WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will meet with the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Monday as the clock draws nearer to a potential government shutdown, one White House and four congressional officials told NBC News.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., along with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., are expected to attend.
Punchbowl first reported the news.
The development comes after Trump abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Democratic leaders on Thursday, at the urging of Johnson and Thune. The president at the time called Democratic demands “unserious and ridiculous.”
Since then, Jeffries and Schumer have been trading very public barbs with Trump over the looming government shutdown and Democrats’ demands to attach health care policies to the temporary funding bill.
Jeffries and Schumer issued a joint statement Saturday evening.
“President Trump has once again agreed to a meeting in the Oval Office,” the Democratic leaders said. “As we have repeatedly said, Democrats will meet anywhere, at any time and with anyone to negotiate a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people. We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis. Time is running out.”
Republicans have insisted that they won’t make concessions to pass a short-term funding bill for seven weeks, and that any negotiations can occur during the appropriations process.
Tensions escalated when the White House Office of Management and Budget this week instructed agencies to prepare mass firing plans in case of a shutdown.
Government funding is set to expire on Sept. 30, threatening the jobs of millions of federal workers. Congress must pass or extend a spending bill before Oct. 1 to prevent a shutdown.
Schumer called Thune on Friday and “urged him to get President Trump to meet because the deadline for a government shutdown is fast approaching,” according to a Schumer aide.
Senate Democrats are also planning to hold a conference call on Sunday afternoon ahead of the chamber’s return to D.C.
Trump is flaunting his corruption. Is it changing what the US thinks of scandal?
President has shouted from rooftops what his predecessors would have tried to cover up for fear of ending their careers
As the Watergate scandal unfolded, new editions of the Washington Post newspaper were rushed over to the White House at night so Richard Nixon, the president, could brace for each devastating revelation.
Half a century later, Donald Trump does not seem to fear explosive front page headlines or shocking disclosures of malfeasance. Usually because he has written them himself.
The US president’s determination to break from his predecessors includes a willingness to shout from the rooftops of misconduct past presidents would have strained every sinew to conceal.
And the consequence, observers say, is that Trump’s brazen approach earns him perverse credit for authenticity and takes the sting out of scandals that used to be career-ending when uncovered by muckraking journalists.
“This is a dangerous notion that, just because a president chooses to be corrupt in public openly, it’s OK,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “People say, well, if it were really corrupt, it would be hidden. It’s a false assumption, but many people have it. It’s a new theory of scandal.”
Trump delivered one of his most blatant examples last weekend. In a social media post addressed directly to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, the president fumed over the lack of legal action against James Comey, the former FBI director, Adam Schiff, the California senator, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW,” he wrote, before deleting the message and posting another supportive of Bondi.
It was a glaringly obvious effort to order the justice department to take action against his political opponents. On Thursday the agency followed through by charging Comey with false statements and obstruction over congressional testimony about the investigation into contacts between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Democrats described it as “a disgraceful attack on the rule of law”, the latest in a series of moves that have threatened the justice department’s traditional independence. But Republicans, who five decades ago forced Nixon to resign over the Watergate burglary and ensuing cover-up, were mostly silent. There was no hint of impeaching Trump over what many saw as an impeachable offence.
Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer, said: “It’s what prosecutors do in dictatorships. They want to run up this Comey thing that has no merit to it. That’s what they do in Russia. You piss off Putin and end up in some gulag somewhere. That’s not, I thought, how we want to run our country.”
If Trump’s shamelessness is one superpower, his ability to flood the zone is another. He has spent the past decade proving the thesis that while one crisis can topple a politician, a hundred crises are subject to the law of diminishing returns. “It’s Watergate, Every Day,” read a headline on the Bulwark website this week.
In a 2005 conversation captured on an Access Hollywood tape released in 2016, he described his approach to women: “I just start kissing them … And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab ‘em by the pussy.”
He has urged foreign governments to investigate political opponents. During a 2016 campaign rally, Trump said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to rival Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails. In 2019 he publicly called on China to target Joe Biden, saying: “China should start an investigation into the Bidens.”
