President Donald Trump attends inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump sought to remove his status as the only felon to be elected president by appealing his conviction on 34 New York state charges just before midnight Tuesday, arguing, in part, that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling giving the president broad immunity invalidated the conviction.

In a 96-page appeal nearly 18 months after his state court conviction that he falsified business records by disguising hush money payments over an alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels as legitimate legal payments, Trump’s attorneys recited a list of complaints over his prosecution.  

Among those complaints were that New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, targeted the then-former president, and that the presiding Democratic judge created at least the appearance of partiality, the appeal said.

“This is the most politically charged prosecution in our Nation’s history,” the lengthy brief began. “After years of fruitless investigation into decade-old, baseless allegations — and under immense political pressure to criminally charge President Donald J. Trump for something — New York’s district attorney manufactured felony charges against a once-former and now-sitting President of the United States.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment on the appeal Tuesday. 

Hush money

The case centered on payments Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, made to Daniels in the run up to the 2016 election. Trump wanted to keep her from telling the tabloid National Enquirer about a tryst she said she had with the married Trump years earlier. 

After Trump won the White House, his private business reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels, according to the 2023 indictment.

Federal prosecutors had explored whether the payment to Daniels could have violated campaign finance laws. Cohen paid Daniels to keep her from publicizing her account during Trump’s 2016 race against Hillary Clinton. 

They ultimately declined to bring charges.

Trump’s appeal this week said New York prosecutors impermissibly depended on campaign finance violations to charge him with felony business record falsification. 

To be charged as a felony, the business records must be falsified in service of another crime, but Trump argued Monday those allegations could not have been charged because federal law preempts state law.

The New York law also requires prosecutors to show the defendant had “intent to defraud” to win a conviction for falsifying business records. Bragg and his team did not do that at trial, Trump’s attorneys said.

SCOTUS immunity ruling

Trump’s attorneys also said the trial court admitted evidence that should have been protected by presidential immunity, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that established broad protections for sitting presidents.

The Supreme Court opinion said the president was not only protected from criminal charges based on official actions, but that any official action could not be used as evidence to prove an allegation that centered on an unofficial act.

The prosecution did include some official acts Trump took while in office, his lawyers said.

Prosecutors examined Hope Hicks, a former Trump White House communications director, Trump’s statements on social media, communications with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions — which Trump denies took place — and the president’s general work habits while in office. 

Those examples should all be considered official actions that are immune from being used in a criminal case, Trump’s attorneys wrote.

Lack of recusal broached

Trump’s attorneys also argued Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the trial, should have recused himself.

Merchan donated a total of $25 to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and to a political action committee called “Stop Republicans.” 

The nominal contributions violated a “clear bar on sitting judges making political contributions,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

His daughter also worked for a political organization that opposed Trump in 2020, the brief noted.

Trump had asked Merchan to recuse himself during the trial phase, but the judge declined. Trump’s attorneys said Monday that was a “clear ground for reversal” of the conviction.

“In the face of all these undisputed and damaging facts, Justice Merchan’s refusal to recuse created, at the very least, ‘the appearance of bias,’” they wrote.

Elected felon 

Whatever problems arose from Trump’s prosecution in New York, it had the political effect of elevating his stagnant comeback campaign.

At the nadir of his popularity following his 2020 election loss and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, several credible challengers entered the Republican presidential field for the 2024 cycle and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis led in some early polls.

But four criminal prosecutions, of which the New York hush money case was the first, had the effect of galvanizing Republicans and other voters who believed the former president was the victim of a political prosecution, and he easily won the GOP nomination. 

The prosecutions played out amid the 2024 campaign, and a New York jury convicted Trump of 34 felony counts on May 30, making him the first former president to be convicted of a felony.

He won that November’s election and became the first felon to be elected president. 

He successfully delayed sentencing until after the 2024 election. Merchan imposed a sentence of unconditional discharge on Jan. 10, 2025, allowing Trump to avoid prison time. 

Bananas and cereals at a grocery store in Fairfax, Virginia, on March 3, 2011. (USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.)

A coalition of Democratic state officials sued the Trump administration Tuesday, asking a federal judge to force the release of food assistance funds for 42 million people that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said cannot be paid during the ongoing government shutdown.

Attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors launched the suit days before benefits are expected to be cut off for low-income Americans enrolled in the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, on Nov. 1. 

Despite holding $6 billion in a reserve fund, USDA said last week it would not process November SNAP benefits without fiscal 2026 funding approved by Congress.

The USDA’s refusal to provide November benefits runs contrary to precedent from other recent shutdowns, and even the department’s own Sept. 30 contingency plan that said the contingency fund would be used to continue benefits through the shutdown. 

The administration has also shuffled some other money to provide funding for certain programs, but not SNAP.

The Democratic officials said those factors made the decision arbitrary and capricious, a violation of federal administrative law, and asked a federal court in Massachusetts to order the USDA’s move unlawful and block the administration from putting it in place.

“It is an abuse of discretion for Defendants to decline to use available appropriations, including the SNAP contingency reserve, to fund benefits for the mandatory SNAP entitlement program,” they wrote.

SNAP benefits typically cost the federal government about $9 billion per month, meaning the contingency fund could cover about two-thirds of November’s benefits.

The department could cover a full month by dipping into another USDA nutrition assistance program that holds about $23 billion, the state officials said. Part of that fund was used to cover a shortfall in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children earlier this month.

The attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin brought the suit, along with Democratic Govs. Laura Kelly of Kansas, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Shutdown politics

In an emailed statement, a USDA spokesperson did not address the lawsuit, which came from state officials, and instead blamed the shutdown on U.S. Senate Democrats.

