A closed sign is seen on the Washington Monument on Oct. 1, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The federal government shut down many operations overnight after Congress failed to pass a stopgap funding bill. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday the administration is looking for ways to get a handful of additional U.S. Senate Democrats to vote for Republicans’ stopgap spending bill to reopen government. 

But, in the meantime, White House officials plan to lay off federal workers en masse, a dramatic and unsettling step that’s not traditionally been taken during past shutdowns. 

“We’re going to have to take extraordinary measures to ensure the people’s government operates — again not perfectly because it’s not going to operate perfectly in the midst of a shutdown — but operates as well as it possibly can,” Vance said.

Any Democrats concerned about the impacts of layoffs on federal programs or people’s lives, Vance said, should vote to advance a seven-week stopgap spending bill that has stalled in the Senate.  Senate and House Democrats say they will not support a GOP path to reopen the government unless Republicans agree to negotiate on rising health care costs. 

Typically during a shutdown, some federal employees are categorized as exempt, meaning they work throughout the funding lapse. Others are furloughed. All receive back pay once Congress funds the government, under a 2019 law.  

Widescale layoffs were not part of the 2013 shutdown or the 2018-2019 shutdown that took place during the first Trump administration. 

Vance during the White House briefing placed blame for the shutdown on Democrats, as the Trump administration ramped up similar rhetoric, including on government agency websites that said the “radical left in Congress” is at fault.

“Three moderate Democrats joined 52 Republicans last night. We need five more in order to reopen the government and that’s really where we’re going to focus, is how to get those five additional Democrats,” Vance said. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during the same briefing that layoffs for federal employees are “imminent” but declined to say what percentage of workers would be let go or share any other details. 

Leavitt indicated that White House budget director Russ Vought would release those details “soon,” saying she didn’t want to get ahead of that office.  

“These (Reductions in Force) are unfortunately going to have to happen very soon,” Leavitt said. 

Effects on key programs

The administration expects several programs will be impacted by the shutdown, including new enrollees in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC. 

Leavitt said the funding lapse means “1.3 million active duty troops will work now without pay; critical food assistance for low-income women, infants and children will now lapse, no new mothers or children are allowed to join this critical program because of the Democrats’ decision to shut down the government; telehealth services for seniors and in-home treatment options for Medicare patients will now come to an end; nearly 50,000 members of the United States Coast Guard are going to have to work unpaid; over 13,000 air traffic controllers will work without pay as well as TSA agents, which will very likely create flight disruptions; and pay will now stop for over 150,000 federal law enforcement officers. 

“These are not just numbers and statistics, these are real Americans who have families at home. And I saw some Democrat members today saying they’re still going to accept their paychecks because they have three kids at home and they have mouths to feed. Well, so do these federal workers.”

Members of Congress, the president and federal judges must receive their salary under various provisions in the Constitution. While some lawmakers have publicly asked for their paychecks to be withheld until the government reopens, that’s not a legal option. 

They could, however, donate their salaries to charity, which they can do regardless of whether the government is shut down.  

‘Mafia-style threat’

The threat to fire federal workers en masse has already prompted a lawsuit in a Northern California district court, arguing the executive branch has no statutory authority to fire federal workers during a government shutdown.

There were roughly 2.2 million federal workers throughout the country as of July 1, with large portions of them living in California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Texas and Virginia. Roughly 30% of the workforce is made up of veterans. 

Maryland’s Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen told States Newsroom on Wednesday morning that his office has not heard of any federal workers in his state being fired, and even if it were the case, “it’s illegal.” 

“The president has no additional authority, in a shutdown, to fire people,” Van Hollen said. “This is just a mafia-style threat and blackmail.”

He didn’t detail what plans Democrats have to prevent those potential firings, but called them unlawful and pointed to the lawsuit filed in California by labor unions representing more than 1 million federal employees. Those unions are the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner made similar remarks, saying “the president has no enhanced powers during the shutdown so his ability to randomly and arbitrarily fire is not enhanced.”

North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer said Democrats “don’t have the high ground in this situation” and need to pass the GOP stopgap bill so that the government can reopen. 

But Cramer said he’s concerned the White House budget office will go too far in implementing a shutdown, including mass layoffs, and could create challenges for Republican lawmakers. 

“I worry a little bit that they could be counterproductive for us politically in the long run, because other things are going to require 60 votes again,” Cramer said.

Legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance toward final passage, a rule that typically leads to compromise and bipartisanship in that chamber. 

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said he hopes lawmakers can strike a deal to prevent the Trump administration from firing more federal workers. He said Congress has specifically carved out protections for federal workers, such as in 2019 when lawmakers included a provision to give back pay to furloughed federal workers.  

“So it used to be we had to fight about back pay after the shutdown,” he said. “Now everybody’s guaranteed back pay, so they have that as a backstop that they can count (on).”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said during a press conference Wednesday President Donald Trump’s administration “has been engaging in” the mass firings of federal workers since Trump took office on Jan 20.

“The Trump administration has been killing jobs,” the New York Democrat said. “This is a job-killing administration. Job creation is down, but you know what’s up? Costs. They promised to lower costs on day one. Costs aren’t going down. Costs are going up.” 

Here are department shutdown plans

The Trump administration has been steadily posting its plans for how many federal workers in each department will keep working without pay during a shutdown and which employees will be furloughed. 

The plans, listed below, also detail which programs the Trump administration believes it can legally continue during a funding lapse without violating federal law. 

They do not explain how many federal workers could be laid off and the White House declined to provide additional details about those plans or whether they’ll be posted publicly following the briefing, 

• Agriculture Department contingency plan
• Commerce Department contingency plan
• Defense Department contingency plan
• Education Department contingency plan
• Energy Department contingency plan
• Health and Human Services contingency plan
• Homeland Security Department contingency plan
• Housing and Urban Development contingency plan
• Interior Department contingency plan
• Labor Department contingency plan
• Justice Department contingency plan
• State Department contingency plan
• Social Security Administration contingency plan
• Transportation Department contingency plan
• Treasury Department contingency plan
• Veterans Affairs Department contingency plan

Attack banners

The Trump administration has taken a new approach to letting people visiting their websites know about the shutdown, adding banners laying the blame at Democrats’ feet. 

The Agriculture Department’s website states that “(d)ue to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”

The website for the Department of Housing and Urban Development includes a pop-up and a banner on the homepage that reads, “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”

The Defense Department had a more measured message: “The most recent appropriations for the Department of War expired at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sept. 30, 2025. Military personnel will continue in a normal duty status, without pay, until such time as a continuing resolution or appropriations are passed by Congress and signed into law. Civilian personnel not engaged in excepted activities will be placed in a non-work, non-pay status.”

The message posted by the Department of Health and Human Services was similar. 

“Mission-critical activities of HHS will continue during the Democrat-led government shutdown. Please use this site as a resource as the Trump Administration works to reopen the government for the American people.”

The messages could be in violation of a longstanding rider in federal spending law that states “(n)o part of any funds appropriated in this or any other Act shall be used by an agency of the executive branch … to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress, except in presentation to the Congress itself.” 

Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report.

The U.S. Capitol on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, just hours before a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans remained at a stalemate Wednesday as government offices closed and hundreds of thousands of federal workers faced furloughs on the first day of a government shutdown that showed no sign of ending.

Proposals from each side of the aisle to fund and reopen the government failed again during morning Senate votes, mirroring the same vote breakdowns as Tuesday evening, when lawmakers could not reach a deal hours before the government ran out of money.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected up to 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed, leading to a $400 million per day impact on the economy.

Locked in their positions, Republicans failed to pick up enough Democrats to reach the 60 votes needed to advance their plan to fund the government until Nov. 21. 

Senators will break Thursday to observe Yom Kippur but will return Friday to again vote on the funding proposals.

Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, along with independent Angus King of Maine, again joined Republicans in the 55-45 vote for the House-passed stopgap spending bill. GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted no.

Democrats also failed to find support to move forward their bill to fund the government through Oct. 31, roll back GOP cuts on Medicaid and permanently extend subsidies that tie the cost of Affordable  Care Act health insurance premiums to an enrollee’s income level. 

The Democrats failed to advance their plan in a party-line 47-53 vote. King, who caucuses with Democrats, voted in favor.

Shutdown tied to health care tax credits

Senate and House Democrats say they will not support a GOP path to reopen the government unless Republicans agree to negotiate on rising health care costs. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a press conference that Democrats are “ready to sit down with anyone at any time and at any place in order now to reopen the government, to enact a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people and to address the devastating Republican health care crisis that has caused extraordinary harm on people all across the country.”

The New York Democrat pointed to harms in “rural America, working class America, urban America, small-town America, the heartland of America and Black and brown communities throughout America.” 

Democratic leaders blitzed Capitol Hill with their message on health care, holding press conferences and attending an evening rally Tuesday on the lawn outside the U.S. House. 

They pointed to new data published this week showing annual insurance premiums could double on average in 2026 if the subsidies expire at year’s end, according to an analysis from the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF. 

Open enrollment for next year’s ACA health insurance plans opens Nov. 1 in most states, and Oct. 15 in Idaho.

Uptake of ACA health insurance plans has more than doubled to over 24 million, up from 11 million, since the introduction of the subsidies in 2021, according to KFF. 

During their own budget reconciliation deal in 2022, Democrats extended the insurance premium tax credits until the end of 2025. The majority of ACA enrollees currently rely on the credits.

Democrats also want assurances that the White House and Senate Republicans will not cancel any more funds that have already been approved by Congress, as was the case this year when the administration and GOP lawmakers stripped funding for medical research, foreign aid and public broadcasting, among other areas.

‘This can all end today’

GOP leaders in the House and Senate continued to blame Senate Democrats for the government shutdown at the expense of furloughed federal workers and Americans who rely on their services. 

At a Wednesday morning press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson said “troops and border patrol agents will have to go to work, but they’ll be working without pay.”

Johnson also claimed at the press conference that veterans benefits would stop. The claim is false, as Veterans Administration medical care will continue uninterrupted and vets will also continue to receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing.

“As we speak here this morning, there are hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are getting their furlough notices. Nearly half of our civilian workforce is being sent home — these are hard-working Americans who work for our federal government,” the Louisiana Republican said, flanked by fellow GOP leaders on the Upper West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol overlooking the National Mall. 

Johnson decided in late September the House will be out until Oct. 6, canceling this week’s votes. 

The speaker said he will bring House members back next week, even if the government is still shut down.

“They would be here this week, except that we did our work — we passed the bill almost two weeks ago out of the House, sent it to the Senate,” Johnson said. “The ball is literally in (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer’s court, so he determines that.” 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “this can all end today” and “needs to end today.”

The South Dakota Republican said the funding lapse can cease when Senate Democrats vote for the GOP’s “clean” short-term funding bill. 

“We will continue to work together with our House counterparts, with the president of the United States, to get this government open again on behalf of the American people,” Thune said. 

Bipartisan deal and Trump

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said later in the day that a bipartisan group huddled on the floor during votes to talk about a possible path forward on “health care fixes” and ensuring that if a bipartisan deal is brokered, the Trump administration will stick to it. 

Republican senators, he said, could give Democrats assurances they won’t vote for any more rescissions requests from the White House, which ask Congress to cancel already approved government spending. But other issues, like laying off federal workers by the hundreds or thousands, have to be a promise from the president. 

“If I find a deal, should Congress have to follow it? Yes. Should the president have to follow it? Yes. Well, what if the president won’t follow it? Oh, yeah, you got a problem,” Kaine said. “So you know, rescission, impoundment, those are Senate words. But a deal is a deal — people get that.”

Kaine also emphasized that it’s not a “clean” stopgap funding bill if the Trump administration unilaterally cancels some of the spending. 

“In the past, we voted for clean (continuing resolutions), but the president has shown that he’ll take the money back,” Kaine said, referring to the technical name for a short-term funding bill. “I mean, just in Virginia, canceling $400 million to our public health, $40 million economic projects just pulled off the table, firing more Virginians than any president. 

“So we just want you to agree, if we do a deal, then you’ll honor the deal,” Kaine said. “It’s not that much to ask.”

‘People are suffering’

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he doesn’t expect the shutdown will have long-term ramifications for senators’ ability to negotiate bipartisan deals — a necessity in the upper chamber, which has a 60-vote threshold to advance legislation. 

“It’s all transactional,” Tillis said. “I think there’s going to be opportunities for some bipartisan work, but none of that happens, you can’t even really consider it when you’re in a shutdown posture.”