In a 2017 NBC News interview, Trump openly stated that he fired Comey because of “this Russia thing”, referring to an investigation into Russian election interference. This admission was cited in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report as potential evidence of obstruction of justice, yet Trump framed it as a decisive action rather than wrongdoing.
Trump expressed no contrition over the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 but rather persisted with his false claim of a stolen election, hailed the rioters as patriots and issued a blanket pardon of them on his first day back in office.
In May this year, the president said he will accept a $400m luxury plane from Qatar and use it as Air Force One, defending the arrangement as a “gesture of good faith” despite concerns that it could violate the US constitution’s emoluments clause. The Trump Organization, run by the president’s two oldest sons, struck a series of lucrative deals in the Middle East.
Trump Credibly Accuses the United Nations of ‘Triple Sabotage’
After a triumphant speech to the United Nations this week, President Donald Trump released a statement on his Truth Social account accusing the U.N. of a “sinister” act of “triple sabotage.”
The first is how the escalator just happened to break down the moment the President and First lady stepped onto it.
“It stopped on a dime,” Trump writes. “It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or, it would have been a disaster.”
The second was how Trump’s Teleprompter broke down for the first 15 minutes of Trump’s speech.
“Then, as I stood before a Television crowd of millions of people all over the World, and important Leaders in the Hall, my teleprompter didn’t work,” Trump continued. “It was stone cold dark … I then proceeded to make a Speech without a teleprompter, which kicked in about 15 minutes later.”
Finally, per Trump, his speech was not broadcast in the room. Trump claims that the only way someone could hear him was through the interpreter’s headset worn by delegates.
“[A]fter making the Speech, I was told that the sound was completely off in the Auditorium where the Speech was made,” Trump adds. This meant that “World Leaders, unless they used the interpreters’ earpieces, couldn’t hear a thing.”
“The first person I saw at the conclusion of the Speech was Melania, who was sitting right up front. I said, ‘How did I do?’ And she said, ‘I couldn’t hear a word you said.’”
One mishap? Okay.
Two mishaps? Uhm, yeah, okay, I guess.
Three?
Three?!
No.
Trump understands: “Not one, not two, but three very sinister events!” he writes before calling for an investigation and arrests:
This was absolutely sabotage, as noted by a day’s earlier ‘post’ in The London Times that said UN workers ‘joked about turning off an escalator.’ The people that did it should be arrested! … This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I’m sending a copy of this letter to the Secretary General, and I demand an immediate investigation.
It sounds like the Secret Service is investigating.
Here’s what I humbly suggest… We take all the taxpayer money we currently give to the corrupt and demonic United Nations and use it to build a giant robot. Then we hold a pay-per-view event where our giant robot kicks the United Nations building into the East River.
Trump directs defense secretary to deploy troops to Portland
In a post on Truth Social, the president said he was authorizing the use of “full force” to protect ICE facilities in Portland, Oregon, if necessary.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that he was directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “provide all necessary Troops” to Portland, Oregon.
In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote that the troops would “protect War ravaged Portland” and protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities that he claimed are “under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists.”
Trump added that he is “authorizing Full Force, if necessary,” but didn’t clarify what that meant.
The president has repeatedly spoken negatively about Portland, including saying on Thursday that “anarchy” is taking place in the West Coast city.
“You go out to Portland, people die out there. Many people have died over the years in Portland. Portland is, I don’t know how anybody lives there. It’s amazing, but it’s, it’s anarchy out there. That’s what they want. They want anarchy,” Trump said during remarks in the Oval Office on Thursday.
Last week, in separate comments in the Oval Office, the president said people in Portland are “out of control.”
“Have you seen Portland at all? If you take a look what’s happening in Portland. It’s, it has been going on for years. Just people out of control, crazy. We’re going to stop that very soon,” Trump said.
Pentagon officials appeared to be surprised by the Truth Social post and told NBC News they were not aware of any new orders to send troops into Portland. The officials said they had no immediate information about any potential operation, including the size and scope of the mission or who — National Guard or active-duty forces — would be deployed.
In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said, “We stand ready to mobilize U.S. military personnel in support of DHS operations in Portland at the President’s direction. The Department will provide information and updates as they become available.”
The move also comes after a gunman opened fire on the agency’s field office in Dallas on Wednesday, wounding two detainees and killing one detainee.