“We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats,” the spokesperson wrote. “Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments.”

SNAP, which the federal government funds and states administer, is one of the high-profile programs affected by the government shutdown that began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate funds for the fiscal year that began that date.

Congressional Republicans have tried to pass a stopgap measure to reopen the government, but Democrats have successfully blocked that bill as they demand Congress address the expiration of health care premiums for coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

In a Tuesday afternoon letter, 19 Republican attorneys general called on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to support the Republican stopgap to prevent an interruption to SNAP benefits.

The letter, led by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, called SNAP “one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent hunger in America.”

“You have the power to prevent a crisis that is entirely avoidable,” the letter said. “A clean resolution is not a political concession; it is the responsible thing to do. … Refusing to do so now is not leadership; it’s leverage at the expense of the most vulnerable.

In addition to Yost, the letter was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.   

Benefits delayed already in some states

Because of processing times required to add money to SNAP recipients’ electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, cards, benefits for November may already be delayed in some states.

The suit says California’s EBT vendor, the private company contracted to load monthly benefits onto individuals’ EBT cards, requires about a week to process those transfers.

“So, in order to ensure recipients received their November 2025 benefits on time, California would have had to send its issuance files to its vendor by October 23, 2025,” the suit said. “Each day after October 23 that California does not send its issuance files to its vendor will result in November benefits being delayed another day.”

Additionally, because most states use one of two EBT vendors, there’s a strong possibility the vendors will be overwhelmed by the workload “from all their client-states at essentially the same time” once benefits are unfrozen, the state officials said. 

So even if USDA immediately released funding, there would be a lag before they appeared on EBT cards, they said.

Social Security benefits will see a 2.8% increase in payments next year, the Social Security Administration said Friday. (Photo illustration by iStock/Getty Images Plus)

The 75 million Americans who receive Social Security benefits will see a 2.8% increase in payments next year, the Social Security Administration said Friday. 

The cost-of-living adjustment is just below the inflation rate of 3% announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, also on Friday. 

The adjustment is lower than the average over the past decade, but higher than last year’s. The average adjustment for the past 10 years is 3.1%, including a 2.5% increase last year. On average, beneficiaries’ monthly payments will rise by about $56, the SSA said.

Beneficiaries include people who receive Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, as well as Supplemental Security Income.

“Social Security is a promise kept, and the annual cost-of-living adjustment is one way we are working to make sure benefits reflect today’s economic realities and continue to provide a foundation of security,” Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano said in a statement. “The cost-of-living adjustment is a vital part of how Social Security delivers on its mission.”

The tax rate for Social Security and Medicare will remain steady at 7.65% for employees and 15.3% for self-employed workers.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, speaks on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. Merkley began speaking Tuesday evening. (Screenshot via C-SPAN)

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley spoke on the Senate floor for nearly 23 hours beginning Tuesday night against what he called President Donald Trump’s authoritarian actions. 

Merkley started speaking after 6 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday and ceded the floor at about 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The marathon speech was not a traditional filibuster, in which a senator holds the floor indefinitely to block action on a piece of legislation, as the chamber has been stalemated for weeks over government spending. 

Instead, Merkley spokespeople say he is seeking to draw attention “to how Trump is ripping up the Constitution and eroding our democratic institutions.”

Merkley read from the book “How Democracies Die,” blasted the administration’s efforts to control media companies that broadcast critical content, such as CBS and Disney, and spoke against Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Democratic-led cities. 

The speech follows thousands of No Kings demonstrations throughout the country Saturday that saw millions protest against Trump, particularly an immigration crackdown and the use of military troops for policing. 

Early in his speech, Merkley focused on the National Guard deployments, which include Portland, Oregon. 

“This is an incredible threat to our nation, to the entire vision of our Constitution, to the entire platform on which our freedom exists,” he said.  “If you remove a clear standard as to whether there is a rebellion, and just say a president can deploy the military on a whim in places he doesn’t like, … then you have flung the doors open to tyranny.”

The Supreme Court on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

Every state with either a Democratic governor, attorney general or both signed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to side with Illinois and Chicago to continue blocking President Donald Trump’s proposed deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago.

In an amicus brief filed Monday in the Trump administration’s appeal to overturn lower courts’ rulings that Trump lacks the legal authority to send troops to Chicago, 24 Democratic officials argued that restraining presidential power to mobilize National Guard troops was an essential constitutional safeguard.

“The President has asserted a boundless power far out of step with our Nation’s laws and tradition: the power to federalize and deploy unlimited numbers of National Guard troops at his whim and without any judicial review,” they wrote. “This Court should not endorse such a power.”

State National Guard units are generally under the control of the state’s governor. Federal law does allow the president to federalize state National Guard units in rare cases of invasion, insurrection or when the state is unable to enforce federal laws. 

The Trump administration has argued that circumstances in Chicago constitute both the threat of an insurrection and the inability of local police to enforce federal law.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have argued that lower courts correctly decided that those circumstances were not met in Chicago and Trump may therefore not deploy troops to the city.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown and Washington state Attorney General Nicholas W. Brown led the brief. 

Attorneys general in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia also signed on, as did the governors of Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat whose state led its own lawsuit against Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, filed a separate amicus brief Monday.

The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Tussle over Chicago

The case stems from Trump’s order to federalize Illinois National Guard troops and deploy them to Chicago. 

Trump has said the move is needed to control crime that threatens federal personnel and buildings. Pritzker and Johnson, as well as the state officials in Monday’s brief, say the use of military forces to respond to routine crime is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution’s balance of powers.

The states, even where Trump has not threatened to send troops, are in danger of losing the power granted to them by the Constitution, the officials wrote. 