Cortez Masto, who voted to advance Republicans’ seven-week stopgap bill, said the GOP “created this crisis” on health care and “need to address it.”

“They have no moral standing — no moral standing —- to say that this is all on the Democrats. They are in control. They’ve created this crisis,” Cortez Masto said. “People are suffering and they need to come to the table.” 

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who was sworn in for the first time during the last shutdown, said he worries about longer-term effects. 

“My concern is it’s going to poison the well on negotiations going forward on a lot of things,” Hawley said. “I can’t speak for anybody but myself, but I would just say that these tactics are very destructive. And it’s destructive, not just for relationships, but for real people.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to the media at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Thune was joined by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The federal government started shutting down early Wednesday after Congress failed to approve a funding bill before the beginning of the new fiscal year — resulting in widespread ramifications for hundreds of programs and giving the Trump administration an avenue to fire federal workers en masse.

The U.S. Senate was unable to advance two short-term government funding bills Tuesday when Democrats and Republicans deadlocked for the second time this month, with just hours to go before the midnight Tuesday shutdown deadline.

Senators voted 55-45 on Republicans’ bill that would fund the government for seven weeks and 47-53 on a Democratic stopgap proposal that would keep the lights on for a month and included several health care provisions that they said were needed for their support. Neither had the 60 votes needed to advance. 

Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with GOP senators on their stopgap bill. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted against it.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in a memo to departments and agencies Tuesday night after the Senate vote that “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.” Vought said federal employees should report for their next regularly scheduled tour of duty to undertake shutdown activities.

The consequences of a shutdown will be sweeping in the nation’s capital and across the country, where states are bracing for the impact. About 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed, leading to a $400 million impact a day, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported. All federal employees would go unpaid until the shutdown is over.

Additionally, the Trump administration plans to lay off thousands of federal employees, which would reshape the federal workforce. President Donald Trump again vowed Tuesday to undertake layoffs and a major government employee union filed suit in federal court in advance of such a move.

More votes on GOP bill planned

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said hours before the votes there wouldn’t be any talks with Democrats during a shutdown. 

“The negotiation happens when the government is open. So let’s keep the government open and then we will have the negotiations,” Thune said. 

“We’re happy to sit down and talk about these issues that they’re interested in,” he said. “But it should not have anything to do with whether or not for a seven-week period we keep the government open, so that this government can continue to do its work and that we can do our work through the regular appropriations process to fund the government.” 

After the votes failed, Thune expressed his frustration with Democrats during a press conference. 

“This is so unnecessary and uncalled for,” he said. 

Thune said he plans to bring up a vote on the continuing resolution again. He said as soon as Wednesday the federal government can be funded if five Democrats voted with Republicans. 

“Democrats may have chosen to shut down the government, but we can reopen it tomorrow,” Thune said. 

Republican Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming said the “cracks in the Democrats are already showing,” noting that three Democrats voted with Republicans Tuesday night. 

“There is bipartisan support for keeping the government open,” Barrasso said. “We’re happy to see that the Democrats are already starting to break from (Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer) and we’re going to continue to offer a clean (continuing resolution) on the floor of the Senate to open the government for the next seven weeks.”

Health care tax credits at center of standoff

The disagreement isn’t entirely about GOP lawmakers writing their short-term funding bill behind closed doors and then expecting Democrats to help advance it in the Senate, where bipartisanship is required for major legislation.

Democratic leaders have raised concerns for weeks about the end-of-year sunset of enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, arguing a solution is needed now ahead of the open enrollment period starting on Nov. 1. 

Democrats have also grown increasingly frustrated with the White House budget office’s unilateral actions on spending, arguing Vought is significantly eroding Congress’ constitutional power of the purse. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday the Government Accountability Office should sue the Trump administration over its efforts to freeze or unilaterally cancel spending approved by Congress. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats need an agreement with Republicans to extend the enhanced tax credits. 

Schumer said people will begin getting notices in October telling them how much the cost of their ACA plans will increase during the next year, which he expects will ratchet up pressure on Republican leaders to broker a bipartisan agreement. 

“We’re going to be right there explaining to them it’s because the Republicans wouldn’t negotiate with us,” Schumer said, referring to consumers. “We’re ready to do it anytime. And there will be huge heat on (Republicans) on this issue.”

People who buy health insurance on the ACA marketplace and receive subsidies through enhanced ACA tax credits could expect to pay on average more than double for annual premiums in 2026 if the credits expire as scheduled at the end of this year, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF. 

The analysis found premiums could increase from an average of $888 this year to $1,904 in 2026.

Claims about immigrants 

Schumer also rebuffed GOP leaders saying that Democrats want to include people without legal immigration status in federal health care programs. 

“They say that undocumented people are going to get these credits. That is absolutely false. That is one of the big lies they tell, so they don’t have to discuss the issues,” Schumer said. “The federal government by law that we passed does not fund health insurance for undocumented immigrants in Medicaid, nor the ACA nor Medicare. Undocumented immigrants do not get federal health insurance premiums.” 

Immigrants in the country without legal authorization are not eligible for Medicaid, and neither are most immigrants with legal status, such as those with student visas or enrollment in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. 

Only immigrants with a “qualified status,” such as legal permanent residents, asylees and refugees, are able to get Medicaid benefits, and they usually have to wait five years before their coverage can even begin. 

Democrats explain why they voted with GOP 

Cortez Masto of Nevada wrote in a statement explaining her vote to advance the GOP stopgap bill that she could not support “a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration.”

“We need a bipartisan solution to address this impending health care crisis, but we should not be swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another,” she added. “I remain focused on protecting health care for working families, and I call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work together to tackle this problem.”

Pennsylvania’s Fetterman wrote in a statement of his own that his vote on the Republican bill “was for our country over my party.

“Together, we must find a better way forward.”

Collins said during a brief interview before the vote she is worried about the broad authority the White House holds during a shutdown and how the Office of Management and Budget has indicated it will use that power. 

“I’m much more concerned about OMB sending signals that there should be mass firings of federal employees who have the misfortune to be designated as non-essential, when in fact they’re performing very essential work, they’re just not being paid,” Collins said.  

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Agriculture spending subcommittee, said lawmakers will have to sort through how various departments implement their contingency plans as well as the possibility of mass layoffs during a shutdown. 

“We’ll have to work through those things and figure out how we do keep things going as best we can during this Democrat shutdown,” Hoeven said.

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Republicans are “unified in the belief that this is an easy choice” to fund the government with a stopgap bill that doesn’t include any contentious or political provisions. 

Capito — who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor — said there are several programs that will be “missed” during a shutdown. 

“And that’s concerning. So I think the option is to keep the government open so we can avoid this pain,” Capito said. 

‘I’m not optimistic that we’re going to get a path forward’

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said he is worried about the possible impacts of a shutdown on his home state and that keeping the government open is the only way to avoid that.  

“I’m sure the administration will do everything they can,” Hawley said. “But the solution is to not shut the government down. I mean, why would you punish working people because you’re not getting what you want on any issue, whatever it is.”

South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds said he doesn’t expect a shutdown will end until after Democrats have sent a message to their voters. 

“I’m not optimistic that we’re going to get a path forward until they’ve had a shutdown,” he said. 

Rounds, who negotiated a handshake agreement with the White House budget director this summer to preserve some funding for rural tribal radio stations after Congress eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said that deal could be affected by a shutdown. 

“They’re putting the administration in a position where they can pick and choose what they’re going to do, and a shutdown is not going to be beneficial to these Native American radio stations,” Rounds said. 

Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said she wants Democrats and Republicans to negotiate on health care provisions.

“I’ve been making the case constantly, that (it) is literally my obligation to try and fight for health care, and I’m willing to talk to anyone,” she said. “I’m willing to accept that I certainly will not get everything I want.”

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said that while Democrats agreed to help advance what’s known as a continuing resolution in March, they can’t now because of “what President Trump is doing to this country, particularly when it comes to health care costs for families.”  

The shutdown will significantly affect the operations of the federal government as lawmakers have not passed any of the dozen full-year appropriations bills that finance agency operations. Oct. 1 is the beginning of the new fiscal year for the federal government.

Shutdown plan for national parks

Departments began releasing updated contingency plans this weekend, detailing how many of their employees would work during a government shutdown and how many would be furloughed.

The Interior Department, which includes the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, posted its updated plans late Tuesday. 

The National Park Service plans to furlough 9,300 of its 14,500 workers. 

The Trump administration will allow several activities necessary for the protection of life or property to continue, including fire suppression for active fires, permitting and monitoring First Amendment activities, border and coastal protection and surveillance, and law enforcement and emergency response.

The contingency plan says that roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors,” but it adds that if “access becomes a safety, health or resource protection issue … the area must be closed.”

Union files suit

In anticipation of layoffs by the Trump administration, labor unions representing more than 1 million federal workers filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California on Tuesday to block the Trump administration from carrying out mass firings. The suit argues that there is no statutory authority to fire federal employees during a government shutdown.

“These actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious, and the cynical use of federal employees as a pawn in Congressional deliberations should be declared unlawful and enjoined by this Court,” according to the suit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Ashley Murray and Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report. 

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks with reporters inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee said Tuesday the Government Accountability Office should sue the Trump administration over its efforts to freeze or unilaterally cancel spending approved by Congress. 

“I believe that GAO, which is empowered under the Impoundment and Budget Control Act of 1974 to sue in cases, should do so,” Sen. Susan Collins said. “The GAO has found seven instances in which the (impoundments) violate the act and it has standing to sue.”

Collins, R-Maine, also told reporters that she doesn’t agree with the Supreme Court’s decision last week on its emergency docket that allows the Trump administration to cancel $4 billion in foreign aid. 

“I disagree with the Supreme Court’s temporary decision, but it was not a decision that delved into the merits of the case,” Collins said. “That’s yet to come.”

Collins, one of the more vocal members of her party over preserving Congress’ constitutional power of the purse, said “Well, let’s see,” when asked if she expects the GAO, a government watchdog agency, would win a lawsuit over the Trump administration impounding funds. 

The GAO and White House budget office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Funds frozen for libraries, medical research, FEMA

Republicans in Congress have been either supportive or relatively quiet about the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze or cancel funding approved by Congress. 

The GAO has cited the Trump administration for illegally impounding funding for electric vehicle charging, museums and libraries, Head Start, energy efficiency upgrades in K-12 schools, funding for medical research at the National Institutes of Health and funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., released a statement earlier this week rebuking the Trump administration’s actions after the GAO released its seventh impoundment decision. 

“Today, we have another stark reminder of how President Trump’s lawless assault on our spending laws is hurting real people in every part of the country—as funding is held up to address homelessness, prepare for disasters, and much more,” Murray wrote. “It is time for Republicans to join us in insisting that every last penny that is owed to the American people gets out to the American people.”

The U.S. Capitol is seen behind a barricade on Sept. 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. If lawmakers fail to reach a bipartisan compromise on the funding bill, the federal government shutdown will begin at midnight. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A government shutdown could have significant economic consequences, though an analysis released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it’s difficult to pinpoint ramifications without knowing the length of a funding lapse or how exactly the Trump administration will try to reshape the federal workforce. 

Director Phillip L. Swagel wrote in a four-page letter the agency projects about 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed, leading to a $400 million impact per day. 

“The number of furloughed employees could vary by the day because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees,” Swagel wrote. 

New plans from the Trump administration to lay off federal employees en masse, he wrote, could significantly change those calculations. 

The economic impacts and ramifications for business activity are hard to predict, he wrote, because it’s not yet clear how exactly the Trump administration will handle a shutdown or how long it will take congressional leaders to broker a stopgap funding agreement. 

The partial government shutdown that began in December 2018 and lasted through January 2019 led to a loss of about $3 billion in gross domestic product that couldn’t be recovered, according to a prior CBO analysis that was referenced in the letter. 

That represented about 0.02% of annual GDP in 2019. 

Swagel wrote the “effects of a government shutdown on business activity are uncertain, and their magnitude would depend on the duration of a shutdown and on decisions made by the Administration. 

“CBO expects that if a government shutdown persisted for several weeks, some private-sector entities would never recover all of the income they lost as a result of the suspension of federal activity.”

CBO conducted the analysis after receiving a request from Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. 

Thune, Schumer debate shutdown on Senate floor

A government shutdown will begin Wednesday unless congressional leaders broker a stopgap funding agreement before the new fiscal year starts. 

That seemed like a long shot early Tuesday afternoon as Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., engaged in a brief debate on the floor, a rarity. 

Thune said Democrats would have the same leverage on health care issues they have now in mid-November, when the stopgap spending bill that passed the House but stalled in the Senate would expire. 

