Congress returns after recess as threat of government shutdown looms – US politics live | US politics
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Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna plan to hold a news conference tomorrow with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse as the political fallout from the saga continues to engage Congress on several fronts.
The two lawmakers hope to receive the necessary signatures on their discharge petition to force a floor vote on a measure compelling the release of the Epstein files.
Democrats are eager to keep pressing on the Epstein files, especially after the Trump administration reneged on pledges for transparency, AP reports.
The case for years has been the subject of online conspiracy theories and speculation about who may have been involved or aware of the wealthy financier’s abuse.
The House left Washington in July in the midst of disagreements among Republicans about whether they should force the Trump administration to release more information on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Epstein.
Aaron Glantz
The arrest of a US army veteran who protested against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has raised alarms among legal experts and fellow veterans familiar with his service in Afghanistan.
Bajun Mavalwalla II – a former army sergeant who survived a roadside bomb blast on a special operations mission in Afghanistan – was charged in July with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after joining a demonstration against federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Spokane, Washington.
Legal experts say the case marks an escalation in the administration’s attacks on first amendment rights. Afghanistan war veterans who know him say the case against Mavalwalla appears unjust.
“Here’s a guy who held a top secret clearance and was privy to some of the most sensitive information we have, who served in a combat zone,” said Kenneth Koop, a retired colonel who trained the Afghan military and police during Mavalwalla’s deployment. “To see him treated like this really sticks in my craw.”
The 11 June protest against Ice that led to Mavalwalla’s arrest was confrontational, leaving a government van’s windshield smashed and tires slashed, but Mavalwalla was not among the more than two dozen people arrested at the scene. More than a month passed before the FBI arrived at his door on 15 July.
The 35-year-old, who used his GI Bill to earn a degree in sustainable communities from Sonoma State University, was set to move into a 3,000-sq-ft house that day, which he had bought with his girlfriend, a nurse and fellow Afghanistan war veteran, with the help of a loan backed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Catherine Shoard
Woody Allen has said he was impressed by the acting abilities of Donald Trump when he directed the now-president in the 1998 film Celebrity.
Speaking on Bill Maher’s Club Random, Allen said Trump was “a pleasure to work with and a very good actor”.
He continued: “He was very polite, hit his mark, did everything correctly and had a real flair for show business. I could direct him now. If he would let me direct him now that he’s president, I think I could do wonders.”
In Allen’s ensemble film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Trump has a fleeting scene in which he’s interviewed about his forthcoming projects by a TV reporter.
In a rare – scripted – instance of irony and deprecation, Trump replies that he’s “working on buying St Patrick’s Cathedral. Maybe doing a little rip-down job and putting up a very, very tall and beautiful building.”
Allen went on to say that Trump had a “charismatic quality” in front of the camera, was “pleasant, very professional, very polite” and that he was “surprised he wanted to go into politics”.
Edward Helmore
Nine former officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that Robert F Kennedy Jr’s leadership of the US health and human services department is “unlike anything our country has ever experienced” and “unacceptable”.
They also warned that Kennedy’s leadership “should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings”.
In a guest essay for the New York Times, the former CDC leaders said Kennedy’s actions were “unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency”.
The letter comes days after Kennedy sought to dismiss Susan Monarez, the CDC director he appointed just months earlier. Monarez refused to leave her post, and was later fired by Donald Trump. Monarez said through lawyers the clash came after she refused to sign off on Kennedy’s directives.
In the essay, titled We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health, the former leaders, including Rochelle P Walensky, Mandy Cohen and Tom Frieden, said they were concerned Kennedy is “focusing “on unproven ‘treatments’ while downplaying vaccines” and cancelling medical research “that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies”.
The former officials accused Kennedy of replacing “experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views”.
Representative Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from Manhattan who played a major role in both impeachments of president Donald Trump, will not seek re-election in 2026 after holding his seat for 34 years, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing an interview with Nadler.
His office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request to confirm the report.
Nadler, 78, a liberal voice in Congress since 1992, said he believed it was time for a younger generation of Democrats to emerge.
Questions surrounding leadership age and generational change rocked the Democrats in 2024, when president Joe Biden, then 81, stepped down late in the presidential campaign amid concerns about his age.
“Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that,” Nadler told the Times.
Trump says he will award Rudy Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Donald Trump said on Monday he would award Rudy Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, two days after his longtime political ally was seriously injured in a car crash.
The decision places the award on a man once lauded for leading New York after the September 11, 2001, attacks and later sanctioned by courts and disbarred for amplifying false claims about the 2020 US presidential election. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was also criminally charged in two states; he has denied wrongdoing.
Trump on his Truth Social platform called Giuliani the “greatest Mayor in the history of New York City, and an equally great American Patriot”.
For much of the past two decades, Giuliani’s public life has been defined by a striking rise and fall. After leading New York through the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, he mounted a brief campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and became one of the most recognizable political figures in the country.
But as Trump’s personal lawyer, he became a central figure in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Courts repeatedly rejected the fraud claims he advanced, and two former Georgia election workers won a $148m defamation judgment against him.
Trump to make Oval Office announcement at 2pm ET today
Donald Trump is scheduled to make an announcement from the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon at 2pm ET, according to the White House, which has yet to release further information.
Some speculation suggests the announcement could be to do with plans to send national guard troops to Chicago.