“President Trump’s invocation of 10 U.S.C. § 12406 to deploy armed, federalized National Guard soldiers and entangle them in everyday civilian law enforcement activities like responding to small-scale protests—over the objection of Illinois’s Governor—is a stunning break from law and tradition,” they wrote, referring to the law outlining the conditions under which a president may federalize a state National Guard.

High court appeal

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the Trump administration emergency motion for a stay Friday. He argued that an injunction from Illinois federal court on Oct. 7 wrongfully decided the scope of the president’s power to control National Guard units.

Sauer argued for a broader interpretation of Trump’s authority, saying the president alone could determine if the conditions for federalizing National Guard units had been met.

“The district court’s injunction impermissibly substitutes the court’s own judgment for the President’s on military matters and rests on a construction of Section 12406 that would render the statute a virtual nullity,” Sauer wrote in the Oct. 17 motion. “The injunction improperly impinges on the President’s authority.”

The Democratic officials on Monday called the assertion of such authority an overreach of presidential power.

“Allowing the President to commandeer state National Guards and use them at his whim would fundamentally upset the balance of power between States and the federal government,” they wrote. “This Court should decline Defendants’ invitation to take such an unprecedented and drastic step.”

Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton leaves federal court after pleading not guilty to charges of mishandling classified material on Oct. 17, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Bolton was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton pleaded not guilty in Maryland federal court Friday to eight counts of unlawful transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.

He was released from custody on personal recognizance bond, meaning he did not have to post bail but did have to surrender his passport and pledge not to leave the country. 

The next hearing was scheduled for Nov. 21.

In a statement shortly after an indictment against him was returned Thursday, Bolton said the prosecution was engineered by President Donald Trump in retaliation for criticism the longtime national security official had leveled against his one-time boss.

Bolton said the material he used for his 2020 book on his time as Trump’s national security advisor had been cleared for publication, and that he made the FBI aware of a 2021 hack of his private email.

During President Joe Biden’s four years in office, reviews of his case did not result in indictment, he continued. But federal law enforcement during Trump’s second presidency has sought to prosecute individuals opposed to the president, he said.

“These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct,” the statement said. “Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America’s constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom. I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power.”

Bolton was formally charged Friday with the 18-count indictment that accused him of transcribing handwritten notes containing classified information onto a word processor and sharing the material in the form of “diary” entries with two family members who were not cleared to receive classified information.

Bolton’s is the third indictment federal officials have secured in recent weeks against high-profile Trump critics. 

Former FBI Director James Comey was charged with lying to Congress following a major fallout in a Virginia federal prosecutor’s office that was widely reported to be over career staff refusing to proceed in the case against Comey.

New York Attorney General Leticia James was also indicted for charges related to a mortgage application.

Like Bolton, both Comey and James have proclaimed their innocence and said they were being persecuted as Trump critics.

A U.S. National Park Service lock keeps John Brown's Fort shut and secured in the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Lower Town on Oct. 2, 2025 in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, during the government shutdown. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Bare-bones staffing during the government shutdown across the Interior Department and the U.S. Forest Service is leaving America’s treasured natural assets vulnerable to lasting damage, according to advocates for public lands, including current and former agency employees.

National parks and most public lands remain accessible to visitors, including those run by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service. 

But the lack of staff already has led to reports of bad behavior, like illegal camping and BASE jumping at California’s Yosemite National Park, and parks advocates and workers told States Newsroom they fear more to come as the shutdown that began Oct. 1 continues with no end in sight.

Adjustments to park staff meant to “front-load visitor services” hide some of the long-term harms, said John Garder, the senior director of budget and appropriations at the advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association. 

The NPS furloughed more than 9,000 of its roughly 14,500 workers, according to a planning document published just before the shutdown began on Oct. 1. 

That has left the people responsible for protecting “irreplaceable resources” and trail management workers needing to instead clean visitor centers and oversee parking, Garder said.

“What that’s done is created this facade for the visitors, so that in many cases they don’t see the damage that’s happening behind the scenes,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Should parks be closed?

The NPCA, a nonprofit that advocates for national parks, has called for parks to close during the shutdown to avoid lasting damage. Others in the conservation community have joined in.

Aaron Weiss, the deputy director of the conservation advocacy group Center for Western Priorities, likened the situation to allowing visitors to ramble through an unstaffed Smithsonian museum.

“The national parks are effectively museums,” he said. “This would be like the Smithsonian saying, ‘Well, you know, we don’t have the staff to keep the Smithsonian museum staffed, but we’ll go ahead and leave the gates, the doors open, and come in and take a look, do what you want.’ 

“That would be horrifically irresponsible of the Smithsonian, but that is exactly what the National Park Service is saying.”

The nature of many park sites makes closing difficult. 

The largest parks, comprising sprawling lands, often lack comprehensive fencing or other ways to keep people out. Public lands outside the Park Service, including those managed by BLM and the Forest Service, are even less likely to have barriers to entry.

Still, the Interior Department under President Donald Trump has prioritized keeping parks open to an extent other administrations have not planned for during shutdowns, by transferring funds meant for park maintenance to be used for operations.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has downplayed reports of improper behavior in the parks while blaming the closures on congressional Democrats who have mostly opposed a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government. Democrats want Republicans to negotiate on expiring health care tax credits.

“Of course, all of our many sites…. would be better operated and better staffed if the Senate would just get us back in the government,” Burgum said in a Fox News interview Tuesday. “Way to go, Senate Democrats.”

Spokespeople for the NPS did not return messages seeking comment this week. Many communications staff across the federal government have been furloughed during the shutdown and are not legally allowed to respond to messages.

BLM spokeswoman Alyse Sharpe said in an email that the agency would “keep public lands as accessible as possible” during the shutdown. 