“They will have another funding cliff they can take advantage of come November the 21st,” Thune said. “This funds the government and protects federal workers and the American people from the hostage-taking that has become, evidently, now the Democratic norm. Even though it’s something they decried not that many years ago.”

Thune told reporters afterward the chamber would likely be out of session for Yom Kippur, which begins shortly before sunset on Wednesday and continues until Thursday night, but would otherwise hold votes during a shutdown.

“We will observe the Jewish holiday, but I would expect additional votes throughout the week,” Thune said. “I mean, we filed last night on a whole new bunch of (nominees) and I would expect additional votes on funding the government.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., canceled the House’s schedule for this week and doesn’t plan for that chamber to go back into session until Oct. 6 at the earliest.

Meeting breaks up with no deal

Congressional leaders, including Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, but were unable to make progress toward a stopgap funding agreement.

Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday that Democrats need a deal with GOP leaders to extend the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, which are set to expire at the end of the year. 

“In a day or two, millions of Americans — millions — are going to get notices that their insurance premiums will rise an average of $400 a month, $5,000 a year,” Schumer said. “A middle-class family can’t afford that. We want to renew those credits, among other things in health care. But renew those credits so that people won’t pay that horrible increase.”

Schumer called Republican assertions that Democrats want immigrants without legal status to have access to federal health care programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, “utter bull.”

“There is no money, not a penny of federal dollars that are going there. So why do they bring this up? Because they’re afraid to talk about the real issue, which is health care for American citizens, health care for people who need the health care and can’t afford these premiums,” Schumer said.

Without a new funding law before the start of the fiscal year at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, the government will begin shutting down.

The ramifications will be significantly broader than the 35-day shutdown that took place during Trump’s first term, when five of the dozen full-year government spending bills had become law.

That isn’t the case this time around and a shutdown is expected to affect every department and agency to varying degrees.

‘They’re taking a risk’

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has also called on Trump administration officials to implement mass layoffs during a prolonged funding lapse.

Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he didn’t want a shutdown but that his administration might take sweeping action to restructure the federal government if one does begin. 

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump said, referring to Democrats. “So they’re taking a risk by having a shutdown, because because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits.”

A U.S. Department of Education employee leaves the building with their belongings on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C., amid mass layoffs.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration began posting plans over the weekend that detail how hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed during a government shutdown, while others will keep working without being paid. 

The updated guidance gives the clearest picture yet into how President Donald Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought hope to reduce the size and scope of government when given increased authority over the federal workforce during a funding lapse. 

A shutdown will begin Wednesday unless Republicans and Democrats in Congress reach agreement on a stopgap spending bill. Congressional leaders were set to meet Monday afternoon with Trump, but it was unclear if any agreement would result that would avert a shutdown.

The Defense Department’s plan shows it would keep about 406,500 of its 741,500 civilian employees working without pay during the shutdown, with the remaining going on furlough. 

The nearly 2.1 million military personnel housed within the department would continue to work throughout a shutdown but would not be paid until after it ends. 

The plan says the Defense Department believes operations to secure the U.S. southern border, Middle East operations, Golden Dome for America defense system, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions are the “highest priorities” in the event of a shutdown. 

Medical and dental services, including private sector care under the TRICARE health care program, would largely continue at the Defense Department, though “(e)lective surgery and other routine/elective procedures in DoW medical and dental facilities are generally not excepted activities, unless the deferral or delay of such procedures would impact personnel readiness or deployability.”

Thousands of workers to be sent home from HHS

The Health and Human Services Department plans to furlough about 32,500 of its nearly 80,000 employees during a shutdown. 

The various components of HHS — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health — have individual plans for a shutdown. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to retain 3,311, or 53%, of its employees during a shutdown and “will maintain the staff necessary to make payments to eligible states for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).”

The CDC plans to have 4,891, or 35.88%, of its employees as well as those at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry keep working. 

The contingency plans says that “(r)esponses to urgent disease outbreaks and continuing efforts to support the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA), and the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program” would continue during a shutdown. 

The CDC would not be able to undertake several other activities, including providing “guidance to state and local health departments implementing programs to protect the public’s health (e.g., opioid overdose prevention, HIV prevention, diabetes prevention).”

Departments with plans

Here is a list of the departments that have posted updated contingency plans in September:

• Defense Department contingency plan
• Education Department contingency plan
• Health and Human Services contingency plan
• Homeland Security Department contingency plan
• Labor Department contingency plan
• Justice Department contingency plan
• Social Security Administration contingency plan
• Treasury Department contingency plan

Here is a list of the departments that hadn’t posted updated contingency plans as of Monday afternoon:

• Agriculture Department contingency plan
• Commerce Department contingency plan
• Energy Department contingency plan
• Housing and Urban Development contingency plan
• Interior Department contingency plan
• State Department contingency plan
• Transportation Department contingency plan
• Veterans Affairs Department contingency plan

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau reached out to the  departments that didn’t have contingency plans posted to ask when those might become public.

A spokesperson for the USDA wrote in an email the department “is prepared for all contingencies regarding Department operations, including critical services and supports.” 

A State Department spokesperson said leadership “is undergoing all necessary planning efforts to sustain critical missions.”

Federal employees who work  without pay will be paid after the shutdown concludes. 

According to the Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s chief human resources agency — “after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.” 

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires furloughed government employees to receive back pay as a result of a government shutdown. 

That law does not apply to federal contractors, who face uncertainty in getting paid during a shutdown. 

Ashley Murray, Ariana Figueroa, Shauneen Miranda and Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Congress’ failure to pass a short-term government funding bill before midnight Tuesday will lead to the first shutdown in nearly seven years and give President Donald Trump broad authority to determine what federal operations keep running — which will have a huge impact on the government, its employees, states and Americans. 

A funding lapse this year would have a considerably wider effect than the 35-day one that took place during Trump’s first term and could last longer, given heightened political tensions. 

The last shutdown didn’t affect the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Labor and Veterans Affairs, since Congress had approved those agencies’ full-year funding bills.

Lawmakers had also enacted the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, exempting Capitol Hill from any repercussions. 

That isn’t the case this time around since none of the dozen government spending bills have become law. That means nearly every corner of the federal government will feel the pain in some way if a compromise isn’t reached by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. 

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau offers you a quick guide to what could happen if Republicans and Democrats don’t broker an agreement in time.

How does the White House budget office determine what government operations are essential during a shutdown?

Generally, federal programs that include the preservation of life or property as well as those addressing national security continue during a shutdown, while all other activities are supposed to cease until a funding bill becomes law. 

But the president holds expansive power to determine what activities within the executive branch are essential and which aren’t, making the effects of a shutdown hard to pinpoint unless the Trump administration shares that information publicly. 

Presidential administrations have traditionally posted contingency plans on the White House budget office’s website, detailing how each agency would shut down — explaining which employees are exempt and need to keep working, and which are furloughed. 

That appears to have changed this year. The web page that would normally host dozens of contingency plans remained blank until late September, when the White House budget office posted that a 940-page document released in August calls for the plans to be “hosted solely on each agency’s website.”

Only a few departments had plans from this year posted on their websites as of Friday afternoon.

The White House budget office expects agencies to develop Reduction in Force plans as part of their shutdown preparation, signaling a prolonged funding lapse will include mass firings and layoffs.

While the two-page memo doesn’t detail which agencies would be most affected, it says layoffs will apply to programs, projects, or activities that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

Trump will be paid during a shutdown since Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution prevents the president’s salary from being increased or decreased during the current term.

No one else in the executive branch — including Cabinet secretaries, more than 2 million civilian employees and over 1 million active duty military personnel — will receive their paycheck until after the shutdown ends. 

Are federal courts exempt from a shutdown since they’re a separate branch of government?

The Supreme Court will continue to conduct normal operations in the event of a shutdown, according to its Public Information Office. 

The office said the court “will rely on permanent funds not subject to annual approval, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of annual appropriations,” in a statement shared with States Newsroom. 

As for any impact on lower federal courts, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the federal judiciary was still assessing the fiscal 2026 outlook and had no comment. 

The office serves as the central support arm of the federal judiciary. 

During the last government shutdown from late 2018 into early 2019, federal courts remained open using court fee balances and “no-year” funds, which are available for an indefinite period. 

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has said that if those funds run out, they would operate under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which “allows work to continue during a lapse in appropriations if it is necessary to support the exercise of Article III judicial powers.” 

Supreme Court justices and appointed federal judges continue to get paid during a government shutdown, as Article III of the Constitution says the judges’ compensation “shall not be diminished” during their term.

What happens to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

The three programs exist largely outside of the annual appropriations process, since lawmakers categorized them as “mandatory spending.” 

This means Social Security checks as well as reimbursements to health care providers for Medicare and Medicaid services should continue as normal.

One possible hitch is the salaries for people who run those programs are covered by annual appropriations bills, so there could be some staffing problems for the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, depending on their contingency plans. 

The first Trump administration’s shutdown guidance for the Social Security Administration showed 54,000 of 63,000 employees at that agency would have kept working. The CMS plan from 2020 shows that it intended to keep about 50% of its employees working in the event of a shutdown. Neither had a current plan as of Friday.

Will the Department of Veterans Affairs be able to keep providing health care and benefits?

Veterans can expect health care to continue uninterrupted at VA medical centers and outpatient clinics in the event of a shutdown. Vets would also continue to receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education and housing, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs contingency planning for a funding lapse that is currently published on the department’s website. It’s unclear if the plan will be the one the Trump administration puts into action.

But a shutdown would affect other VA services. For example, the GI Bill hotline would close, and all in-person and virtual career counseling and transition assistance services would be unavailable.

Additionally, all regional VA benefits offices would shutter until Congress agreed to fund the government. The closures would include the Manila Regional Office in the Philippines that serves veterans in the Pacific region.

All department public outreach to veterans would also cease.

Will Hubbard, spokesperson for Veterans Education Success, said his advocacy organization is bracing for increased phone calls and emails from veterans who would normally call the GI Bill hotline.

“Questions are going to come up, veterans are going to be looking for answers, and they’re not going to be able to call like they would be able to normally, that’s going to be a big problem,” Hubbard said.

“Most of the benefits that people are going to be most concerned about will not be affected, but the ones that do get affected, for the people that that hits, I mean, it’s going to matter a lot to them. It’s going to change the direction of their planning, and potentially the direction of their life,” Hubbard said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for current VA shutdown guidance.

What happens to immigration enforcement and immigration courts? 

As the Trump administration continues with its aggressive immigration tactics in cities with high immigrant populations, that enforcement is likely to continue during a government shutdown, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s March guidance for operating in a government shutdown.

Immigration-related fees will continue, such as for processing visas and applications from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

And DHS expects nearly all of its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees to be exempt — 17,500 out of 20,500 — and continue working without pay amid a government shutdown. 

That means that ICE officers will continue to arrest, detain and remove from the country immigrants without legal status. DHS is currently concentrating immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago, known as “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Other employees within DHS, such as those in Transportation Security Administration, will also be retained during a government shutdown. There are about 58,000 TSA employees that would be exempt and continue to work without pay in airports across the country.  

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a contingency plan if there is a government shutdown.

Separately, a shutdown would also burden the overwhelmed immigration court system that is housed within the Department of Justice. It would lead to canceling or rescheduling court cases, when there is already a backlog of 3.4 million cases.

The only exceptions are immigration courts that are located within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention centers, but most cases would need to be rescheduled. The partial government shutdown that began in December 2018 caused nearly 43,000 court cases to be canceled, according to a report by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC.

And 28 states have an immigration court, requiring some immigrants to travel hundreds, or thousands, of miles for their appointment. 

States that do not have an immigration court include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Will people be able to visit national parks or use public lands during a shutdown? 

Probably, but that may be bad for parks’ long-term health.

During the 2018-2019 shutdown, the first Trump administration kept parks open, with skeleton staffs across the country struggling to maintain National Park Service facilities.

Theresa Pierno, the president and CEO of the advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association, said in a Sept. 23 statement the last shutdown devastated areas of some parks.

“Americans watched helplessly as Joshua Trees were cut down, park buildings were vandalized, prehistoric petroglyphs were defaced, trash overflowed leading to wildlife impacts, and human waste piled up,” she wrote. “Visitor safety and irreplaceable natural and cultural resources were put at serious risk. We cannot allow this to happen again.”

The National Park Service’s latest contingency plan was published in March 2024, during President Joe Biden’s administration. It calls for at least some closures during a shutdown, though the document says the response will differ from park to park. 