The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the border tsar, Tom Homan, have both said Ice raids will intensify nationwide starting this week, possibly including staging operations from the Great Lakes naval station near north Chicago.
The city’s mayor said his office is preparing for the deployment of federal officers by the end of the week.
Gloria Oladipo
As Labor Day rallies took place across the US, the Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson sharply denounced the Trump administration’s threat to deploy federal troops to the city as part of an immigration crackdown.
“No federal troops in the city of Chicago,” said Johnson on Monday to a gathered crowd at the “Workers over Billionaires” demonstration in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood.
Johnson added: “We’re going to defend our democracy … we’re going to protect the humanity of every single person in the city of Chicago.”
Johnson later led the crowd in chants of “No troops in Chicago” and “Invest in Chicago”, the New York Times reported, amid speculation that national guard troops could be deployed as early as this week.
Protesters also met outside the Trump Tower in the city’s River North neighborhood, carrying anti-Trump posters and chanting “Lock him up”, according to footage posted to social media.
Monday’s rally in Chicago was one of hundreds of protests organized across the country as part of the national “Workers Over Billionaires” effort, a mass action calling for the protection of social safety nets such as Social Security; the funding of public schools, healthcare, and housing; amid other demands.
“Together we will demand a country that puts workers over billionaires,” said the May Day Strong group, a coalition to labor unions, in a statement about the event.
Congress returns with less than a month to avoid government shutdown
Hello and welcome to the US politics liveblog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with the news that Congress returns from a month-long summer break on Tuesday with less than a month left for lawmakers to agree on a deal to keep the government funded past 30 September.
Failure to do so would trigger a part-shutdown and amid deep partisan divisions, as well as Democratic anger over the Trump administration’s decision not to spend some congressionally approved funds, tempers have reached boiling point.
The annual spending battle will dominate the September agenda, along with a possible effort by Senate Republicans to change their chamber’s rules to thwart Democratic stalling tactics on nominations, AP reports.
In the House, Republicans will continue their investigations of the former president Joe Biden while the speaker, Mike Johnson, navigates a split in his conference over whether the Trump administration should release more files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
But the most urgent task for Congress is to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month, when federal funding runs out, and it’s so far unclear if Republicans and Democrats will be able to agree on how to do that. “Trump is rooting for a shutdown,” senator Chris Murphy posted on social media on Friday.
Congress will have to pass a short-term spending measure to keep the government funded for a few weeks or months while they try to finish the full-year package. But Republicans will need Democratic votes to pass an extension, and Democrats will want significant concessions.
The Trump administration’s efforts to claw back previously approved spending could also complicate the negotiations. Republicans passed legislation this summer that rescinded about $9bn in foreign aid and public broadcasting funds and Trump notified Congress again on Friday that he will block $4.9bn in congressionally approved foreign aid.
In other developments:
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President Donald Trump is scheduled to make an announcement from the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon at 2pm ET, according to the White House, which has yet to release further information.
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Some speculation suggests the announcement could be to do with plans to send national guard troops to Chicago. The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the border tsar, Tom Homan, have both said Ice raids will intensify nationwide starting this week, possibly including staging operations from the Great Lakes naval station near north Chicago. The city’s mayor said his office is preparing for the deployment of federal officers by the end of the week.
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Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna plan to hold a news conference tomorrow with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse as the political fallout from the saga continues to engage Congress on several fronts. The two lawmakers hope to receive the necessary signatures on their discharge petition to force a floor vote on a measure compelling the release of the Epstein files, ABC News reports.
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Missouri Republicans are poised to redraw their state’s congressional lines to help maintain the Republican majority in the House. Governor Mike Kehoe announced a special legislative session to draw a new voting map would start on Wednesday.
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Trump’s attempt to influence the US Federal Reserve could pose a “very serious danger” for the world economy, the head of the European Central Bank has warned. Christine Lagarde, the president of the ECB, said Trump undermining the independence of the world’s most powerful central bank would have an impact for the US and other countries.
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Nine former officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that Robert F Kennedy Jr’s leadership of the US health and human services department is “unlike anything our country has ever experienced” and “unacceptable”. They also warned that Kennedy’s leadership “should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings”.
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Guatemala is ready and willing to receive about 150 unaccompanied children of all ages each week from the US, the country’s president has said, a day after a US federal judge halted the deportation of 10 Guatemalan children. Those children had already boarded a plane when a court responded to an emergency appeal on Sunday. They were later returned to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
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The president said on Monday he would award Rudy Giuliani the nation’s highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, two days after his longtime political ally was seriously injured in a car crash. The decision places the award on a man once lauded for leading New York after the 11 September 2001 attacks and later sanctioned by courts and disbarred for amplifying false claims about the 2020 US presidential election. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was also criminally charged in two states; he has denied wrongdoing.
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Hundreds of protests organised as part of the national “workers over billionaires” effort – a mass action calling for the protection of social safety – were held in cities large and small across the country, including New York, Houston, Washington DC and Los Angeles on Monday. As the Labor Day rallies took place, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson sharply denounced the Trump administration’s threat to deploy federal troops to the city as part of an immigration crackdown.
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Woody Allen wants Donald Trump to star in another of his films, apparently. Trump shared the Variety story on Truth Social. “I’m one of the few people who can say he directed Trump. I directed Trump in [‘Celebrity’],” Allen said. “He was a pleasure to work with and a very good actor.”