“Critical functions that protect life, property, and public health will remain in place, including visitor access in many locations, law enforcement, and emergency response,” she wrote.

Sharpe did not respond to questions about the concerns over lands’ long-term health.

‘Demoralizing’ atmosphere

Meanwhile, the shutdown has accelerated a drop in morale for the federal workforce responsible for public lands, at least some of whom are exasperated by what they see as the Trump administration’s failure to value their work. 

More than half of Interior’s nearly 60,000 employees have been furloughed during the shutdown. That reality, on top of staff reductions earlier this year and threatened additional layoffs by Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought, have added to a sense for many resource managers that the administration doesn’t place a priority on their jobs.

Chris Tollefson, a former communications official at the BLM and the Fish and Wildlife Service who took a buyout this year after a nearly 27-year run at the Interior agencies, said the administration’s posture was “demoralizing” for the agencies’ career employees who consider their work on behalf of public lands a calling.

“The people I know get into this because they care passionately about the land and about the resources they protect,” he said. “Most of them have deep roots in the communities they come from, and it’s really demoralizing to feel like your life’s work has been devalued and that what you’re doing doesn’t matter, that the people in charge feel like it doesn’t matter. So it’s been really hard.”

One furloughed Interior Department worker, who requested her identity be withheld because she is not authorized to speak to reporters, said the department may have trouble attracting qualified employees in the future.

“I came to the government to get a little bit more stability, thinking that it was going to be a safer bet,” the furloughed worker said. “And that has definitely not been the case. It’s not felt as stable as other positions. … I think a lot of folks that are with the federal government are there because of the perception of stability. When you take away that perception of stability, those positions aren’t going to be quite as attractive to talent that you would have attracted.”

Oil and gas permitting continues

Further irritating advocates of conservation, the shutdown has not slowed oil and gas development despite furloughs of staff responsible for science and recreation.

As of Oct. 15, the BLM had issued an average of 19.8 oil and gas permits per day since the shutdown began at the start of the month. That’s roughly on par with a typical month during Trump’s second administration, and represents the highest per-day average since May, according to an analysis of publicly available data by Weiss.

“It’s a statement of values,” Weiss said. “The Interior Department is telling the agency and telling America, ‘The folks who manage drilling on public lands are more important than the folks who actually do the day-to-day caring for our public lands.’ You don’t have the biologists, you don’t have the land managers, you don’t have the folks doing the trail maintenance. Those folks have all been furloughed, but the folks doing the oil and gas permitting are somehow essential.”

Agencies and departments can list some workers as exempt from furloughs. Those employees are kept on the job, though they generally do not receive paychecks until the government is reopened. 

In a post to Instagram on the first day of the shutdown, the Interior Department said it would continue issuing permits “and other efforts related to American Energy Dominance” despite a lapse in appropriations.

A lab tech uses equipment employed for in vitro fertilization. (Photo by Getty Images)

President Donald Trump said Thursday his administration had negotiated a lower price for a major fertility drug and would issue a regulation allowing employers to cover part of employees’ fertility coverage.

Pharmaceutical company EMD Serono will offer the popular in vitro fertilization drug Gonal-F at an 84% discount, Libby Horne, the company’s senior vice president of U.S. fertility & endocrinology, said in the Oval Office. 

The drug will be available on TrumpRX.com, a new website the White House has created to spotlight Trump’s work to reduce drug prices, Trump said.

The departments of Labor and Health and Human Services would issue guidance late Thursday, Trump said, to be followed by a regulation creating “a legal pathway for employers to offer fertility benefit packages” similar to vision or dental plans.

Sen. Katie Britt praised

The initiatives “are the boldest and most significant actions ever taken by any president to bring the miracle of life into more American homes,” Trump said. 

He credited U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, for bringing the issue to his attention. 

“She’s the first one that told me about this,” he said. “I had not known too much about it, and we worked very rapidly together.”

Britt advocated for IVF after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling last year made the treatment illegal in the state. The state Legislature soon passed a law to ensure IVF remained legal.

At the Oval Office event Thursday, Britt offered high praise for Trump, saying he had prioritized the issue since the first time the pair spoke by phone.

“IVF is what makes the difference for so many families that are facing infertility,” she said. “The recommendations today that President Trump has set forth are going to expand IVF coverage to nearly a million more families, and they’re going to drive down cost significantly. Mr. President, this is the most pro-IVF thing that any president in the history of the United States of America has done.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. added that Trump was also “addressing the root causes” of infertility through a Make America Healthy Again agenda that seeks to avoid exposure to chemicals. 

Warren calls moves ‘broken promises’

Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren minimized the announcements, saying they fell short of providing the free IVF coverage Trump had pledged to work toward. 

The Massachusetts Democrat added that private employers would likely not choose to offer fertility coverage and said other cuts to health coverage would more than offset any positives.

“Trump’s new genius plan is to rip away Americans’ health insurance and gut the CDC’s IVF team, then politely ask companies to add IVF coverage out of the goodness of their own hearts — with zero federal investment and no requirement for them to follow through,” she wrote on social media. “It’s insulting, and yet another one of Trump’s broken promises to American families.”

Trump, asked about potential opposition from religious conservatives who oppose IVF, said he was unconcerned. 

“This is very pro-life,” he said. “You can’t get more pro-life than this.”

President Donald Trump speaks as Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel, left, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi look on during a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel claimed victory Wednesday in what they said was a months-long surge of law enforcement in major cities and pledged to continue sending federal authorities to address violent crime in U.S. cities.

The FBI arrested more than 8,700 suspects during an initiative Trump dubbed “Operation Summer Heat” from June to September. 