Restricting access to parks is difficult due to their physical characteristics, the document said, adding that staffing would generally be maintained at a minimum to allow visitors. However, some areas that are regularly closed could be locked up for the duration of a shutdown.

But that contingency plan is likely to change before Tuesday, spokespeople for the Park Service and the Interior Department, which oversees NPS, said Sept. 25.

“The lapse in funding plans on our website are from 2024,” an email from the NPS office of public affairs said. “They are currently being reviewed and updated.”

Hunters and others seeking to use public lands maintained by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will likely be able to continue to do so, though they may have to make alternative plans if they’d planned to use facilities such as campgrounds. 

Land Tawney, the co-chair of the advocacy group American Hunters and Anglers, said campgrounds, toilets and facilities that require staffing would be inaccessible, but most public lands would remain available.

“Those lands are kind of open and they’re just unmanned, I would say, and that’s not really gonna change much,” he said. “If you’re staying in a campground, you’ve got to figure something else out.”

As with national parks, access to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges and other hunting and fishing sites will differ from site to site, Tawney said. The Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t require permits for hunting on its lands, but access to some refuges is determined by a staff-run lottery drawing. If those drawings can’t be held, access to those sites will be limited, Tawney said.

What happens to the Internal Revenue Service?

How the Internal Revenue Service would operate during a government shutdown remains unclear. 

When Congress teetered on letting funding run out in March, the nation’s revenue collection agency released a contingency plan to continue full operations during the height of tax filing season. 

The IRS planned to use funds allocated in the 2022 budget reconciliation law to keep its roughly 95,000 employees processing returns and refunds, answering the phones, and pursuing audits. 

Ultimately Congress agreed on a stopgap funding bill to avoid a March shutdown, but much has changed since then.

The new tax and spending law, signed by Trump on July 4 and often referred to as the “one big beautiful bill,” made major changes to the U.S. tax code. 

Additionally, the agency, which processes roughly 180 million income tax returns per year, has lost about a quarter of its workforce since January. Top leadership has also turned over six times in 2025.

Rachel Snyderman, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, said workforce reductions combined with a string of leadership changes could factor into how the agency would operate during a funding lapse.

“It’s really difficult to understand both what the status of the agency would be if the government were to shut down in less than a week, and also the impacts that a prolonged shutdown could have on taxpayer services and taxpayers at large,” said Snyderman, the think tank’s managing director of economic policy.

Do federal employees get back pay after a shutdown ends?

According to the Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s chief human resources agency — “after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.” 

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires furloughed government employees to receive back pay as a result of a government shutdown. 

That law does not apply to federal contractors, who face uncertainty in getting paid during a shutdown. 

What role does Congress have during a shutdown?

The House and Senate must approve a stopgap spending bill or all dozen full-year appropriations bills to end a shutdown, a feat that requires the support of at least some Democrats to get past the upper chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., control their respective chambers’ calendars as well as the floor schedule, so they could keep holding votes on the stopgap bill Democrats have already rejected or try to pass individual bills to alleviate the impacts on certain agencies.   

Neither Johnson nor Thune has yet to suggest bipartisan negotiations with Democratic leaders about funding the government. And while they are open to discussions about extending the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, they don’t want that decision connected to the funding debate.  

Democratic leaders have said repeatedly that Republicans shouldn’t expect them to vote for legislation they had no say in drafting, especially with a health care cliff for millions of Americans coming at the end of the year. 

Members of Congress will receive their paychecks regardless of how long a shutdown lasts, but the people who work for them would only receive their salaries after it ends. 

Lawmakers must be paid under language in Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution as well as the 27th Amendment, which bars members of Congress from changing their salaries during the current session. 

Lawmakers have discretion to decide which of their staff members continue working during a shutdown and which are furloughed.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Capitol Police, which is tasked with protecting members amid a sharp rise in political violence, said a shutdown “would not affect the security of the Capitol Complex.” 

“Our officers, and the professional staff who perform or support emergency functions, would still report to work,” the spokesperson said. “Employees who are not required for emergency functions would be furloughed until funding is available.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday reaffirmed its ruling from earlier this month that the Trump administration can withhold $4 billion in foreign aid, though the order notes the decision “should not be read as a final determination on the merits” of the case.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote on social media shortly after the order from the emergency docket was released that it represented a “Major victory.”

The new nine-page order doesn’t provide any additional details about why a majority of the Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to rescind the funding without congressional approval. 

But it does include a dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan that was supported by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, highlighting the stakes in the case. 

“This emergency application raises novel issues fundamental to the relationship between the President and Congress,” Kagan wrote. “It arises from the refusal of the President and his officers to obligate and spend billions of dollars that Congress appropriated for foreign aid.”

The case, she wrote, brings up an issue the Supreme Court has never addressed.

“Deciding the question presented thus requires the Court to work in uncharted territory,” Kagan wrote. “And, to repeat, the stakes are high: At issue is the allocation of power between the Executive and Congress over the expenditure of public monies.”

Kagan noted that since the case came to the justices on the emergency docket, they had less than three weeks to consider it. 

“In a few weeks’ time—when we turn to our regular docket—we will decide cases of far less import with far more process and reflection,” Kagan wrote.

She goes on to disagree with the majority of the justices, saying the Supreme Court “should have denied this application, allowed the lower courts to go forward, and ensured that the weighty question presented here receives the consideration it deserves.”

Trump administration actions found illegal by watchdog

The ruling the Supreme Court posted Friday is similar to the one it released in mid-September when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. overturned a district court ruling that would have required the Trump administration to spend the money. 

The case now largely revolves around whether the White House budget office has the authority to send Congress a rescissions request during the last 45 days of the fiscal year, a maneuver the Government Accountability Office has called illegal. 

When the White House asks Congress to cancel previously approved spending through a rescission, lawmakers are supposed to have 45 days to approve, modify, or ignore the request. 

But Vought believes that any rescissions request sent up during those 45 days allows the White House to unilaterally cancel the funding, regardless of whether lawmakers agree or not. 

The Trump administration asked lawmakers to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and various foreign aid programs this summer through a rescissions request.

Lawmakers mostly approved that proposal after preserving full funding for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

The White House budget office then sent lawmakers a second rescissions request in late August, proposing they claw back billions of additional foreign aid dollars. 

Neither the House nor the Senate has yet to vote on that proposal. But the Supreme Court’s ruling allows the White House budget office to withhold the funding anyway. 

Democratic members of Congress react

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., issued a joint statement after the court’s ruling calling on their GOP colleagues to protect the institution’s power over spending decisions. 

“Congress can—and absolutely should—promptly reject President Trump and Russ Vought’s illegal effort to do an end run around the people’s elected representatives by passing a bill like the one we introduced last week,” they wrote. “Republicans should join Democrats to stand up for our power of the purse, rather than allow a president and an unelected bureaucrat who do not respect Congress or the Constitution to continue attacking our power to fight for the people back home that we represent.”

People in New York City look at a sign informing them that the Statue of Liberty is closed on Oct. 1, 2013, due to a government shutdown.  (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The White House has sent guidance to departments and agencies, telling them that if a shutdown begins Wednesday, they’re expected to institute mass firings and layoffs. 

The two-page memo, shared with States Newsroom by a Trump administration official, says any programs that received funding in the “big, beautiful” law will “continue uninterrupted.”

But the vast majority of federal departments and agencies need Congress to approve an annual funding bill or a stopgap spending bill before the start of the new fiscal year to keep running. 

The memo says the employees who run those programs may receive a Reduction in Force notice if lawmakers don’t broker an agreement before the Oct. 1 deadline.  

Those reductions will apply to programs, projects, or activities that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities,” according to the memo.  

“RIF notices will be in addition to any furlough notices provided due to the lapse in appropriation,” the memo states. “RIF notices should be issued to all employees working on the relevant (programs, projects, or activities), regardless of whether the employee is excepted or furloughed during the lapse in appropriations.”

Once lawmakers reach a deal and the government reopens, the memo says agencies should rework their reduction in force plans “to retain the minimal number of employees necessary to carry out statutory functions.”

Employee union urges compromise

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement the memo represents “an attempt at intimidation.”

“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government,” Schumer wrote. “These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement the memo shows that White House budget director Russ Vought intends “to pursue another DOGE-like round of illegal mass firings in the event of a shutdown, adding to the chaos.” 

“The truth is simple: Republicans cannot fund the government without Democratic votes. That means the only path forward is compromise,” Kelley wrote. “The president and congressional leaders must sit down and negotiate in good faith to keep the lights on for the American people. Nothing less is acceptable.”

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen wrote in a statement that “Trump is engaged in mafia-style blackmail, with his threats ultimately harming the American people.” 

“He is threatening to double down on the failed actions of Elon Musk and his chainsaw — going after patriotic civil servants that provide Americans with critical services — despite having to rehire many of these workers after Americans experienced the negative impact of those cuts,” Van Hollen wrote. “These dedicated workers have nothing to do with the ongoing political and policy disputes that have brought us to the brink of a shutdown.”

House GOP departs until after Oct. 1

The House voted mostly along party lines to approve a seven-week stopgap spending bill last week before leaving town. GOP leaders were supposed to bring lawmakers in that chamber back to Capitol Hill on Monday, but extended their break and won’t return until after the shutdown deadline. 

The move was largely seen as a way to jam the Senate, specifically Democrats, with the short-term government funding bill that they largely oppose because GOP lawmakers wrote it behind closed doors without bipartisan negotiations. 

The Senate tried to advance the House-passed Republican stopgap bill but didn’t have the necessary 60 votes to move the legislation toward final passage. 

Democrats have maintained for weeks that if Republican leaders want their support on a short-term spending bill, they should have negotiated with party leaders on key issues, including an extension of the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

Those tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year but Americans who rely on the marketplace for their health insurance will begin purchasing their plans for next year on Nov. 1. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he views negotiations on those tax credits as an issue for December, not this month, despite the open enrollment period ending on Dec. 15. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said repeatedly he views the issue as separate from government funding.

Jeffries says Dems ‘ready, willing and able to have a conversation’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a Thursday press conference that Democrats are “ready, willing and able to have a conversation to see if we can find common ground in a bipartisan way to reach a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people.”

“Republicans have decided they don’t even want to have a conversation with Democrats to reach a bipartisan agreement. No one in America thinks that’s reasonable,” Jeffries said. “It’s an inherently unreasonable position — my way or the highway.”

Jeffries criticized Trump and Republicans for having unified control of government, but not taking action to lower costs for Americans, including on health care. 

“Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Costs aren’t going down in America, they’re going up. Inflation is going up,” Jeffries said. “Life has become more expensive under Donald Trump and Republican policies and that includes health care premiums, which are about to skyrocket.”

It would be “foolish,” he said, for Democrats to trust the Republicans will negotiate on the enhanced ACA tax credits later in the year, given their actions so far on health care. 

Ashley Mathy and Cindy Bentley, who both identify as having autism, record a video for the Self Determination channel on YouTube, a project of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities (BPDD). States Newsroom spoke with three medical experts about the state of research as well as the complexity involved in understanding autism spectrum disorder. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin BPDD)

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stirred up major concerns and considerable speculation earlier this year when he announced the administration would release a report revealing the causes of autism by the end of September. 

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no medical degree, stood next to President Donald Trump on Sept. 22 as they presented the over-the-counter drug Tylenol as one potential driving factor behind autism diagnoses and pointed to folate, a B vitamin, as a possible treatment — both conclusions the medical community hasn’t yet reached. 

Kennedy throughout his tenure has also made overly broad and disparaging statements about people who have an autism diagnosis, often referring to traits exhibited in people with the most severe cases. For example, he claimed in April that children with autism would never function as independent adults, drawing intense criticism for making a generalization that would not apply to every person with a diagnosis.

The Trump-Kennedy announcement and Kennedy’s characterizations have raised questions about why someone would be diagnosed, what types of research have been done and what reputable science has found about causes. 

States Newsroom spoke with three experts before the announcement to gain a better understanding of autism spectrum disorder. Below are brief excerpts from those interviews. 

What is autism spectrum disorder? 

The two core characteristics of autism are challenges with social communication and the presence of restrictive and repetitive behavior, according to Autism Science Foundation Chief Science Officer Dr. Alycia Halladay. 

As understanding of the diagnosis has evolved, she explained, researchers and families have increasingly referred to it as autisms, plural, instead of autism, singular, in part, because there are so many different subtypes.

“It makes it more accurate when describing it — that autism is not just one entity of core autism features, that there is so much diversity across the spectrum, that it’s actually a group of developmental disorders,” Halladay said. 