Leaders in Portland on Friday urged residents to remain calm ahead of what they said was an expected surge in federal law enforcement to an ICE facility in the area.
“This is disappointing news,” the city’s mayor, Keith Wilson, said at a press conference Friday. “We did not ask for them to come. They are here without precedent or purpose. We have seen how their presence harms commerce and prosperity and opportunity in other cities like Washington, D.C.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., also attended the press conference and urged residents to avoid confrontation with federal law enforcement officers.
“We are not going to take the bait,” Merkley told reporters. The senator said it was OK to express views and protest, but it’s “best done at a distance from these federal troops.”
During a news conference in Portland on Saturday, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said that Trump’s “inconceivable insistence that we need federal troops in Portland does not address the real concerns in our communities.”
Kotek described the city as a thriving community with sports, shopping, food and theater — a description she said she provided during a conversation with Trump.
“Our city is a far cry from the war-ravaged community that he has posted about on social media, and I conveyed that directly to him,” she said, adding: “He thinks there are elements here creating an insurrection. I told him there is no insurrection here and that we have this under control.”
“He said, ‘Well, let’s keep talking,’” Kotek recalled the president saying.
During the conversation, Kotek said Trump did not provide a timeframe for the deployment.
Kotek added that she does not believe the president has the authority to deploy federal troops in the state and is coordinating a possible response with her attorney general.
During the Saturday news conference, Wilson said he plans on signing a joint statement of values with a dozen other regional mayors.
“That’s what we need right now, not occupying troops,” he said.
The president has long been outspoken about his negative views toward Portland, a city that he declared in his first term to be an “anarchist jurisdiction.”
Trump for months has railed against crime in American cities, threatening to surge federal law enforcement and troops to multiple cities run by Democratic mayors — including Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans. The threats have drawn blowback from Democratic mayors and governors in Illinois, Maryland and other states.
Earlier this month, the president also signed a memo establishing a task force to mobilize National Guard troops and federal law enforcement to Memphis, Tennessee. That move was supported by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican.
Trump also authorized the deployment of National Guard troops and a surge of federal law enforcement to the nation’s capital in August. While Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser credited the surge with lowering crime in the city, she also said near the end of August that the continued presence of immigration agents and troops was “not working” in Washington.
Earlier this month, Washington sued the Trump administration, alleging an “illegal deployment” of National Guard troops to the city.
That lawsuit came just days after a federal judge in California ruled that the Trump administration violated a law that bars the use of soldiers for civilian law enforcement activities. The president in June mobilized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in Los Angeles to quell protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Proposed TikTok Deal Values U.S. Business at $14 Billion – What We Know So Far
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday approving a proposed deal that would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States. The deal is not final until China agrees to it — but details of the new operation are taking shape.
CNBC reports that President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday, giving his approval to a proposed deal that would keep the platform alive in the country. The deal, which still requires China’s approval, comes as a result of a national security law that mandated China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations or face an effective ban.
Under the terms of the agreement, a new joint-venture company will be formed to oversee TikTok’s U.S. business, with ByteDance holding less than a 20 percent stake in the entity. Vice President JD Vance stated that the transaction values the business at $14 billion, although no purchase price was provided.
The main investors in TikTok’s U.S. business will be tech giant Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi-based MGX investment fund, collectively controlling a roughly 45 percent stake in the new company. ByteDance investors and new holders will own the remaining 35 percent, as reported by CNBC’s David Faber.
Oracle will be responsible for overseeing the app’s security operations and providing cloud computing services for the new TikTok U.S. firm. President Trump emphasized the American ownership of the new entity, stating, “It’s owned by Americans, and very sophisticated Americans. This is going to be American operated all the way.”
ByteDance investors, including General Atlantic, Susquehanna, and Sequoia, are expected to contribute equity in the new TikTok U.S. entity. While ByteDance was reportedly valued at $330 billion last month, analysts have previously estimated TikTok’s U.S. operations to be worth between $30 billion and $35 billion.
While ByteDance representatives were not present at the signing, and the company has not acknowledged that a transaction is taking place, President Trump stated that Chinese President Xi Jinping gave the deal the go-ahead. Vice President Vance noted that the Chinese government put up some resistance before the agreement was reached.