The exact parameters of the operation, which had not been previously made public, were unclear as Trump and Patel said during an Oval Office appearance that they would continue to prioritize aggressive enforcement, particularly in major cities led by Democrats.

“Honestly, we haven’t really gotten going yet,” Trump said. “If we didn’t have to fight all these radical left governors, we could’ve had Chicago taken care of, as an example.”

Since June, Trump has pursued a controversial and legally questionable effort to send National Guard troops to U.S. cities — Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Memphis and Portland, Oregon — to deal with protestors and general street crime while consistently hinting that more deployments would be coming. 

He said Wednesday that residents of Chicago largely approved of aggressive policing tactics and were “walking around with MAGA hats.” Trump won just 28% of the vote in Chicago’s Cook County in the 2024 election, compared to 70% for Democrat Kamala Harris.

“They’re not interested in National Guard, Army, Navy — bring them in, bring in the Marines,” he said. “They just want the crime to stop.” 

The crime push took Trump by surprise, he said, noting it was not a primary part of his campaign.

“I did get elected for crime, but I didn’t get elected for what we’re doing,” he said. “This is many, many steps above.”

He also identified White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller as an architect and chief communicator of the administration’s law enforcement policies, though he made a passing implication that Miller’s far-right views were too extreme for much of the country.

“I love watching him on television,” he said. “I’d love to have him come up and explain his true feelings. Maybe not his truest feelings — that might be going a little bit too far. But Stephen, thank you for doing an incredible job. The people of this country love you.”

Political crime and Caribbean boats

Trump again broached the possibility of defying two typical norms of presidential power: calling for prosecutions to retaliate against officials who’d investigated him and defending the extrajudicial strikes on alleged drug runners in the Caribbean Sea that he said could expand to land.

Standing between Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump said U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, who, as a U.S. House Democrat before joining the Senate, led congressional investigations into Trump, and former prosecutor Jack Smith, who led criminal prosecutions, should be investigated.

“Deranged Jack Smith is, in my opinion, a criminal,” Trump said. 

“I hope they’re looking at Shifty Schiff,” he added, referring to the California Democrat. “I hope they’re looking at political crime, because there’s never been as much political crime against a political opponent as what I had to go through.”

Trump said the military’s attacks on vessels suspected to be bringing drugs to the United States had effectively halted drug importation from Venezuela. The operation could expand to land targets, he said.

“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” he said.

In an aerial view, a container ship arrives at the Port of Oakland on Aug. 1, 2025 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump threatened to add a 100% tariff rate on Chinese goods Friday, saying in a social media post he was responding to export controls from the world’s second-largest economy.

“China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Control on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The United States would respond with the 100% tariff on Chinese goods, also starting Nov. 1, he said. The tariffs would be stacked onto existing tariffs his administration has imposed on the country, he said.

Trump added that he would impose his own export controls “on any and all critical software.”

“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” he wrote.

Trump left open the possibility of scrapping or adjusting the additional tariffs before November, saying in the Oval Office late Friday that “We’re gonna have to see what happens.”

“That’s why I made it Nov. 1,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

He told reporters he has not canceled a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at an international economic conference in South Korea this week, but raised some doubt that the meeting would take place.

“I don’t know that we’re going to have it,” he said. “But I’m going to be there regardless, so I would assume we might have it.”

Tariffs a main part of Trump policy

Trump has used tariffs, taxes paid by the importer of foreign goods, as the central tool of his trade policy, applying broad tariffs on U.S. allies and adversaries alike, with a particular focus on China.

The two countries imposed escalating trade barriers on one another since Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs in early April. The U.S. tariff rate for Chinese goods peaked at 145% before the two sides negotiated an end to the trade war. 

Chinese goods still see a base tariff rate of 30%.

Trump invoked emergency authority to raise tariffs on China, arguing that the tariffs were a putative measure for China’s inability to control fentanyl supplies flowing into the U.S., but federal courts are still deciding the legality of that move.

Members of the Texas National Guard are seen at the Elwood Army Reserve Training Center on Oct. 7, 2025 in Elwood, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s novel use of National Guard troops for law enforcement purposes has reopened a debate over states’ authority to control police powers, as dueling briefs from current and former state leaders filed in Illinois’ lawsuit against the president show.

A bipartisan group of former governors said Trump’s federalization and deployment of National Guard members to Chicago to control “modest” protests upended the careful balance between state and federal powers. 

At the same time, a group of 17 current Republican attorneys general told the court they supported the administration’s move that they said was necessary to protect immigration enforcement officers.

Both groups submitted friend-of-the-court briefs in the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division brought by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to block the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to the nation’s third-largest city. 

Trump on Wednesday called for the arrest of Johnson and Pritzker for not assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, a provocative demand that raised further concerns about his administration’s relationship with state leaders.

The bipartisan group supported Pritzker and Johnson’s call for a restraining order to block the deployment, while the Republicans said the restraining order should be denied.

Democratic attorneys general back Oregon 

In another case, in which Oregon is challenging Trump’s order to deploy troops to Portland, Democratic governors or attorneys general in 23 states and the District of Columbia argued in support of the state’s position.

Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was among those siding with Oregon, said Wednesday he did so to “put an end to the dangerous overreach of power we are seeing with Donald Trump’s Guard deployments.”

The brief was also signed by Democratic state officials from Washington state, Maryland, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Kansas and Kentucky and the District of Columbia’s attorney general.

Former govs say deployment robs state authority

The federalist structure of the U.S. government, which bestows powers to both the federal and state governments, leaves broad police power to the states, the bipartisan group wrote. 

Sending military forces to conduct law enforcement would unbalance that arrangement, they said.