The spectrum, she said, ranges from people who may speak rarely to those who are fluent in language, people with cognitive disabilities to those with IQs of more than 120 and people who can live independently to those who need round-the-clock care.

Dr. Michael Murray, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at the Penn State College of Medicine, described it as “a neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning that people are born with it and it’s lifelong and it can cause a variety of challenges for people.”

“The most common and significant and probably pervasive symptom across the spectrum is challenges in understanding and interpreting what we call neurotypical — meaning everyone who is non-autistic — social behavior,” Murray said. “So just understanding all the non-verbal parts of social communication, understanding nuance and non-literal use of language. All those things can be really difficult for autistic people.”

Approximately 1 in 31 children in the United States and 1 in 45 adults fall somewhere along the autism spectrum,  according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a paper published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 

How is autism diagnosed?

Only an expert can diagnose an autism spectrum disorder using criteria in a guide used by health care professionals called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. 

“You need someone who knows autism, who knows what to look for, who knows how to elicit behaviors or not elicit behaviors that are indicative of an autism diagnosis,” Halladay said. “So it’s really diagnosed by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or somebody else who’s trained to understand what autism is and what it’s not.”

Murray said there are three social communication behaviors that doctors or other qualified medical professionals look for when considering whether to diagnose someone with autism. 

“It is difficulty in interpreting social information. It is difficulty giving social information through things like facial expression and tone of voice. And thirdly, is a difficulty maintaining appropriate peer relationships,” Murray said. “Now, once again, this is from a neurotypical description of peer relationships. There’s a lot of talk among neurodivergent individuals about whether that’s fair, that we rate social relationships based on how we think they should be. But nonetheless, that’s the criteria.”

Murray explained experts also observe the presence of restrictive and repetitive behaviors in assessing whether someone has autism. 

“And that captures things that are in the realm of interacting with the physical world around you,” Murray said. “So that need for sameness and inflexibility maintaining routines.”

Carissa Cascio, a senior scientist at the University of Kansas Life Span Institute and Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training, reinforced that autism is “strictly diagnosed based on behavior.”

“There are genes that have an association with autism that you can test for. There’s some genes that have a very strong association, and you can do a test for the presence of one of those genes,” Cascio said. “But for the diagnosis of autism itself, it’s strictly based on behavior.”

What do we know about the causes of autism?

While more scientific research is needed, a combination of genetics and environmental factors is responsible for the formation of autism spectrum disorders. 

“We know that one of the largest causes of autism is genetics. We know this because it runs in families,” Halladay said, adding there “are over 150 known genes associated with autism.”

“If there’s a variation in the gene, there’s a high likelihood of having an autism diagnosis,” she said. “And those genes are genes that tell cells in the brain where to go and how to connect, which seems to be a core biological feature of autism.”

Halladay emphasized that research has established the “most important part is the interaction between genetics and the environment.”

“Neither the gene nor the environmental factor is strong enough, but together, they increase the probability of having a child with autism,” Halladay explained. 

During the last 25 years, as Murray has advanced in his career, the medical community’s thinking about and understanding of autism spectrum disorders has “significantly increased.”

“We know right now that 80 to 90% of autism is accounted for by genetic differences …. It’s not just you got exposed to this thing in the environment, now you have autism. You have to have the genetic susceptibility first and then the environment might make it more likely, or maybe influence the expression of it,” Murray said.

Cascio said that when it comes to environmental factors, studies have shown pregnancy or the very early post-natal time frame are key. 

“We’re still parsing this out, but some of the environmental factors that seem to have more evidence behind them than others are older parental age, perinatal trauma, premature birth and low birth weight,” Cascio said. “And then there’s some maternal health factors that are gathering some evidence as well. So maternal infection and immune response, maternal exposure to medications or pollutants are sort of gathering some evidence.” 

While much more research is needed on the many potential environmental factors, Cascio said scientists know vaccines are not a component. 

“The things that we definitely can rule out are things that have been studied in great depth and not really produced much association. So you know, the idea that vaccines cause autism is a common belief. There have been dozens and dozens of studies that have all failed to find any association between vaccines and autism,” Cascio said.

There’s also not yet a clear link with Tylenol, also called acetaminophen, as a possible environmental factor. 

“It is unlikely that this is the smoking gun that they’re hoping for,” Cascio said. “I think we all want to understand this better, but this is certainly not something that we feel has a strong weight of evidence behind it yet.”

A spokesperson for Kenvue, the company that manufactures Tylenol, wrote in a statement released in connection with the Trump-Kennedy press conference that “acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout their entire pregnancy.  

“Without it, women face dangerous choices: suffer through conditions like fever that are potentially harmful to both mom and baby or use riskier alternatives. High fevers and pain are widely recognized as potential risks to a pregnancy if left untreated.”

Why have autism diagnoses increased over several decades? 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy has repeatedly raised concerns with an increase in autism diagnoses over several decades, but experts say there are logical reasons for this. 

“In the early 1990s the CDC set up a system to collect and count the number of people with autism,” Halladay said. “So it definitely has increased since then, but one of the main reasons that’s been shown over and over again is access to services.”

Halladay believes most of the increase is due to greater knowledge and access, though she said, “there is room for some of the increase in autism to be a true increase in the number of people with autism due to something else.”

Murray explained that about 60% to 70% of people diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum are characterized as having “low-support needs, meaning that they clearly have the features of autism, but they are able to, with the appropriate level of supports, be in traditional schools or typical schools; they can, with job support, work and lead their lives the way they choose to.”

When Murray began his career, he said, those people never would have been diagnosed as having autism.  

“Secondly, we as a professional community are getting better and better at picking up these symptoms, particularly in kids who are quite young,” Murray said.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, Cascio said, a new version of the DSM and better tools helped medical professionals more accurately diagnose people along the entire autism spectrum. 

Additionally, Cascio said, there’s a similar concept called diagnostic substitution, where people who in the past may have been diagnosed with something else are now being correctly diagnosed with autism. 

How much research has been done on autism and over how many years?

Scientists have been researching autism for decades, building on past work to better understand how to diagnose and assist people across the spectrum, though experts said more is needed.

“The many, many scientific discoveries and funding into understanding autism has promoted scientists moving into the field,” Halladay said. “So there’s clearly an increased number over the past two decades of the number of people who are focused on studying autism.”

Murray said the first papers published in scientific journals regarding autism were in 1944. 

“So it is 80 years, at a minimum, of work,” Murray said.

Murray reiterated that autism spectrum disorders are not simple to study and said a “really important paper came out earlier this year talking about how there’s four genetically recognizable subtypes of autism. So it’s not a single autism. It is, at the very least, four autisms, and probably more.”

Cascio said addressing any aspect of autism is complicated.

“The behavior is complex. The genetics are complex. The brain is complex,” Cascio said. “And so this makes it a huge challenge for research. And there’s certainly no possibility that we would go from not fully understanding the causes of autism to having a definitive cause in five months.”

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about autism? 

The internet has led to misinformation, and in many cases disinformation, and health diagnoses are no exception.  

Halladay said people often try to simplify autism or believe an actor’s portrayal in a television show or movie is representative of everyone on the spectrum. 

“I think that because of the narrative of autism being oversimplified, that people are not understanding that it’s a more complex disorder,” she said. 

Murray said the autism spectrum may be pictured as a straight line and an expectation arises when someone is diagnosed that they are in just one spot. 

“That’s not really the way it is. There are needs or strengths that show up variably depending on the demands of the situation,” Murray said. “So for instance, someone who has a really exquisite sensitivity to sound, if they are attending a symphony, that may make that experience so much more rich for him or her versus the average person. 

“But if they are at a rock concert, it may be overwhelming. The same trait can be a source of vulnerability or a strength depending on the situation.”

Murray said there’s often a misconception that all people with autism are antisocial or don’t want to make and maintain friendships.  

“And that’s true for some people, right? They aren’t really interested in social interactions. It’s not their thing,” Murray said. “It’s also true for some neurotypical people that they’re really not interested in social interactions. But the vast, vast majority of autistic individuals just want a friend, and they want someone who they can count on and rely on. They want to be loved, just like everyone else in the world … They just need more supports or different situations to have that happen.”

Cascio said that people can form misconceptions after seeing actors portray people along the spectrum.

“I first became interested in autism after watching the movie ‘Rain Man,’” Cascio said. “And I think there’s a lot of people who see a depiction like that and think, ‘Okay, this is what autism looks like.’ And there’s just so much more complexity and variability from person to person and I would say that’s probably the biggest misconception.”

Cascio said it’s also human nature to want one clear answer to why someone develops autism or any other health diagnosis, but that oftentimes the best science shows a more complicated picture. 

“It’s uncomfortable for us to say, ‘This is really complex and we don’t understand it yet,’” she said. “And so when there is something that people hold up and say, ‘Here’s an explanation.’ I think it can be really tempting for people to just want to have it solved. And that’s a very natural reaction.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., joined by President Donald Trump, delivers an announcement on “significant medical and scientific findings for America’s children” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 22, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Monday that his administration believes it’s found one contributing factor of autism and a possible treatment, though experts have said such claims are inconclusive and not backed by scientific evidence.

Trump and officials from his administration said during a press conference the Food and Drug Administration will move to update the label on Tylenol, also called acetaminophen, to reflect their concerns that it could potentially be one of the environmental causes of autism. Numerous medical organizations and the manufacturer say there is no proven link.

The FDA will also publish a notice in the Federal Register to change the label on leucovorin, a pharmaceutical intended to counteract the negative effects of certain cancer medications, so that doctors can prescribe it as a potential treatment for autism. 

“They are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary,” Trump said. “That’s, for instance, in cases of extremely high fever that you feel you can’t tough it out. You can’t do it. I guess there’s that.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the FDA “is responding to clinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including later diagnosis for ADHD and autism.”

Kennedy noted, however, that the FDA recognizes that Tylenol “is often the only tool for fevers and pain in pregnancy, as other alternatives have well documented adverse effects. 

“HHS wants, therefore, to encourage clinicians to exercise their best judgment in the use of acetaminophen for fevers and pain in pregnancy by prescribing the lowest effective dose for the shortest necessary duration and only when treatment is required.”

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no medical or research training, said in April the department will shift its research into autism toward potential environmental causes, and pledged to have “some of the answers by September.”

‘Not a single reputable study’

Trump and Kennedy’s announcement was met with deep skepticism. 

Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, wrote in a statement released Monday that she’s “unsure why this announcement came today and how the conclusions were drawn.”

“No new data or scientific studies were presented or shared. No new studies have been published in the literature. No new presentations on this topic were made at scientific or medical conferences,” Singer wrote. “Instead, President Trump talked about what he thinks and feels without offering scientific evidence. He said ‘tough it out,’ meaning don’t take tylenol or give it to your child. It took me straight back to when moms were blamed for autism. If you can’t take the pain or deal with a fever, then it’s your fault if your child has autism. That was shocking. Simply shocking.”

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists President Dr. Steven J. Fleischman wrote in a statement the Trump administration’s claim about Tylenol is “not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children.”

“In more than two decades of research on the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy, not a single reputable study has successfully concluded that the use of acetaminophen in any trimester of pregnancy causes neurodevelopmental disorders in children,” Fleischman wrote. “In fact, the two highest-quality studies on this subject—one of which was published in JAMA last year—found no significant associations between use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.”

ACOG writes on its website that women who experience headaches during pregnancy can use over-the-counter medications like Advil, also called ibuprofen, and Aleve, also known as naproxen, “for migraines that don’t get better with acetaminophen, but only in the second trimester and only for 48 hours or less at a time. It’s not clear if NSAIDs are safe for a fetus during the first trimester. Taking NSAIDs during the third trimester may lead to birth defects.”

Oz wants state Medicaid programs to cover prescriptions

At the press conference, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said leucovorin could possibly help alleviate low folate levels, which may be one potential factor in autism. 

“Autism may also be due to an autoimmune reaction to a folate receptor on the brain not allowing that important vitamin to get into the brain cells,” Makary said. “We have a duty to let doctors and the public know we are going to change the label to make it available. Hundreds of thousands of kids, in my opinion, will benefit.”

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz said the agency will try to ensure anyone on a government health program can have a prescription for leucovorin covered. 

“Over half of American children are covered by Medicaid and CHIP,” Oz said. “Upon this label change, state Medicaid programs in partnership with CMS will cover prescription leucovorin around the country. It’s yours, but you have to go to a doctor to get a prescription, because they know your child, they know you and they know the medication.”

Oz said he believed that “private insurance companies will rapidly follow our lead if they have not already done so.”