Breitbart Business Digest: Tariffs Are Reducing Prices and Humiliating Economists
The Weekly Wrap: Trump Derangement Syndrome Visits The Supreme Court
Welcome back to Friday! This week the grand poobahs of the U.S. economy gathered together in a friend-of-the-court brief to let everyone know they still really do not like what Trump is up to. The prices of goods affected by tariffs fell in August, crushing the hopes of everyone at the Cato Institute. And Americans once again made it clear that they really, really don’t like Democrat economic schemes.
Here’s this week’s pain-free roundup of the economic news—no Tylenol necessary.
A Supremely Unpersuasive Amicus Brief
Every living former Federal Reserve chair, former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, Jack Lew and Timothy Geithner, and a bunch of prestigious economists signed on to an amicus brief written by lawyers at Covington & Burling arguing—without evidence—that “allowing the removal of Governor Lisa D. Cook while the challenge to her removal is pending would threaten that independence and erode public confidence in the Fed.”
While that sounds scary, we do not expect it to carry much weight with the court. In the first place, it is not a legal argument at all. It’s an argument for a policy to protect Fed governors from removal by the president of the United States. That’s something Congress could do by writing it into a statute. Instead, Congress wrote that a president can remove Fed governors so long as there is cause for removal. Perhaps the grandees of American economics do not like this arrangement; but if it is to be changed, that’s likely to fall to Congress and not the Supreme Court.
Even the policy argument, however, is weak. The great danger cited by the brief is that the removal of Cook would raise doubts about the independence of the central bank and that this, in turn, would unanchor inflation expectations. Those unanchored expectations would, the brief claims, then cause inflation to go higher on the theory that actual inflation is largely a matter of expected inflation.
Each of those steps is implausible. The Fed’s independence is first and foremost secured by its complex structure. Monetary policy is set by the Federal Open Market Committee, consisting of Fed presidents and Fed governors. The governors serve 14-year staggered terms and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The removal of a single governor for cause hardly seems likely to cause a sudden collapse of confidence.
Then there’s the idea that somehow Trump having more influence over the Fed would unanchor inflation expectations. This would be more plausible if it were Biden exerting influence over the Fed, since Biden and his allies consistently downplayed the economic costs of inflation. It’s more plausible that Fed Chair Jerome Powell remaining in office would unanchor inflation expectations since it was his insistence that inflation was transitory that contributed to the worst inflation in 40 years. Trump won re-election in part because the public believed he would do a better job on inflation, so why would the public suddenly decide he would use his influence to send it soaring again?
Finally, there’s this whole expectations theory. It’s support among mainstream economists is outmatched by evidence to support it. In fact, it has always rested on quite shaky grounds. Basically, expectations are a kind of place-holder for explaining why inflation remained low or increased when economic models would otherwise indicate the opposite. When economists couldn’t explain why inflation was behaving the way it was, they decided it must be because of expectations. Instead of assuming a can-opening, they assumed a social-psychological lever.
Actually, that wasn’t our final point about the brief. Our apologies. We thought we were, done but we have one more thing that deserves attention: even though it was widely described as a “bipartisan” group, none of the folks whose names appeared on the amicus brief are supporters of Trump, economic nationalism, or the broader vision of Make America Great Again. In fact, they’re all on record as opposing Trump. Hank Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs chief who was President George Bush’s Treasury secretary in the years leading up to the global financial crisis and one of the authors of the Wall Street bailout, endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. Alan Greenspan has called Trump’s tariffs “insane” and said he turns off his hearing aid when Trump talks about the economy.
In other words, they’re all anti-Trump partisans, even if some of them have in the past been associated with Republican politicians.
Tarifflation Is Not Just MIA: Tariffs Are Reducing Prices
The Department of Commerce released the latest edition of the personal consumption expenditure price index on Friday. It showed that inflation remains stubbornly above the Fed’s two percent target but not because of tariffs. For the second month in a row, the prices of durable goods—those most likely to be influenced by tariffs—fell.
Importantly, this decline is not coming from a lack of demand for durable goods. Things are not falling in price because people aren’t buying them. Real consumer spending—that is, after adjusting for inflation—on durable goods rose by 0.9 percent. People are buying more durable goods at cheaper prices.