That group includes Democratic former Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Steve Bullock of Montana, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, Parris Glendening and Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, Christine Gregoire, Jay Inslee and Gary Locke of Washington, Tony Knowles of Alaska, Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Steve Sisolak of Nevada, Eliot Spitzer of New York, Ted Strickland of Ohio, Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania.

GOP former Govs. Arne Carlson of Minnesota, Bill Graves of Kansas, Marc Racicot of Montana, Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey also signed the brief.

“The present deployment of military resources, based on an assertion of nearly unfettered federal authority, is unlawful,” they wrote. “The president’s assertion of authority to deploy military troops on domestic soil based on his unreviewable discretion, and without the cooperation and coordination of state authorities, threatens to upset the delicate balance of state and federal authority that underlies our constitutional order.”

The Trump administration misunderstands the section of federal law that Trump has relied on to federalize National Guard troops, the group said. 

The administration’s claim that only the president can decide if the conditions are met for National Guard units to be federalized “not only undermines state sovereignty but also deprives governors of a critical public safety tool,” they wrote.

“If federalization of the National Guard is unreviewable, a president motivated by ill will or competing policy priorities could divert Guard resources away from critical state needs, including natural disasters or public health crises,” they continued.

States need ICE enforcement, GOP govs say

The group of current Republican attorneys general argued their states are harmed by the protests in Chicago and other cities that impede federal ICE officers from doing their jobs.

The attorneys general are Brenna Bird of Iowa, Austin Knudsen of Montana, Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Steve Marshall of Alabama, Tim Griffin of Arkansas, James Uthmeier of Florida, Chris Carr of Georgia, Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, Todd Rokita of Indiana, Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Catherine Hanaway of Missouri, Michael T. Hilgers of Nebraska, Marty Jackley of South Dakota, Ken Paxton of Texas and John B. McCuskey of West Virginia.

They described the protests in Chicago as acts of violence that require a strong response.

“Rather than protest peacefully, some of those protests became violent, threatening federal officers, harming federal property, and certainly impeding enforcement of federal law,” they wrote. “President Trump’s deployment of a small number of National Guard members to defend against this lawlessness is responsible, constitutional, and authorized by statute.”

The attorneys general added that their states had been harmed by immigrants in the country without legal authorization who had settled in their states, which they said gave the president a public interest purpose in calling up troops to assist. 

“The President’s action of federalizing the National Guard furthers the public interest because it allows ICE agents to continue to perform their statutory duties of identifying, apprehending, and removing illegal aliens, which is the only way to protect the States from the harms caused by illegal immigration,” they wrote.

An Alaska Airlines jet lands at Newark Liberty International Airport. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

The Federal Aviation Administration reported no travel delays due to staffing levels at U.S. air traffic control facilities Wednesday, following a day of some delays related to above-average absences at a handful of facilities.

An FAA operational plan posted about noon Eastern Time on Wednesday, the eighth day of the federal government shutdown, showed no facilities impacted by “staffing triggers.” A day earlier, the same memo showed staffing levels affected operations at major hub airports in Phoenix and Denver, as well as a smaller airport in Burbank, California.

Air traffic controllers are essential to the functioning of the nation’s air transportation system and must continue to work during a shutdown, though they are not paid while it is ongoing.

The group has not yet missed a paycheck during the current lapse in federal funding. The first impact most federal employees will see on their pay will be Friday, when electronic funding transfers are made for the pay period from Sept. 24 to Oct. 7. 

Because Congress has not appropriated money beyond Sept. 30, they would only receive a partial paycheck. Future paychecks would not be allocated until the government reopens.

‘How am I going to pay my mortgage?’ 

The possibility of working without pay is stressful for air traffic controllers, possibly leading to worsening performance or motivating some to call in sick to work on-demand jobs such as driving for ridesharing services, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a Monday press conference in Newark, New Jersey.

“Now what they think about as they’re patrolling our airspace is, ‘How am I going to pay my mortgage? How do I make my car payment? I have a couple kids at home, how do I put food on the table? I’m working six days a week, do I have to take a second job and drive Uber?’” Duffy said.

Duffy said there was a slight uptick in controllers calling in sick, but that it had not been widespread. 

Extensive “sick-outs” among air traffic controllers were a major factor in ending the last partial government shutdown, which occurred during President Donald Trump’s first presidency in 2018. 

“Absenteeism as a concern: We’ve had a few airports and we’re tracking it,” Duffy responded to a reporter who asked about the issue. “We don’t have one facility that has had long-term issues with sick leave, but that is concerning to me. And if someone has to take sick leave to drive Uber to make the difference … of course that’s concerning for us.”

Union chief calls for reopening government

Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said on a CBS Evening News interview Tuesday the union is not coordinating absenteeism and is encouraging members to stay on the job during the shutdown. Air traffic controllers are prohibited by law from striking or taking other actions to disrupt the air transportation system.

Daniels also called on Congress to reopen the government as soon as possible to ease the strain on the workforce.

“There is no concerted effort for air traffic controllers to go in and somehow impede this system,” Daniels said. “But what it shouldn’t be is waiting to see how long air traffic controllers can last.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a news conference in Chicago on Oct. 6, 2025. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson stands at right. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday in Illinois over Chicago’s lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the state before deciding whether to block the move, the judge wrote in an order.

In a one-paragraph order, U.S. District Judge April M. Perry, whom Democratic President Joe Biden appointed to the bench, set an 11:59 p.m. Wednesday deadline for the Trump administration to respond in writing to the suit filed by the Democratic leaders of Illinois and its largest city, which they filed Monday morning. 

Perry did not immediately grant the restraining order Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson sought to block the deployment at the outset of the case.