CMS, he said, is also contacting state governments to aid the Trump administration in studying the use of leucovorin as a possible treatment for autism. 

“Collecting real-world data, which is what many of you have been asking us to do in the community, is fast, it is life-saving and we’ll get answers based on what happens over the next few months with this approach,” Oz said. 

NIH research projects picked

Director of the National Institutes of Health Jay Bhattacharya said his agency has selected 13 projects to receive a share of $50 million to look for autism’s root causes and therapies. 

“The studies feature a new kind of science called exposomics, where scientists consider environmental and medical factors, nutrition, events during pregnancy in combination with biology and genetics to answer vital questions about autism,” Bhattacharya said.

Bhattacharya also gave a brief description of autism spectrum disorder, noting it “encompasses a very wide range of symptoms, ranging from mild difficulties in social interactions to profoundly autistic children who experience severe disabilities in speech and behavior.

“Given this wide range of symptoms across the spectrum, it seems certain that there will be a wide range of biological contributors to explaining the cause.”

‘Findings are not entirely consistent’

The Autism Science Foundation wrote in a statement released earlier this month that “low maternal folate levels during early pregnancy have been linked in several studies to an increased risk of autism in children, though findings are not entirely consistent.”

“Data suggesting that leucovorin may be effective come from four small randomized controlled trials, all using different doses and different outcomes, and in one case, reliant on a specific genetic variant,” the Autism Science Foundation notes. “This science is still in very early stages, and more studies are necessary before a definitive conclusion can be reached.”

As for Tylenol, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine released a statement earlier this month that it “continues to advise physicians and patients that acetaminophen is an appropriate medication to treat pain and fever during pregnancy.”

“At this time, the weight of scientific evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy causes an increased risk for autism or ADHD is simply inconclusive,” SMFM President Sindhu K. Srinivas wrote in the statement. “In maternal-fetal medicine, as in all of medicine, our recommendations are based on an evaluation of rigorous research and data, clinical expertise, and our patients’ values and preferences.” 

The statement goes on to say that “untreated fever and pain during pregnancy carry significant maternal and infant health risks. Untreated fever, particularly in the first trimester, increases the risk of miscarriage, birth defects, and premature birth, and untreated pain can lead to maternal depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure.” 

Former Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned from the agency earlier this year, said on a call with reporters before the announcement that she was concerned the conclusions will be premature and not based on solid science. 

“As of three weeks ago, we hadn’t seen evidence that acetaminophen was linked with autism, so it’s curious to know how quickly that was developed,” Houry said. 

Tylenol has information on its website rebutting the assertion that its product has been conclusively linked as a contributor to autism diagnoses. 

“Credible, independent scientific data continues to show no proven link between taking acetaminophen and autism,” its website states. 

The company adds that the best advice is for people to talk “to your healthcare professional before taking or administering acetaminophen.”

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate deadlocked Friday over how to fund the government past a deadline at the end of September, escalating the odds of a shutdown and heightening tensions on Capitol Hill. 

Democrats on a 44-48 vote blocked a seven-week stopgap spending bill that had passed the House just hours earlier, refusing to aid Republican leaders in getting the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, both Republicans, voted against the bill, while Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman voted for it. 

Republicans on a 47-45 vote blocked a Democratic counter-proposal, a one-month stopgap bill that included several health care provisions. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters ahead of the votes that Democrats can either accept the GOP-drafted stopgap bill or shut the government down. President Donald Trump told Republicans they did not need to negotiate with Democrats on the legislation.

“The choice is pretty clear. It’s going to be funding the government through a clean, short-term continuing resolution or a government shutdown,” Thune said. “And that’s the choice the Democrats have. The House has acted. The president’s ready to sign the bill.”

Complicating matters is the congressional calendar, which has both chambers out next week for Rosh Hashanah. The Senate’s not scheduled to return until Sept. 29, with less than 48 hours to broker a deal and get it to Trump’s desk. 

Thune said he’s not inclined to bring senators back early, despite the impasse.  

“I’d say it’s unlikely we’ll be in next week but, obviously, you never completely shut the door,” Thune said. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters following his chamber’s vote on the stopgap he hadn’t decided whether to reconvene the House earlier than planned.

“There’s a lot of discussion about it,” Johnson said. “The members have a lot of work to do in their districts as well, and so we try to balance those interests.”

House Republicans announced later in the day the chamber wouldn’t come back until Oct. 1, essentially jamming the Senate with the GOP bill. 

Shutdown appearing more likely

Democratic leaders have vowed not to help Republicans get the votes needed on their current stopgap — a stark contrast from March, when Senate Democrats did just that, leading to significant frustration from their House colleagues.

The stalemate and congressional calendar have ratcheted up the odds of a protracted, deeply political government showdown that could last for weeks or even months. 

Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said during floor debate the only path away from a shutdown runs through bipartisan negotiations. 

“Why aren’t they willing to just meet and actually start charting a course on how we move forward? I think the main reason is Donald Trump,” Murray said. “He told Republicans, ‘Don’t even bother dealing with Democrats.’ It seems like Republican leaders are just afraid to cross the aisle and have a simple meeting, a mere conversation, if it risks losing Donald Trump.” 

Murray said that approach to governing will have significant consequences for major legislation, which requires the support of at least some Democratic senators to advance in a Senate with 53 GOP members. 

“So to get things done for our families back home, Republicans need to work with Democrats,” Murray said. “And if Republican leadership cannot find the courage to do that on what should be low-hanging fruit here, if they can’t sit down with our Democratic leadership to talk about a short-term CR, what does that mean for the work that we’ve been doing for our full-year spending bills? What does it mean for extending those health care tax credits? And what does it mean for any of the other challenging issues we would all like to work on together to address?”

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters it’s “malpractice” and “bananas” that GOP leaders don’t plan to shorten or cancel the break. 

“What I’m hearing is that we’re not here next week. Like, are you kidding me?,” Murphy said. “You have all the evidence you need that Republicans want a shutdown — A, they refuse to negotiate and B, they’re sending us home for the week before the government shuts down. This seems like a planned shutdown as far as I can tell. 

“There’s zero effort — zero — by Republicans to try to solve this.” 

House passes bill

U.S. House Republicans passed the seven-week stopgap government funding bill earlier Friday.

The 217-212 vote represents the second time this year the House approved what’s called a continuing resolution on a predominantly party-line vote. 

Maine Democratic Rep. Jared Golden was the only member of his party to support the bill. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and Indiana Rep. Victoria Spartz were the only Republicans to vote no. 

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the stopgap spending bill is needed to give lawmakers more time to pass the dozen full-year government spending bills and called it the “responsible path.”  

“We are certainly moving forward productively and a bipartisan, bicameral agreement is firmly within our grasp,” Cole said. “We just need more time to sustain negotiations and complete our work. That’s why we’re here today.”

Cole said that not approving a stopgap bill before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1 would lead to a shutdown and hinder those talks.  

“Let me be very clear, a shutdown would do nothing to help our work on full-year bills or to support the American people,” Cole said. “So if you want stability for the American people, if you want time to negotiate in good faith and if you want regular order, you’ll support this CR. Any other vote would be reckless, not just for both parties but for the entire nation.” 

A ‘broken political system’

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans’ decision to write the stopgap bill on their own signaled they weren’t actually interested in bipartisanship and that it “reflects a broken political system.” 

“They would rather shut down the government than sit down and talk with Democrats about lowering costs for millions of Americans, preventing people from getting kicked off their health care and stopping President Trump and budget director Russ Vought from stealing from our communities and from our constituents,” DeLauro. 

The Trump administration’s unilateral actions on spending, she said, are making work on government funding more complicated, since Democrats cannot trust the White House budget office to implement the laws as written. 

“This administration continues to freeze, to terminate and cancel $410 billion in commitments to families, to farmers, to children, to small businesses and communities in every part of our country,” DeLauro said. “Billions of these commitments will soon be lost forever if Congress refuses to rein in this administration’s illegal actions.”

Republican and Democratic alternatives

Republicans’ 91-page stopgap spending bill would fund the government at current rates through Nov. 21, giving lawmakers more time to complete work on the full-year appropriations bills. 

That bill, which was released Tuesday, includes $30 million to reimburse local police departments that provide security for lawmakers when they’re back in their home states, $30 million for the U.S. Marshals Service for “Executive Branch protective services” and $28 million to bolster security for U.S. Supreme Court justices.  

Democrats’ counter-proposal, released Wednesday, would fund the government through Oct. 31 and permanently extend the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

The legislation would reverse many of the health care proposals Republicans included in their “big, beautiful” law, including substantial changes and funding cuts to Medicaid. 

Democrats’ 68-page bill would bolster security funding considerably more than the GOP proposals. An additional $30 million would go toward mutual aid agreements with local and state police departments that provide security for members in their home states, $90 million would be provided for House security programs, and $66.5 million for the Senate Sergeant at Arms. 

There would be an additional $140 million for the federal courts, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Marshals Service.

No negotiations

Stopgap spending bills have been a relatively routine and bipartisan part of funding the government for decades, until this year when Republican leaders drafted the legislation on their own.

Democrats have said consistently that if GOP leaders don’t work with them to draft a bipartisan stopgap, they cannot expect Democrats to vote for the final product. 

The stalemate, which has to do with the process as well as significant policy differences, appears likely to lead to the first government shutdown since 2019. 

A funding lapse this year, however, will impact much larger swaths of the federal government than that 35-day shutdown. 

When that impasse began, Congress had passed five of the dozen full-year government funding bills, meaning that anyone working for Congress or in the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Labor and Veterans Affairs wasn’t impacted. 

Lawmakers have yet to pass any of the appropriations bills for the upcoming fiscal year, meaning every department and agency that makes up the federal government will have to decide which employees work without pay and which are furloughed if a shutdown begins. 

Those plans have been public in the past and appeared on the Office of Management and Budget’s website, but no guidance was posted as of Friday afternoon.  

The White House budget office did not respond to a request from States Newsroom about whether it intends to post agency contingency plans. 

Senators depart the Capitol

After Friday’s final vote, senators rushed out to catch flights back home. 

“That’s a wrap,” GOP Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno said as he walked off the Senate floor.

Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin brushed past reporters and declined to answer questions, saying she had to catch a flight back to Michigan. 

GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota exited the Capitol together. 

As the two walked to cars waiting for them just outside the Senate, Ernst told Klobuchar to enjoy her break and the Minnesota Democrat added that she hoped Republicans and Democrats could work together during the brief recess.

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said during a press conference that he was dumbfounded by Republicans’ actions. 

“I’m still a little flabbergasted that they couldn’t generate a majority for their own proposal and that we’re just over a week from a potential government shutdown,” Schatz said. “And I am more than a little flabbergasted that the House just decided after a six-week recess to take another recess and come back after the end of the federal fiscal year.”

Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines said during a separate press conference with GOP leaders that Democrats were bending to the demands of their voters. 

“Think about where we were the last time there was a CR to keep the government open, and Chuck Schumer voted for it,” Daines said. “What happened? The radical left attacked Chuck Schumer, and now today, he has yielded to the radical left that seeks a government shutdown.” 

Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, left, administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook, right, to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling and allow the president to fire Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a 41-page appeal that a district court blocking President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove Cook “involves yet another case of improper judicial interference with the President’s removal authority—here, interference with the President’s authority to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for cause.”

Trump has had an ongoing dispute with the independent Federal Reserve Board for months, repeatedly calling on them to lower interest rates, which they did on Wednesday. 

Trump said in late August that he wanted to remove Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, alleging she falsified some information in a mortgage application. 

Cook’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court a few days later, arguing that Trump’s attempts were political and violated her due process rights. 

U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb granted a preliminary injunction in early September, writing the case marks the first time in the Federal Reserve’s 111-year history that a president has sought to remove one of its members “for cause.”

The Federal Reserve Act doesn’t actually define what “for cause” entails, but Cobb wrote that reasons for firing under the law “are limited to grounds concerning an official’s behavior in office and whether they have been faithfully and effectively executing statutory duties. 

“The ‘for cause’ standard thus does not contemplate removing an individual purely for conduct that occurred before they assumed the position.”

The Trump administration appealed that ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

A three-judge panel from that court earlier this week rejected the Trump administration’s request to overturn the district court’s preliminary injunction while the case proceeds.

The 2-1 ruling split Judge Gregory G. Katsas, whom Trump nominated during his first term, and Judges J. Michelle Childs and Bradley N. Garcia, both nominated by former President Joe Biden.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters at the Capitol as lawmakers work on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on June 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to approve dozens of nominees, acting on a rule change GOP leadership made last week that allows the chamber to confirm some of the president’s appointees in large batches instead of one at a time. 