This is absolutely devastating to the idea that tariffs are a tax on consumers. Even more devastating to that claim, however, is the evidence from a tariff tracker of prices. The tariff tracker, which is run out of the Pricing Lab at Harvard Business School, shows that since Liberation Day when tariffs were announced, the prices of imported goods in tariff-affected categories are up by less (just 1.13 percent) than domestically produced goods in unaffected categories (up by 1.25 percent). In other words, the stuff directly subject to tariffs has risen by less than the prices of stuff not even indirectly subject to tariffs. If we annualize the gains, tariffed imports are up 2.41 percent and non-tariff affected domestic goods are up 2.76 percent.
But wait. There’s more. Or less, really. The prices of domestically produced goods in categories affected by tariffs—that is, U.S. made goods competing with imports—are down 0.67 percent since Liberation Day. That works out to an annualized decline of 1.42 percent.
If this sort of thing keeps happening, we would not be surprised to see Harvard just shut down the tracker. It’s too embarrassing for the tariff-hating establishment.
Democrats Are Sliding into Oblivion on the Economy
The latest poll numbers from Reuters/Ipsos show that while the public is not exactly enthusiastic about Republican leadership on the economy, the GOP is far ahead of Democrats. Thirty-four percent of American adults say Republicans have a better plan for the economy, which is stellar. But just 24 percent say Democrats have a better plan. In a two-party system, that’s the kind of lead that wins elections.
We suspect one reason for the advantage is that no one knows what the Democrat plan for the economy might be. And that includes the leadership of the Democratic Party. They certainly have made it clear that they oppose Trump and the Republican tax cut bill, but they have not articulated a positive vision for the economy. Even more, they haven’t really articulated even their negative vision. Would they repeal Trump’s tariffs? Would they raise taxes on retirees or people with tipped income? How exactly do they plan to bring down, say, electricity or healthcare prices? The inescapable conclusion is that they either do not have a vision to articulate or know their vision would be so unpopular that they have to keep it quiet. So, publicly, it’s just fear and loathing all the way down.
Not surprisingly, the American public is not enthusiastic about this as a plan for the economy.
Supreme Court allows Trump to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid funding
President Donald Trump has asserted the power to unilaterally withhold funds allocated by Congress.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday handed another win to the Trump administration by allowing it to withhold $4 billion in spending on foreign aid that was appropriated by Congress.
A federal judge had ruled that the administration would have to spend the funds by the end of the month, but the Supreme Court’s decision puts that on hold.
“This result further erodes separation of powers principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order. It will also have a grave humanitarian impact,” said Nicolas Sansome, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group, which represents nonprofit groups that sued.
The brief order noted that the government has made a “sufficient showing” that the groups that sued were barred from bringing the lawsuit in question under a law called the Impoundment Control Act.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, also noted that “the asserted harms to the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm” to the plaintiffs, which are various groups that receive foreign aid funds.
The court has now granted 20 emergency applications filed by the administration since President Donald Trump’s second term began in January. The volume of emergency filings and the rate at which the court has ruled in the administration’s favor are both unprecedented. The latter has sparked criticism from within the legal community, including lower court judges.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
The three liberals on the court dissented, with Justice Elena Kagan writing that the legal issue in the case has not been presented before, meaning the court was working in “uncharted territory.”
Yet again, the majority nevertheless granted the emergency request made by the government without hearing oral arguments or issuing a fully reasoned decision, she added.
“We therefore 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,” Kagan wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts had on Sept. 9 issued a temporary stay that put the lower court ruling on hold while the Supreme Court decided what next steps to take.
The Trump administration, which has aggressively sought to exert its power over Congress in recent months, has notified lawmakers of its intention not to spend the funds.
This action has sparked a debate over whether the president has such authority, as under the Constitution, it is the role of Congress to allocate money for the president to spend.
After the Supreme Court decision, Democrats quickly urged Congress to reassert its authority to control spending even as lawmakers are engaged in a budget fight that could lead to a government shutdown.
“Republicans should join Democrats to stand up for our power of the purse,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wa. and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. said in a joint statement.