Perry said she expected the federal government’s response to include evidence about when National Guard troops would arrive in Illinois, where in the state they would go and “the scope of the troops’ activities” once there. She set oral arguments for 11 a.m. Central Time on Thursday.

The suit seeks to stop Trump’s federalization of Illinois National Guard and mobilization of Texas National Guard troops to the state. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has also agreed to send Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, at Trump’s request.

Pritzker and Johnson’s complaint calls the federalization of state National Guard troops “illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional.” The Democrats added that the move was “patently pretextual and baseless,” meaning it could not satisfy the legal requirements for a president to wrest from a governor control of a state’s National Guard force.

Pritzker, appearing at a Tuesday event in Minneapolis with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the federal government has been noncommunicative about the plan for the National Guard troops, but had received “reports” that troops have arrived at a federal facility in the state.

“We don’t know exactly where this is going to end,” he said. “What we know is that it is striking fear in the hearts of everybody in Chicago.”

A federal judge in another case blocked the deployment to Portland after city and Oregon leaders sued to stop it. The federal government appealed that order, and a panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Thursday, according to a scheduling notice posted Tuesday.

Insurrection Act cited by Trump

Trump has said the extraordinary use of troops, which raises serious legal and constitutional questions about the line between military forces and domestic law enforcement, is necessary to control crime in some Democrat-led cities, including Chicago and Portland. 

State and local leaders in those jurisdictions, as well as Los Angeles, have said military personnel are not needed to supplement local police. Pritzker called the proposed deployment to Chicago an “invasion.”

Trump indicated Monday he may seek to further escalate the push for military involvement domestically, saying he would have no qualms about invoking the Insurrection Act, which expands presidential power to use the military for law enforcement.

“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” he told reporters. “If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were getting killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.”

Democratic U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon and Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff from California — the three states where Trump has sent troops over the governors’ objections — called on Trump to withdraw the troops in a Tuesday statement that warned of the escalating conflict between blue states and the federal government.

“Donald Trump is stretching the limits of Presidential authority far past their breaking point and moving us closer to authoritarianism with each dangerous and unacceptable escalation of his campaign to force federal troops into American communities against the wishes of sovereign states in the Union he is supposed to represent,” the senators wrote.

Dems in Congress question raid

Trump’s use of National Guard troops is in part a response to protests in Democratic cities over this administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement.

Trump has surged immigration enforcement officers to certain cities. Those agents have pursued sometimes aggressive enforcement, including a Sept. 30 raid on a Chicago apartment building that has been criticized for using military-style tactics.

A group of eight U.S. House Democrats wrote Monday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling for an investigation into that raid.

The members were Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, J. Luis Correa of California, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania and Delia Ramirez and Jesús “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois.

“We write to express our outrage over the immigration raid,” they said. “Treating a U.S. city like a war zone is intolerable.”

J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this report.

Federal agents, including members of the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol, and police, attempt to keep protesters back outside a downtown U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Oct. 4, 2025 in Portland, Oregon.  (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The White House slammed a President Donald Trump-appointed federal judge Monday for blocking the deployment of National Guard troops to Oregon, as hostilities escalate between the administration and Democratic states where Trump has begun sending in troops over governors’ objections.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration is within legal bounds and will appeal the district court’s decision, which she described as “untethered in reality and in the law.” 

“The president is using his authority as commander in chief, U.S. Code 12406, which clearly states that the president has the right to call up the National Guard in cases where he deems it’s appropriate,” Leavitt said at the press briefing, referring to a section in Title 10 of the U.S. Code that authorizes the president to send in the National Guard in cases of invasion or rebellion.

Leavitt told reporters that a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, facility in Portland where nightly protests have been occurring has been “under siege” by “anarchists.”

“They have been disrespecting law enforcement. They’ve been inciting violence,” Leavitt said.

Mainstream local media reports and statements from local officials have contradicted that claim.

​​”There is no need for military intervention in Oregon. There is no insurrection in Portland. No threat to national security,” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said in a statement Sunday.

Federal agents used tear gas and pepper balls on nonviolent protesters Saturday evening, according to local media reports.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also filed a legal challenge against the administration Monday morning. A federal judge set a hearing for Thursday. Illinois and Chicago sought a temporary restraining order to stop Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from ordering Texas and Illinois Guard troops to the country’s third-largest city.

Trump teases Insurrection Act 

Trump on Monday afternoon raised the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, a tool to expand the president’s legal authority for using military personnel for domestic law enforcement.

Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office the conditions under which he would invoke the law, Trump said “if it was necessary,” and speculated that he could use it to defy courts or state officials.

“So far it hasn’t been necessary,” he said. “But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were getting killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that. I want to make sure that people aren’t killed. We have to make sure our cities are safe.”

Court battle in Portland 

In Oregon, federal District Judge Karin Immergut broadened her order Sunday night barring the Trump administration from deploying any National Guard troops to Portland. 

The edict came after Trump and Hegseth defied a temporary restraining order that Immergut issued Saturday halting 200 Oregon National Guard troops from being sent there. 

Immergut was nominated by Trump in 2019 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate by voice vote.

The administration maintains the Guard is needed to protect federal agents, as sustained small protests pop up outside an ICE facility 2 miles south of city hall. Kotek rebuffed Trump’s claims that the city is “on fire” and said local authorities are equipped to handle the demonstrations that lately range from a dozen or so people to roughly 100.

Trump ordered 101 California National Guard troops to Portland overnight, without the knowledge of Kotek, she said Sunday. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat, confirmed that Trump had ordered up to 300 of his state’s National Guard troops to Oregon. 

Just before Immergut’s Sunday night emergency hearing, an Oregon assistant attorney general filed a memo with the court showing that Hegseth had ordered 400 Texas National Guard troops to Portland and Chicago.

