Schumer indicates Democrats will vote to support Republican bill to keep government open – live
Schumer indicates Democrats will vote to keep government open
In remarks on the Senate floor, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, just indicated that he and other Democrats will vote for the continuing resolution passed by House Republicans, without Democratic input, to avoid a government shutdown.
“Republicans’ nihilism has brought us to the brink of disaster,” Schumer said. “The most vulnerable Americans”, he added, would suffer most from a government shutdown.
Schumer condemned the Republicans for refusing to work together on a funding bill, but said that: “It’s not really a decision. It’s a Hobson’s choice.”
“While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer said. “For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option. It is not a clean CR. It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
“A shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now,” he added.
“I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country to minimize the harms to the American people”, Schumer said. “Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”
Key events
Democratic representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona dies after cancer diagnosis
Representative Raúl Grijalva had died after a long battle with cancer, his office announced on Thursday.
Grijalva, who was 77, was the son of a Mexican immigrant and a former congressional Progressive caucus chair first elected to Congress in 2002.
He announced his cancer diagnosis 11 months ago, but was re-elected to Congress in November with 63% of the vote.
His colleagues mourned his death.
“A genuinely devastating loss,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote on social media. “Raúl Grijalva stood as one of the biggest champions for working people in all of Congress. His leadership was singular. He mentored generously and was an incredible friend. I will always be grateful for his lifelong courage and commitment.”
“Congressman Grijalva was not just my colleague, but my friend,” Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona wrote. “As another Latino working in public service, I can say from experience that he served as a role model to many young people across the Grand Canyon State. He spent his life as a voice for equality.”
Grijalva represented the seventh district of Arizona in the closely divided House. The seat will now remain vacant until at least September.
In 1996 a federal judge found the legal provision now being used to target Mahmoud Khalil unconstitutional. She was Trump’s sister.
As our colleagues Anna Betts and Erum Salam reported on Wednesday, a government charging document addressed to Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident and green card holder who is currently being held in a Louisiana detention center, said that secretary of state Marco Rubio “has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
The phrase “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States” is a direct reference to a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives the secretary of state the power to expel non-citizens deemed to be a threat.
As the New York Times reported this week, in 1996, when the Clinton administration tried to use this provision to deport a former Mexican government official, a federal judge ruled that this section of the law was “void for vagueness”, deprived the non-citizen of “the due process right to a meaningful opportunity to be heard”, and was “an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power”.
That judge was Maryanne Trump Barry, the president’s eldest sister, who was nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1983, elevated to an appeals court by Bill Clinton, and passed away in 2023.
Although a three-judge appeals court panel later overturned her ruling on procedural grounds, in an opinion written by then-Circuit Judge Samuel Alito, the forceful language of her opinion still resonates with the arguments of Mahmoud Khalil’s lawyers:
“Make no mistake about it. This case is about the Constitution of the United States and the panoply of protections that document provides to the citizens of this country and those non-citizens who are here legally and, thus, here as our guests”, Judge Barry wrote. “The issue before the court is not whether plaintiff has the right to remain in this country beyond the period for which he was lawfully admitted…[t]he issue, rather, is whether an alien who is in this country legally can, merely because he is here, have his liberty restrained and be forcibly removed to a specific country in the unfettered discretion of the Secretary of State and without any meaningful opportunity to be heard. The answer is a ringing ‘no’”.
Stock market plunges again as Trump threatens massive tariffs on European wine
Corks were not popping on Wall Street on Thursday, as stocks plunged again following Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 200% tariff “on all wines, Champagnes, and alcoholic products” from European Union countries if the trading bloc makes good on its threat to retaliate for steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the US president by adding a 50% tariff on American products, including Kentucky bourbon.
The sharp drop in the S&P 500 meant that a the index is now in “a correction” — a term used when when stocks falls 10 percent or more from their peak.