The 51-47 vote followed weeks of debate over whether senators could work out a deal on groups of nominees, with Democrats warning along the way that any changes to Senate procedures that benefit the Trump administration now will likely aid a future Democratic president. 

“What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber-stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last week after Republicans initiated the rule change.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a floor speech Thursday a few hours before the vote that changing the rules was necessary after Democrats “fully broke the confirmation process.”

Thune rebutted Democrats’ assessment that Trump has sent the Senate “historically bad” nominees, saying that many of his picks are getting Democratic votes. 

“Every single one of these 48 nominees was voted out of committee with bipartisan support. Every single one. A significant number of them were supported by a majority of Democrats on their respective committees,” Thune said.  

“Under any other president these would be exactly the type of nominees we would confirm in a batch by unanimous consent or voice vote,” Thune added. “Democrats’ obstruction is not about the quality of the nominees. Let’s just put that to rest, pure and simple. It’s about Democrats’ utter inability to accept the fact the American people elected Donald Trump.” 

The eight-page resolution, likely the first of many, lists 48 nominees, including 

• Theodore J. Garrish, of Maryland, to be an assistant secretary of Energy (Nuclear Energy);
• Jessica Kramer, of Wisconsin, to be an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency;
• Sean McMaster, of Virginia, to be administrator of the Federal Highway Administration;
• Justin Overbaugh, of Florida, to be a deputy under secretary of Defense;
• Scott Pappano, of Pennsylvania, to be principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration;
• Peter Thomson, of Louisiana, to be inspector general at the Central Intelligence Agency; and
• Andrea Travnicek, of North Dakota, to be an assistant secretary of the Interior.

The vote followed weeks of frustration from Trump and numerous GOP senators, who are exasperated by Democrats slowing down the confirmation process for lower-ranking nominees. 

The new way of handling nominations “en bloc” doesn’t apply to Supreme Court or higher-ranking judicial nominees, or Cabinet-level picks. 

People take photos of the closed signs at the Smithsonian National Zoo, which was closed to the public due to the government shutdown on Jan. 2, 2019 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have entered a stalemate over whether to fund the government for seven weeks or begin a shutdown that could last considerably longer, amid high partisan tensions.

Lawmakers, it seems, did not learn from two earlier shutdowns that produced zero results for Republicans who tried to force their policy preferences on Democrats.

The 2013 shutdown that lasted 16 days began with GOP demands to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and ended with it remaining the law of the land. 

The 2018-2019 shutdown started when President Donald Trump insisted on additional funding for a border wall, but concluded 35 days later with the same amount of money included in the original appropriations bill. 

This time around, however, it’s Democrats making demands ahead of a funding deadline and striking a markedly different tone from just a few months ago.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier this year that shutting down the government would cede considerable power to the Trump administration and represented a far worse option than advancing a Republican-drafted stopgap spending bill.

“President Trump and Republican leaders would like nothing more than to pull us into the mud of a protracted government shutdown,” Schumer said in March. “For Donald Trump, a shutdown would be a gift. It would be the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda.”

But that has all changed in the six months since. 

Schumer, who fielded considerable blowback from the Democratic base in March, now says his party will not help GOP leaders advance a seven-week temporary funding patch ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline, since — encouraged by Trump — they didn’t negotiate the bill. 

“Democrats don’t want a shutdown, but Republicans cannot shut Democrats out of the process and pretend like the last nine months have been business as usual,” Schumer said. ”Republicans know that these abuses can’t just continue as if everything is just fine.”

If Schumer sticks to that stance and is joined by enough other Democrats and independents, the Senate will not have sufficient votes for the funding patch. 

Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress but cannot advance legislation in the Senate without the support of at least 60 lawmakers, which typically forces bipartisanship on major issues. 

Schumer on a ‘fool’s errand’?

Republicans and Democrats interviewed by States Newsroom said the most recent shutdowns show that forcing a funding lapse doesn’t lead to policy wins or political victories. But they appeared to acknowledge the increasing likelihood of one beginning next month.  

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito referred to the prior government shutdowns as a “misery march” and deferred to Democrats on how exactly lawmakers would get out of a funding lapse if one begins. 

“When a shutdown gets predicated on a policy position that’s never going to work — which I think is what Schumer’s brought to (Majority Leader John Thune) — I think that it’s a fool’s errand, quite frankly,” Capito said. “And it’s unfair to the American people.”

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said Schumer should consider what Trump will do in the event of a shutdown, when the president has considerable authority to determine which federal workers and operations are exempt and which are not. 

“He will have pretty much unfettered discretion, at least in his mind, to do whatever he wants to do,” Kennedy said. “And I personally think the president will make it very painful.”

Exempt federal employees continue to work during a shutdown and often handle the preservation of life or property, or national security issues. Non-exempt workers are essentially furloughed. Both categories receive back pay once a shutdown ends. 

Trump bars negotiations with Dems

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said that Trump telling Republicans not to negotiate a short-term stopgap bill with Democrats led to the impasse.

“Shutdowns are terrible and they should be avoided. And Donald Trump may or may not know that the only way to avoid a shutdown is to work with both parties,” Schatz said. “And yesterday morning … he said, ‘I don’t need to deal with the Democrats.’ And so, Godspeed.” 

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said nothing can be accomplished unless Republican leaders begin serious talks over government funding. 

“Right now, we don’t even have a negotiation,” Murphy said. “The basic responsibility of a majority party when you’re working on a budget is to negotiate with a minority. You need our votes. So who knows what’s possible because right now, they’re refusing to talk to Democrats.”

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt said Schumer’s change in stance on shutdowns is largely political and stems from the criticism he experienced from his own party earlier this year after helping advance the March stopgap. 

Nearly every House Democrat voted against that six-month stopgap bill and many voiced frustrations after Schumer aided Republicans in advancing the bill through the Senate. 

“This is all about political theater because, unfortunately for all of us that are trying to actually get something done, he’s afraid of his own shadow. And that shadow’s name is AOC,” Britt said, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is rumored as a potential Democratic primary opponent when Schumer faces reelection in 2028. 

Dems want health care subsidy extension  

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said there’s still time to avoid a shutdown if GOP leaders begin serious bipartisan negotiations on funding and health care. 

“​​We still have time. We can negotiate a continuing resolution,” DeLauro said. “But there are, as I said, Democratic priorities. And look, the American people are very concerned about what’s happening with health care. It’s already out there. So, you know, they’re going to hear about it. They’ll hear about the fight that we’re going to make on this.”

Democrats have said for weeks that they want Republicans to negotiate an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the calendar year. The credits are used by people who purchase their own health insurance on the ACA market.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said earlier this week that he views that as “a December policy issue, not a September funding issue,” even though open enrollment in that health insurance marketplace begins on Nov. 1 and ends on Dec. 15. 

There are several health policy provisions in House Republicans’ stopgap spending bill, though none addressing that particular issue. 

Johnson hopes to pass the legislation this week amid a razor-thin majority and some opposition from within his own party. House approval, which is far from guaranteed, would send the bill to the Senate, where it likely will not get the votes to become law before the deadline.

Complicating matters is a week-long recess for Rosh Hashanah. Both chambers are set to return on Sept. 29, with very little time to broker a bipartisan agreement and hold votes, though leaders could cancel part of that break. 

No pay for feds during shutdown

The two most recent shutdowns began after GOP lawmakers believed it was the best way to bring attention to significant policy disputes and force Democrats to back their proposals. 

But the status quo remained after both shutdowns. 

Despite those experiences, Democrats appear ready to gamble they’ll have better luck amid the unprecedented actions of the second Trump administration to challenge the congressional power of the purse and more, though that’s far from a guarantee. 

Any shutdown, especially a prolonged one, would cause considerable financial strain for federal employees and Americans who rely on many government services. 

Since none of the dozen annual government funding bills have become law on time, all federal workers would go without pay during a shutdown, including those at the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior and Transportation.

Staff for members of Congress, who weren’t affected by the last shutdown, would miss their salaries this time around if a shutdown begins with the new fiscal year on Oct. 1. 

Former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Susan Monarez testifies before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Sept.17, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez testified before a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday that she was fired after just 29 days because she refused to pre-approve vaccine recommendations or fire career officials for no reason. 

Monarez, who was nominated by President Donald Trump earlier this year and confirmed by the Senate in July on a party-line vote, became a central figure in the country’s debate over public health last month after she refused to resign. 

Monarez testified that during a meeting in late August, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told her she needed to commit to approving upcoming recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without reviewing any data or research. 

“He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign,” Monarez said. “I responded that I could not pre-approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence and I had no basis to fire scientific experts.”

Monarez testified before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during the nearly three-hour hearing that she told Kennedy if he didn’t trust her, then he could fire her.

During that same late August meeting, Monarez said Kennedy told her the childhood vaccine schedule would be changing in September and that she needed to be on board with that.

“We got into an exchange where I had suggested that I would be open to changing childhood vaccine schedules if the evidence or science was supportive,” Monarez testified. “And he responded that there was no science or evidence associated with the childhood vaccine schedule.”

ACIP is scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday at the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Kennedy testified before a separate Senate committee earlier this month that he did demand that Monarez fire career CDC scientists but said he didn’t tell her to accept the recommendations of the vaccine advisory panel without further review.

“What I asked her about is she had made a statement that she was going to not sign on and I wanted clarification about that,” Kennedy said at the time. “I told her I didn’t want her to have a role if she’s not going to sign onto it.”

Vaccine safety at issue

Monarez said that undermining vaccine safety will lead to an increase in preventable diseases, some of which have long-term or even lifelong consequences for children’s health. 

“I believe that we will have our children harmed for things that we know they do not need to be harmed by — polio, measles, diphtheria, chickenpox,” she said. 

Former CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry told the committee there are significant ramifications if the new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, who were appointed by Kennedy after he fired all of the former members, don’t use rigorous science and data to make their recommendations. 

“It’s going to be heartbreaking,” Houry said. “I think what concerns me is these aren’t harmless diseases. We just saw the case in California of a young child that died of encephalitis years after measles. These diseases have long-term consequences and in the U.S. we have gone so far in reversing this. We don’t want our children to die.”  

Houry was one of several CDC officials who resigned after learning about Monarez’s firing, which happened just weeks after a gunman opened fire at the CDC’s headquarters, killing a police officer. 

Both Monarez and Houry testified, in response to a question from Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, that confusion about vaccines and CDC recommendations had real consequences. 

“I myself was subject to threats,” Monarez said. “And I am very concerned that the further promulgation of misleading information will undermine not just the safety and health of our children, but it will also exacerbate some of these tensions — the willingness to commit harm if someone is affronted by a belief that the people like us that are trying to help them are actually not trying to help them.” 

Houry told the committee the gunman fired about 500 rounds, with approximately 180 of those hitting the building. 

“Each bullet was meant for a person, and each of my staff were very traumatized afterwards,” Houry said. “I had staff that were covering their kids in the day care parking lot. There were people that were out at the ride-share as bullets were passing over their head. I have many that won’t speak about vaccines now and removed their names off of the papers. They don’t wish to present publicly anymore because they feel they were personally targeted because of misinformation.”

‘Did we do something wrong?’

HELP Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., said at the beginning of the hearing he intended to invite Kennedy and possibly other HHS officials to testify before his committee later in the year if they wanted to respond to what was said in the Wednesday hearing. 

He also raised concerns that Monarez was fired after less than a month in the role, despite her being nominated by Trump, confirmed by the Senate and Kennedy saying while swearing her in that she had “unimpeachable scientific credentials.”

“We as senators need to ask ourselves, did we look past something? Did we do something wrong?” Cassidy said. “It may be that we did nothing wrong, in which case, Dr. Monarez and Dr. Houry, the onus is upon you to prove that the criticisms leveled by the secretary are not true.”

Cassidy later added that “it may be impossible to learn who’s telling the truth.”

Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, ranking member on the committee, said the Trump administration’s decision to fire Monarez after less than a month in the CDC director’s role was because “she refused to act as a rubber stamp to implement Secretary Kennedy’s dangerous agenda to substantially limit the use of safe and effective vaccines that would endanger the lives of the American people and people throughout the world.”

Sanders raised concerns that the loss of career officials at the CDC and other federal health agencies could hamper the country from addressing disease outbreaks in the months and years ahead. 

Confusion over whether Monarez was recorded

There were a few awkward moments in the hearing, in addition to the serious discussion about the Trump administration’s approach to public health. 