California joined Oregon and Portland in suing the administration.

‘A domestic militarization’

Pritzker said he has urged Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to “immediately withdraw his support for this decision and refuse to allow Texas National Guard members to be used in this way.”

“Let me be clear, Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,” Pritzker said at a press conference Monday afternoon.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said the deployment “is unfair to National Guardsmen, it is unfair to local law enforcement, and it is certainly unfair to the law-abiding citizens of Illinois who do not want to be subject to military occupation.”

Chicago is nearly a month into a federal immigration crackdown. Dozens of federal agents raided an apartment building in the city’s South Shore neighborhood on Sept. 30, ziptying adults and children, and detaining some U.S. citizens, according to multiple media reports. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security published a highly produced video of the raid on social media.

Trump’s federalization and deployment of National Guard troops to mostly Democratic-run states has alarmed political and constitutional experts. 

Pat Eddington, senior fellow in homeland and civil liberties at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he agrees with Pritzker’s concerns.

“I share his belief 100% that the use of the American military and all these massive employment of ICE and HSI and FBI and marshals and the rest for ostensible immigration enforcement and ostensible crime control, it’s really designed to lay the groundwork to normalize a militarization, essentially a domestic militarization of Americans, civic life,” Eddington told States Newsroom in an interview in late September.

On a Monday afternoon press call, Hima Shansi, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security program, said Trump’s use of military and federal police forces in recent months “raises serious constitutional concerns in terms of federalism, the separation of powers between the federal government and the states which generally exercise police power.”

“What that means in real-people language is that, as the states have been saying, they are fully capable of doing their jobs as needed, and there is absolutely no reason for the president to assert federal power in the way that he is forcibly doing.”

Starting in Los Angeles

Trump federalized California National Guard troops and deployed U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in June in response to protests against aggressive immigration enforcement there. 

Newsom objected to the plan and sued to stop the deployment. A federal judge initially sided with the Democratic governor and blocked the deployment, but an appeals panel reversed the decision. 

The trial court ruled again in September that Trump had overstepped the line separating military forces from law enforcement. The administration has appealed.

While that case in California was ongoing, Trump also ordered the District of Columbia National Guard to assist local police in the nation’s capital. Because the district is a federal territory, it is relatively clear that move was within the president’s legal authority, even if many Trump critics questioned its necessity. 

National Guard troops from several Republican states also deployed to the district in a more legally dubious move.

Trump also ordered Tennessee National Guard troops to Memphis last month, with the approval of the state’s Republican governor.

Ashley Murray reported from Washington, D.C. Jacob Fischler reported from Portland, Oregon.

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

State officials from both parties urged Congress to avoid a government shutdown Monday, though Republicans were pushing harder for an extension of current funding.

Though they sometimes clash with federal directives, states depend on funding from the federal government for numerous programs. A government shutdown, which would have a wider effect than any in recent years because Congress has not passed any of the dozen annual funding bills, would delay or cancel that support.

The National Governors Association issued a statement Monday from its chair and vice chair, Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, calling on Congress to come together to avoid a shutdown. The bipartisan group comprising all the nation’s governors generally avoids commenting on controversial issues that divide its membership.

“The consistent use of political brinksmanship when it comes to our government funding does not serve our states, territories or our people well,” they wrote. “It is long past time to stop kicking the can down the road and return to the regular order of debating and passing a budget, but at this juncture, Congress has a responsibility to ensure the government remains operational. We urge federal leaders from both sides to work to set aside political games and pass a budget that reflects the values and promises states commit to every day.”

While members of both parties expressed a desire to avoid a shutdown, they proposed different solutions. 

Republicans urged lawmakers to approve the “clean” continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels, while Democrats backed up their party’s position in Congress to seek an extension of health insurance subsidies in a funding bill.

“Allowing a shutdown would consequently and needlessly disrupt our economies, threaten public safety, and undermine public confidence in our institutions,” 25 Republican governors wrote in a Monday letter to congressional leaders. “Our families and communities would feel the pain with immediate effect and confusion.”

Partisan differences over shutdown extend beyond the Beltway

The U.S. House, where Republicans hold a majority, passed a stopgap spending measure this month, but it failed to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the U.S. Senate, as Democrats have declined to support a proposal that does not address health care costs. 

At the state level, the debate has fallen along similar lines. 

“Put simply, a  government shutdown should not be used as political leverage to pass partisan reforms — these are not chips Congress should be bargaining with,” the Republican governors wrote. “The proposed budget extension is a straightforward, bipartisan solution. There are no gimmicks or partisan poison pills; it’s a clean, short-term funding measure that both parties have historically supported.”

Republican state attorneys general sent a similar letter, which noted a shutdown would affect state and local law enforcement.

Democrats throughout the country, though, echoed congressional messaging that Congress should extend the health care subsidies that were included in the 2010 health care law known as the Affordable Care Act, and take more steps to reduce the cost of health care. Republicans’ failure to include such provisions would put blame for the shutdown on the GOP, Democrats have said.

“Instead of supporting a plan that would lower costs and stop making health care more expensive, Senate Republicans are blindly following Donald Trump and pushing the country towards a devastating government shutdown,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who chairs Senate Democrats’ campaign organization, said in a Sept. 19 statement.

In a press release last week, the Democratic Governors Association touted efforts by its members to call for extending subsidies.

“DGA Chair Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, Delaware Governor Matt Meyer, and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham called on Congressional Republicans to extend critical Affordable Care Act subsidies that 22 million Americans rely on and avoid a government shutdown,” the release read. 

“Without action from Republicans in Congress, health care costs for hardworking Americans who rely on these subsidies will balloon by an average of over 75 percent.”