Zelenskiy Arrives After Putin Call
There could be some frustration today when Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy goes to the White House.
Instead of signaling interest in selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles that can strike deeper into Russian territory, President Donald Trump did a day-before shift, saying, “We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete for our country.”
Trump spoke yesterday with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and let him potentially stall action on weapons sales by promising to attend a bilateral meeting “within two weeks or so.”
“Putin is essentially buying time, delaying the delivery of much-needed United States weapons to Ukraine and the implementation of the energy sanctions that Trump has promised,” according to Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Read More
See Also: Russia Sanctions Bill To Get Senate Vote in ‘Next 30 Days’
Shutdown Milestone
It’s Day 17 and Congress has set a new record: failing to get even one appropriations bill enacted has created the longest full government shutdown in US history.
While fiscal 1996 and 2019 began with longer shutdowns, some spending bills had been handled, Maeve Sheehey reports. And on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are raising alarms about the “T” word — Thanksgiving.
“Airports will be flooded with flight cancellations and delays amid the busiest time to travel all year” if the shutdown continues, said House Republican Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.). Read More
House members have been on an extended district work period, as leaders insist that the stopgap bill they already said yes to is the one deserving of consideration. The Senate is scheduled to return Monday, when there’ll be another vote on temporary spending.
On Tuesday, the Senate Commerce Committee plans to consider compromise legislation requiring new aircraft to include tracking technology known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance. It also would require safety reviews at major airports nationwide, Zach Williams reports.
Subscribers can read more about what’s in store in Congress Tracker.
Layoff Watch
The White House has said it wants to fire thousands more federal employees, even though the first tranche of personnel removals is in a court-ordered pause — litigation that Ian Kullgren examined in detail. Read More
The American Federation of Government Employees said in a court filing that the Interior Department is preparing to execute mass layoffs Monday, Isaiah Poritz reports. Read More
See Also:
- Both Parties Turn to ‘No Kings’ Rally In Search Of Shutdown Edge
- Food Stamp Funds to Dry Up If Shutdown Persists, USDA Warns
- Judiciary Funding Lapse Strains Defense Bar as Shutdown Drags On
The Docket Grows
The lawsuit that resulted in a temporary halt to federal layoffs has been followed by more litigation against Trump initiatives.
The latest include:
- A suit by the US Chamber of Commerce over a $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications Read More
- A challenge by New York City over education grants Read More
- A multi-state lawsuit over solar energy grants Read More
- A First Amendment case brought by labor unions contesting the monitoring of social media of visa holders and US legal residents. Read More
Eye on the Economy
An announcement could come as soon as today on the break from tariffs that American car makers have been lobbying for.
Gabrielle Coppola and Catherine Lucey report that the Commerce Department is preparing a five-year extension of an arrangement that lets the auto companies reduce what they pay in tariffs on imported car parts. Read More
The market today will be watching for more signs of trouble at regional banks.
And looking ahead, Bureau of Labor Statistics staff who were recalled to work on an important report will release an update of the Consumer Price Index next week.
That report is late because of the shutdown, which hit just as the agency was supposed to prepare the numbers used to calculate cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security checks. (That bump is tied to the average inflation data for July, August, and September, and it’s the September number that’s missing.)
Also on Friday, a different kind of inflation data will be released: the update of the monthly consumer confidence survey by the University of Michigan.
See Also:
- Trump Strikes Deal With German Merck on Tariffs and IVF Costs
- US Tariff Take Helps Trim 2025 Deficit to $1.78 Trillion
- US Shutdown Threatens to Erode Quality of Important Inflation Data
- Global CEOs Meet Chinese Trade Negotiator as Tensions Linger
- Takeaways from the World’s Economic Power Players’ DC Meetings
Campaign 2026
North Carolina lawmakers on Monday will start considering a new congressional district map. It’s designed to make it difficult for two-term Democrat Don Davis to keep his seat and to make it easier for Republicans to expand their House majority.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein (D) isn’t permitted to veto a congressional map, Greg Giroux reports. Read More
Before You Go
Indictment: Former national security adviser John Bolton, who became one of Trump’s fiercest critics, is the latest of the president’s perceived enemies to face criminal charges. Bolton’s lawyer said the allegations related to to the transmission or retention of national defense information involve personal diaries “that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021.” Read More
No Sir: Add the University of Pennsylvania and University of Southern California to the list of institutions declining to join the Trump administration’s proposal that links federal funding to restrictions on hiring, admissions and tuition. They join MIT and Brown. Read More
Sanctuary City Retaliation: Withholding transit grants because of an unrelated immigration policy “is arbitrary, capricious, and a blatant violation of the law,” US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said in an order granting a permanent injunction requiring the federal government to provide $34 million in pulled funds to New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Read More
Chicago Troops: A federal appeals court has largely preserved an order blocking the administration’s use of soldiers to respond to protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown. The appellate panel agreed with Illinois officials that the federal government had failed to show any evidence to justify the use of troops in the city. Read More
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(Corrects spelling of Zelenskiy in headline.)
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