One came after Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody mentioned twice during her five minutes of questions that Monarez had spoken with Cassidy about her firing, implying that was somehow improper.  

Cassidy gave a lengthy statement afterward, clarifying the record. 

“As chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over the CDC that favorably reported Dr. Monarez as the CDC director, it is entirely appropriate for someone with oversight concerns to contact my office, or me, or frankly any of us,” Cassidy said. “Upon receiving outreach from Dr. Monarez, I contacted both the secretary and the White House to inquire about what was happening and to express concerns about what was alleged. As soon as the director was fired, the HELP Committee began reviewing the situation, as it is our responsibility, and any and all communication with the witnesses was conducted by HELP staff in coordination with attorneys.”

Another somewhat uncomfortable and slightly confusing moment came after Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin told Monarez that someone had recorded her meeting or meetings with Kennedy.

Mullin then repeatedly questioned her recollection of her conversations with Kennedy, implying that he had a different view because he had listened to the recording. 

The exchange led Cassidy to give another statement to the committee. He appeared somewhat frustrated that someone gave just one senator on the panel the recording, that Mullin had not shared it with any other members of the committee and that HHS had chosen not to give it to the committee in response to a request for documents related to Monarez’s firing. 

“If a recording does not exist, I ask Sen. Mullin to retract his line of questions,” Cassidy said. “I’ll also note that if he has it, I’m also curious why only one senator was given this and why we’re just hearing about it now.”

A few minutes later, Cassidy announced to the hearing room that Mullin told reporters elsewhere that he was mistaken about there being a recording of the meeting or meetings. 

Monarez lawyer

Several GOP senators on the panel also questioned Monarez at length about when and why she chose to hire legal representation and why she ultimately went with Mark Zaid, who has made public statements against Trump and his policies. 

Monarez testified that she wasn’t aware of Zaid’s political beliefs when she hired him and hasn’t spoken with him about politics. 

“I was seeking some critical counsel to be able to help me make sure that I was understanding and aware of everything that had transpired and preparing for what might be next, including this committee hearing,” Monarez said. “Mark and I have never spoken about politics. I never asked him about his politics. He has never asked me about my politics.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson answers reporters' questions during a press conference in the Rayburn Room inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. Also pictured, from left to right, are California rancher and former president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Kevin Kester; Wisconsin Republican Rep. Tony Wied; Republican Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn.; and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republican leaders released a seven-week stopgap government funding bill Tuesday that’s intended to avoid a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. 

But GOP leaders opted not to negotiate the legislation with Democrats, who may be needed to approve the bill in the House and will be required to get past the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. 

Democrats for weeks have called on Republicans to address what they view as critical health care issues, including the expiration of expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits at the end of the calendar year and the effects of the GOP’s “big, beautiful” law on Medicaid recipients.

Speaker Mike Johnson said during a press conference shortly before the bill was released that he views the ACA tax credits as “a December policy issue, not a September funding issue,” even though open enrollment begins in November. 

“They don’t expire until the end of the year and so we have until the end of December to figure all that out,” Johnson said. “But I can tell you that there’s real concern. I have concerns. Republicans have concerns about those policies. 

“If you look at how much they’ve been abused, in my estimation, in some ways. There’s no income cap on it. People who make $600,000 a year get a government subsidy for their health care. I don’t think that’s going to be a popular measure when people understand how that works. There’s a relatively small number of people that are affected by it. But that policy has real problems.”

The tax credits are used by people who purchase their own health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

Schumer: Republicans ‘want to shut things down’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech before the bill was publicly released that GOP leaders shouldn’t expect Democrats to help them advance any legislation they didn’t negotiate in a bipartisan way. 

“They can try and play the blame game, but their actions tell a different story. Their actions show clearly they want to shut things down because they don’t want to negotiate with Democrats,” Schumer said. “And it’s more than that. It means Republicans don’t want to help the American people with the crisis they’ve created raising people’s costs, particularly their health care costs.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the stopgap spending bill, which would keep the government running through Nov. 21, is needed to give lawmakers more time to work out final, bipartisan versions of the dozen full-year government funding bills. 

“The goal here should be to fund the government the way it was intended to be funded — through the normal appropriations process,” Thune said. 

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., issued a joint statement shortly after the bill’s release, saying they’re ready to keep working with their Republican counterparts — House Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Senate Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine — on a bipartisan stopgap spending bill.

“Instead of continuing to work through important issues with us on the continuing resolution and government funding to help the middle class and the working class, House Republican leadership has walked away from negotiations and are now threatening a shutdown by trying to jam through a funding bill on their terms alone,” DeLauro and Murray wrote.

Security for members of Congress

The 91-page stopgap spending bill also includes $30 million in additional funds to bolster safety and security for members of Congress following an increasingly violent year that included the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, the killing and attempted killing of Democratic state lawmakers in Minnesota as well as some of their family members and arson at the Democratic Pennsylvania governor’s mansion. 

Members of Congress, their staff and their families are subject to thousands of threats each year, according to data from the U.S. Capitol Police. 

Johnson told reporters shortly after his press conference that he views the member security funding as a start and that there will be “more to come” in the full-year Legislative Branch funding bill.

Johnson said he expects the House will vote on the stopgap bill before Friday, when both chambers of Congress are set to leave on a week-long break for the Rosh Hashanah holiday week. 

Lawmakers aren’t expected to return to Capitol Hill until Sept. 29, with just hours to avoid a partial government shutdown if they cannot approve a stopgap bill in the days ahead.

The legislation includes an additional $30 million for the U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for the safety of federal judges and courthouses, as well as $28 million “for the protection of the Supreme Court Justices.” A GOP summary of the bill says the Marshals Service funding will go toward “Executive Branch protective services.”

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Salt Lake City is pictured on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (Photo by McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)

WASHINGTON — Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the country began telling Medicaid patients Friday that their routine health care appointments will no longer be covered as a federal court order takes effect. 

The change, which could remain in place for months, if not longer, will likely impact the hundreds of thousands of Medicaid enrollees who go to Planned Parenthood clinics for health care not related to abortion. 

“This decision is devastating to patients here in the state and across this country. And it is compounding what is an already broken and overstretched health care system,” said Shireen Ghorbani, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. “We know that cancers will go undetected, STIs will go untreated.”

Dominique Lee, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said there is no plan for other health care providers to absorb the Medicaid enrollees. 

“There’s no one waiting in the wings to take care of our patients,” Lee said. “Planned Parenthood is the safety net.”

Planned Parenthood has identified at least 200 clinics out of about 600 that could close if they cannot treat Medicaid patients and receive reimbursements from the state-federal health program for lower-income people and some people with disabilities.

“We are working, you know, feverishly with our colleagues and teams to mitigate that number,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said. “We have to remember 50% of Planned Parenthood patients use Medicaid for their health care insurance. And so that is a very meaningful impact to the health centers that also rely on reimbursement in the same way every other single health care provider relies on reimbursement for the services provided.” 

GOP law targets Planned Parenthood

Federal law for decades has barred funding from going toward abortion services with limited exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the pregnant patient. 

Earlier this year, Republicans in Congress included a provision in their “big, beautiful” law that prevents Medicaid funding from going to certain health care organizations that provide abortions and received more than $800,000 in reimbursements from the program during a recent fiscal year. 

The language, which originally applied for 10 years but was reduced to one year in the final version of the bill, appeared to specifically target Planned Parenthood. It prevents the organization from receiving any Medicaid funding for health care services unrelated to abortion, like annual physicals, cancer screenings and STI testing.

Planned Parenthood quickly filed a lawsuit in the federal district court in Massachusetts in July, shortly after President Donald Trump signed the legislation.  

A district court judge issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction that month, blocking the Department of Health and Human Services from implementing that one aspect of the law and allowing Medicaid patients to continue going to Planned Parenthood for routine health care services.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel from the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s ruling, clearing the way for the Trump administration to stop reimbursing Planned Parenthood for Medicaid patients while the case continues. 

Peyton Humphreville, senior staff attorney at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and one of the lawyers handling the lawsuit, said on a call with reporters Friday the organization is evaluating all of its options but doesn’t expect additional rulings until later this year at the earliest. 

“The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals has entered a briefing schedule on the preliminary injunction appeal that will be fully briefed by mid-November,” Humphreville said. “From there, the court will schedule oral argument and will at some point after the oral argument rule on the preliminary injunction appeal.”

Planned Parenthood signage is seen in New York City on April 16, 2021. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration can block Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood after an appeals court on Thursday overturned a lower court’s preliminary injunction. 

Republicans in Congress included the one-year funding prohibition in their “big, beautiful” law, which President Donald Trump signed in early July. 

The Department of Health and Human Services, however, has not been able to implement that policy change after a district court judge blocked it from taking effect in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood. 

The Trump administration appealed that ruling to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which released a two-page order Thursday without explaining its decision. 

The three-judge panel comprised Gustavo A. Gelpí, Lara E. Montecalvo and Seth R. Aframe, all of whom were nominated to their current position by former President Joe Biden. 

“The July 21, 2025 preliminary injunction and the July 28, 2025 preliminary injunction are hereby stayed pending disposition of the respective appeals,” they wrote.  

The Trump administration did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson wrote in a statement the court’s decision means that patients, “who rely on the essential health care that Planned Parenthood health centers provide, can’t plan for their futures, decide where they go for care, or control their lives, bodies, and futures — all because the Trump administration and its backers want to attack Planned Parenthood and shut down health centers. 

“This is a blow, but the fight isn’t over. For over 100 years, Planned Parenthood has faced unrelenting attacks, but we’re still here providing care, information, and resources. We will continue to fight this unconstitutional law, even though this court has allowed it to impact patients.”  

Federal law for decades has barred funding for abortion services with exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the pregnant patient. 

The new law blocks Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood for other types of health services, like annual physicals, cancer screenings, or birth control.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell administers the oath of office to Lisa Cook to serve as a member of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve System during a ceremony at the William McChesney Martin Jr. Building of the Federal Reserve May 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration made public Wednesday its plans to appeal a lower court ruling that keeps Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook on the independent central bank’s board, for now.  

In a 49-page opinion released late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb wrote that President Donald Trump “violated the Federal Reserve Act because (Cook’s) purported removal did not comply with the statute’s ‘for cause’ requirement” and that his attempts to remove Cook from the board “deprived her of procedural rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”

Trump said in late August that he wanted to remove Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, alleging she falsified some information in a mortgage application. 

Cook’s attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court a few days later, arguing that Trump’s attempts were political and violated her due process rights. 

Trump’s targeting of Cook comes amid his pressure campaign on Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates. 

Trump, who has been angling for more influence over the central bank, swiftly nominated his adviser Stephen Miran to fill a separate vacancy on the board ahead of the Fed’s meeting next week where members are widely expected to lower rates.

U.S. Senate Republicans advanced Miran’s nomination out of committee Wednesday morning. Miran is the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Ruling seen as affirming Fed independence

Cobb said the case marks the first time in the Federal Reserve’s 111-year history that a president has sought to remove one of its members “for cause.”

The Federal Reserve Act doesn’t actually define what “for cause” entails, but Cobb wrote that reasons for firing under the law “are limited to grounds concerning an official’s behavior in office and whether they have been faithfully and effectively executing statutory duties. 

“The ‘for cause’ standard thus does not contemplate removing an individual purely for conduct that occurred before they assumed the position.”

Cook’s attorney’s Abbe David Lowell, of Lowell and Associates, and Norm Eisen, head of the advocacy organization Democracy Defenders Fund, hailed the district court injunction.

“The court’s ruling recognizes and reaffirms the importance of safeguarding the independence of the Federal Reserve from illegal political interference,” Lowell and Eisen said in a statement Wednesday morning. 

“Allowing the president to unlawfully remove Governor Cook on unsubstantiated and vague allegations would endanger the stability of our financial system and undermine the rule of law. Governor Cook will continue to carry out her sworn duties as a Senate-confirmed Board Governor member.”

Judge Cobb agreed with their assessment that the president seeking to remove Cook represented irreparable harm and that “the public interest in Federal Reserve independence weighs in favor of Cook’s reinstatement.”

Cobb wrote that she “likely cannot directly ‘enjoin the President in the performance of his official duties’ to require him to reappoint Cook.” So she instead issued a preliminary injunction directing Powell “and the Board of Governors to allow Cook to continue to operate as a member of the Board for the pendency of this litigation.”

Attorneys for the Trump administration notified the district court they plan to appeal Cobb’s preliminary injunction to the the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. 

This story was updated at 4:33 p.m.