While the Wall Street Journal blamed the drop on “investors on edge over new tariff threats”, pro-Trump media outlets further to the right, like Newsmax, sought to play down the president’s role in the plunging markets. “This correction is overdue”, a guest on the far-right network assured viewers on Thursday. “Nothing to do with Trump. Nothing to do with tariffs”.
As the New Yorker staff writer John Cassidy noted in a podcast interview this week, the downturn began in the middle of February “when it became clear that Tump was serious about these tariffs, a lot of people on Wall Street thought he was bluffing”.
Cassidy went on to explain that Trump appears to be wedded to a dream of undoing globalization and returning to a period in the 19th century when the United States was closer to being an autarky, a self-sufficient country, closed off from the rest of the world.
That seems to jibe with Trump’s claim, in his announcement of the 200% tariff on Champagne, a form of sparkling wine that is only produced in the Champagne region of France, “This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the US”.
Trump administration asks supreme court to uphold order curtailing birthright citizenship
The Trump administration has appealed to the supreme court to uphold the president’s executive order curtailing birthright citizenship, Reuters reports.
Donald Trump signed the order shortly after taking office, but multiple federal judges have ruled against it in lawsuits filed by rights groups. Here’s more on the appeal, from Reuters:
The Justice Department made the request challenging the scope of three nationwide injunctions issued against Trump’s order by federal courts in Washington state, Massachusetts and Maryland.
The administration said the injunctions should be scaled back from applying universally and limited to just the plaintiffs that brought the cases and are “actually within the courts’ power.”
“Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current administration,” the Justice Department said in the filing. “This court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched.”
Trump’s order, signed on his first day back in office on January 20, directed federal agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of U.S.-born children who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident.
The order was intended to apply starting February 19, but has been blocked nationwide by multiple federal judges.
Postal Service announces plan to shed 10,000 employees after signing agreement with Doge
The US Postal Service will reduce its staff by 10,000 through early retirements, and has signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) to streamline its operations, postmaster general Louis DeJoy announced.
USPS aims to reduce its workforce in 30 days, DeJoy said in a letter addressed to leaders of Congress – a much faster timeline than the 30,000 positions it reduced from fiscal year 2021.
The postmaster added that Doge would help USPS “in identifying and achieving further efficiencies”.
“This is an effort aligned with our efforts, as while we have accomplished a great deal, there is much more to be done. We are happy to have others to assist us in our worthwhile cause. The DOGE team was gracious enough to ask for the big problems they can help us with,” DeJoy said.
Joseph Gedeon
A dozen national Jewish organizations are condemning the Trump administration for detaining and attempting to deport Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil under the pretense of fighting antisemitism.
“Arresting and/or deporting people because of their political views goes against the very foundation of our national identity and is profoundly un-American,” the groups wrote in a letter to homeland security secretary Kristi Noem today.
The organizations, including J Street and T’ruah, warned that using antisemitism as justification for suppressing political dissent threatens both Jewish safety and democracy in the United States.
The coalition are urging the administration to ensure Khalil receives due process and to stop “co-opting the fight against antisemitism” in ways that endanger vulnerable communities.
Trump administration to appeal ruling on reinstating probationary federal employees
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hit back at the federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of federal workers fired during their probationary terms, saying they overstepped their bounds.
Leavitt added that the administration would appeal the decision. Here’s her statement:
A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch. The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves. The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order.
Democratic senators line up against GOP-backed government spending bill
Several Senate Democrats have announced their determination to block passage of a measure approved by House Republicans earlier this week to keep the government funded through September and prevent a shutdown that will begin after Friday.
It’s a significant move, as it raises the possibility that funding will lapse after midnight on Saturday, potentially handing Donald Trump the ability to further undermine the federal government’s operations. But several Democratic senators say it’s a fight worth having.
Mark Kelly of swing state Arizona said:
I cannot vote for the Republican plan to give unchecked power to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
I told Arizonans I’d stand up when it was right for our state and our country, and this is one of those moments.
