.

For his part, Johnson responded to the request a short while ago at his press conference.

“Look, my friend Hakeem had his shot. We debated all this on the House floor,” the Republican speaker said. “They [Democrats] gave it their best shot, and they argued and they stomped their feet and screamed at us and all that, and still, we passed the bill in bipartisan fashion and sent it over to the Senate. The House has done its job. I’m not going to let Hakeem try to pretend to these theatrics.”

Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is now addressing reporters. A reminder, that Johnson is keeping the House out of session this week to force Democrats’ hand and ensure a GOP-written continuing resolution, to keep the government funding, clears the Senate.

“They [Democrats] hastily filed an outrageous counter proposal. It is a wild Wish List of big government liberal nonsense that we can’t do,” Johnson said. “The clean continuing resolution would simply keep the lights on so that the members in the House and Senate can have those debates on health care.”

The House speaker continues to blame lawmakers across the aisle. “The ball is in the court for Court of the Senate Democrats…we don’t have enough Republican votes to fix this,” Johnson said, referring to the 60-vote hurdle needed for this legislation to advance.

Johnson also repeated several misleading claims that Democrats are trying to pass a short-term funding bill to fund Medicaid for “illegals who break our law and come over the border”.

Undocumented immigrants remain ineligible for federally funded health insurance, and are only able to receive emergency Medicaid treatment, according to longstanding US laws. Instead, Democrats’ funding patch seeks to reverse many of the cuts to Medicaid that are set to take effect after Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda passed earlier this year.

This includes allowing lawfully present noncitizens – which includes several groups, such as refugees and asylum seekers, those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking who are awaiting visas or documentation – to still enroll in certain federal health care programs. All of these immigrants have entered the country legally and are accounted for by the federal government.

I’ve been reporting on how Democrats have been pushing back against these claims in recent weeks. You can read more below.

Related: How Democrats are trying to bust Republican lies about healthcare for undocumented immigrants

The supreme court has rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s challenge of her criminal conviction for recruiting and grooming minors, who were sexually abused by her former boyfriend and companion Jeffrey Epstein – the disgraced financier who died in a New York prison in 2019.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year-sentence for her crimes. She was recently moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas.

As several negotiators congregate in Egypt today to cement a peace deal – which includes the release of the remaining Israeli hostages by Hamas, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners – Donald Trump urged expediency in a post on social media this weekend.

“I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “ I will continue to monitor this Centuries old “conflict.” TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE OR, MASSIVE BLOODSHED WILL FOLLOW — SOMETHING THAT NOBODY WANTS TO SEE!”

Overnight, Israel continued its bombardment in Gaza. My colleagues report that at least 24 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours. Latest figures, provided by the Gaza Health ministry, show that more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning on the conflict on 7 October 2023.

You can follow the latest developments coming out of Egypt on our dedicated liveblog below.

Related: Greta Thunberg among 171 Gaza flotilla activists deported by Israel; ceasefire negotiations due to begin in Egypt – Middle East crisis live

Donald Trump has urged negotiators to “move fast” in talks focused on the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and a broader end to the war, as representatives arrived in Egypt for discussions set to begin on Monday.

The talks will focus on the first phase of Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza, the Egyptian foreign ministry said, which is the release of the remaining 48 hostages held by Hamas in return for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

In a social media post late on Sunday, the US president said that talks were advancing rapidly, adding that the first phase “should be completed this week.” His encouragement came as Israel continued strikes on Gaza, killing 63 people in the 24 hours to Sunday evening.

The US envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to join the talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, according to Israeli media, in addition to Israel’s negotiators and a Palestinian delegation headed by Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas.

The Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told journalists that talks in Egypt would be “confined to a few days maximum”.

Related: Trump urges negotiators to ‘move fast’ as Gaza ceasefire talks set to begin in Egypt