Fellow Arizonan Ruben Gallego said much the same (it’s worth noting neither man is up for election next year):
This is a bad resolution that gives Elon Musk and his cronies permission to continue cutting veterans’ benefits, slashes resources for Arizona’s water needs, and abandons our wildland firefighters.
Newly arrived New Jersey senator Andy Kim is against it:
Republicans have made it so Musk and the most powerful win and everyone else loses. I don’t want a shutdown but I can’t vote for this overreach of power, giving Trump and Musk unchecked power to line their pockets. I’m a NO on the CR.
So is Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich, both of New Mexico:
We want to see the federal government funded and functional, and we have been fighting every day to force this administration to put the chainsaw down when it comes to the healthcare, education, and VA benefits our communities depend on.
But we won’t stand by as Republicans try to shove through this power grab masquerading as a funding bill. For the people of New Mexico, we will vote ‘no’ on Republicans’ continuing resolution.
The GOP controls the Senate but will need at least some Democratic support to get the spending bill through. Despite this opposition, there is also a chance that enough Democrats will get on board with the bill for it to be enacted.
Donald Trump’s order to release billions of gallons of water from California reservoirs is widely viewed in the state as a waste of water.
Despite that, the president believes it helped Los Angeles deal with its risk of wildfires, a contention he just repeated, using some odd phrasing, in the Oval Office:
I broke into Los Angeles. Can you believe it? I had a break in, I invaded Los Angeles, and we opened up the water, and the water is now flowing down. They have so much water, they don’t know what to do. They were sending it out to the Pacific for environmental reasons, okay, can you believe it? And in the meantime, they lost 25,000 houses … Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.
The facts tell a different story:
Trump doubles down on Greenland plans, suggesting ‘maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers’ there
Jakub Krupa
On Greenland, Trump gets asked about his vision for potential annexation of the island.
“Well, I think it will happen. I’m just thinking, I didn’t give it much thought before, but I’m sitting with a man that could be very instrumental,” he says, as he turns to Rutte saying “Mark, we need that for international security … as we have a lot of our favourite players, cruising around the coast.”
Rutte distances himself from his comments on annexing Greenland, but says Trump is right talking about growing risks in the North Arctic.
Trump is then asked about the recent elections in Greenland, and says “it was a good election for us.”
“The person that did the best is a very good person as far as we are concerned, so we will be talking about it and it is very important,” he says.
The president says the US “is going to order” 48 icebreakers, and that would help to strengthen US position “as that whole area is becoming very important.”
“So we are going to have to make a deal on that and Denmark is not able to do that [offer protection],” he says.
He then mocks Denmark saying they have “nothing to do with that” as “a boat landed there 200 years ago or something, and they say they have rights to it?” “I don’t know if that is true.”
“We have been dealing with Denmark, we have been dealing with Greenland, and we have to do it,” he says.
He again suggests Nato could be involved given its bases there, and says “maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers” there. He then asked defence secretary Pete Hegseth if he should send more troops there. “Don’t answer that Pete,” he laughs.
Protesters flood Trump Tower to call for Mahmoud Khalil’s release – in pictures
Trump on Canada tariffs: ‘I’m not going to bend at all’
Reporters took the opportunity to question Trump and whether he’s willing to let up on the tariffs he is levying on major trade partners like Canada.
“No, we’ve been ripped off for years,” Trump said. “I’m not going to bend at all.”
He went on to say that the country has nothing the US needs but added that he loves Canada and mentioned its contributions like former Canadian ice hockey player, Wayne Gretzky.
You can follow our Europe live blog for more on Trump and Rutte’s comments happening now:
The Trump-Rutte meeting is being held to discuss the costs of supporting Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia.
Trump said hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent and “really wasted” on defense for Ukraine.
He said: “It’s also a tremendous cost to the United States and other countries.”
