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Sen. Thune speaks on government shutdown negotiations

admin - Latest News - October 3, 2025
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Sen. Thune speaks on government shutdown negotiations



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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 2, 2025, 6:03 PM EDTBy Ryan Nobles, Frank Thorp V and Kyle StewartWASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has become a leading figure in the fight over government funding, but it’s not a role she has asked for. Rather, it’s a role Republicans have thrust upon her.“Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday. “The reason why the American people’s government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far-left radicals in his own party because he’s terrified of a primary challenge.”Republican after Republican has used Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star, as a foil in their argument that Democrats are going overboard in their demands to end the shutdown. They claim she and the left wing of the party are pressuring their more moderate leadership to hold firm.Ocasio-Cortez made it clear in an interview with NBC News that Democratic leadership is driving the party’s strategy. “They’re saying this stuff about me in the press, and the fact of the matter is I can tell you, in the seven years that I’ve been here, they [Republican leaders] have never given me a single phone call, because they know what the truth is,” she said. “They know that the people that they need to be negotiating with, and who they are negotiating with, are Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer,” the House and Senate Democratic leaders, both of New York. Vance; House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La..; Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.; and President Donald Trump continue to claim Schumer, in particular, is feeling pressure because of the possibility that Ocasio-Cortez might want to challenge him in the Senate primary in 2028. Ocasio-Cortez, who is in her fourth term, didn’t rule out a Senate bid but instead said it’s not something with which voters are concerned.“People are going to die. Nobody cares about some election years from now. They care about if their kids can get insulin, if they can put food on the table,” she said.She said that her caucus remains “tremendously united” in its demands to end the shutdown and that she and her fellow Democrats aren’t intimidated by White House threats around mass layoffs and funding cuts. She said it’s not necessary for her to be front and center in the negotiations.“It is so important to understand that these people are all talk. They are all talk. They are negotiating with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, and Democratic leadership and Democrats are united to that end.” Ryan NoblesRyan Nobles is Chief Capitol Hill Correspondent for NBC News.Frank Thorp VFrank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.Kyle StewartKyle Stewart is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the House.Brennan Leach contributed.
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October 7, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 7, 2025, 3:21 PM EDTBy Maya Rosenberg and Jay BlackmanWASHINGTON — Federal funding for air travel in rural areas will run out Sunday if the government shutdown continues, threatening to isolate remote communities across the country.The Essential Air Service (EAS), established in 1978, provides funds to airline carriers to operate out of rural airports for routes that would otherwise be unprofitable. The program is a lifeline for remote communities because it connects them to cities with larger airports, ensuring access to medical treatments, work opportunities and commercial goods that would otherwise be a lengthy travel away. “Money runs out this Sunday. So there’s many small communities across the country that will now no longer have the resources to make sure they have air service in their community,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a press conference Monday. “Every state across the country will be impacted by the inability to provide the subsidies to airlines to service these communities.”The EAS gives money to regional air carriers in 177 communities across all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico, according to DOT. The Regional Airline Association, an advocacy group for regional airlines that receive EAS funds, said that “commercial air service at EAS airports had an economic impact of $2.3 billion and supported more than 17,000 U.S. jobs” before the pandemic. FAA announces possible staffing issues potentially caused by government shutdown 02:10“This program is an essential economic lifeline for over 500 rural communities who are often hit the hardest whenever there is disruption in the National Airspace System,” the association said in a statement. “[We] continue to urge Congress to come together and reopen the government for the good of the American public. The current government shutdown only adds stressors to an air transportation system that is already plagued with delays, disruptions, and cancellations.”As the shutdown continues with no end in sight, the Federal Aviation Administration is already confronting staffing shortages and slight increases in sick calls as air traffic controllers work without pay. NBC News reported Monday that no air traffic controllers were expected at Hollywood Burbank Airport in the Los Angeles area for hours, and that the main airports in New Jersey and Denver also experienced staffing issues.We’d like to hear from you about how you’re experiencing the government shutdown, whether you’re a federal employee who can’t work right now or someone who is feeling the effects of shuttered services in your everyday life. Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.Congress appropriated nearly $500 million to the EAS in 2024; The expenditure is typically bipartisan, serving rural communities in states across the country. However, earlier this year, President Donald Trump looked to slash the program’s budget by $308 million in his discretionary budget. He had recommended eliminating the program in its entirety in a budget blueprint during his first term. The federal funding is particularly important for Alaska, where the state’s hundreds of islands and vast swaths of tundra make traveling by air a necessity. According to an October 2024 Transportation Department report, Alaska received more than $41 million in EAS subsidies. Duffy told reporters that the “number one user” of rural airspace is Alaska, and that the state “will be impacted” if funding runs out. “This is almost breathtaking, when you think about the implications for these communities, because there is no road for any of these places,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told NBC News on Monday. “This is a big stressor right now.”Murkowski said that Alaska Airlines would maintain service at a handful of airports regardless of EAS funding but that she was worried for smaller carriers. She added that she was trying to get in touch with Duffy. Alaska Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Meanwhile, Murkowski’s fellow Alaska senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, said he was already in talks with the transportation secretary about the issue. “We’re working through it to make it have as little impact as possible. These are EAS subsidies, but this just goes to the whole damn Schumer shutdown,” Sullivan said, referring to the GOP nickname for the shutdown, which Republicans say was caused by Democrats. “But right now, what I’m trying to do is work with the secretary of transportation, who I was exchanging text messages and voice messages with, to try and limit that kind of damage.”Ryan Huotari, the manager of the Sidney-Richland Airport in Sidney, Montana, said the airport and his community depend on EAS funding.“If the EAS didn’t exist, I don’t think it would be able to function,” Huotari said of the airport. “Our winters out here are 20-below, they’re pretty treacherous. It’s pretty scary driving from here to Billings. I’d rather be in an airplane than a car.” Sidney is only an hour flight away from Billings, Montana’s largest city, but it’s about a four-hour drive each way. Huotari says that the airport is crucial for people who can’t make the eight-hour round trip, like the elderly who need medical care in Billings, or the oil workers who commute between the two areas. Huotari, who helmed the airport during the last shutdown in 2018, said he’s used to the EAS being on the budgetary chopping block but, with no solution in Congress in sight, this time he’s worried.“My biggest concern is getting people paid. There are a lot of federal grants out there that I’ve got right now,” he said. “There’s a lot of money hanging out there, like in the millions.”Maya RosenbergMaya Rosenberg is a Desk Assistant based in Washington, D.C.Jay BlackmanJay Blackman is an NBC News producer covering such areas as transportation, space, medical and consumer issues.Brennan Leach and Frank Thorp V contributed.
September 23, 2025
Sept. 23, 2025, 4:00 PM EDTBy Daniella Silva, Rob Wile and Nicole AcevedoAfter announcing a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, the Trump administration on Tuesday proposed overhauling the visa’s lottery selection process to prioritize higher-paid and higher-skilled foreign employees.The proposed policy changes could reignite the debate over the use of foreign labor by U.S. employers. The move comes as President Donald Trump has taken aim at H-1B visas, a program used widely by Big Tech and outsourcing companies to hire foreign workers, announcing Friday that companies would be required to pay a $100,000 fee with new applications submitted after Sept. 21. The administration on Tuesday targeted H-1B visa allocation, proposing a “weighted selection process” for when annual demand for the visas tops the 85,000 limit set by Congress, which it says has happened every year for more than a decade. The new process would replace the current lottery system that determines who gets to apply for those limited visa spots in favor of putting more weight on higher skilled and higher paid foreign workers, according to a proposed rule set to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday. Under the current lottery rules, offers to apply for an H-1B visa are assigned at random. The Trump administration’s proposal would assign prospective employees to four different wage bands, with workers in the highest wage category being entered into the selection pool four times and those in the lowest wage category being entered into the selection pool once. The Department of Homeland Security stated in the proposal that the weighted system would better serve the visa program’s original intent and “incentivize employers to offer higher wages or higher skilled positions to H-1B workers and disincentivize the existing widespread use of the H-1B program to fill lower paid or lower skilled positions.”It said the proposed selection process would still maintain opportunities for employers to hire H-1B workers at “all wage levels.” ‘A strong signal’The H-1B visa program allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire skilled foreign workers in “specialty occupations” across health care, tech and finance industries, and other STEM-related fields.The two new proposed policies together send “a strong signal of the direction that the administration wants to go,” said Xiao Wang, CEO of Boundless Immigration, a company that offers services to people navigating the immigration process in the U.S.If adopted, the policies would benefit companies seeking to keep foreigners with specialized skills who studied at American universities in the U.S., as well as ensuring H-1B visas “disproportionately go to people who are deemed higher skilled, represented by higher wages and higher salary,” he said.Trump stated Friday that changes were needed in the visa system, saying it was designed to bring in temporary workers with “additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”For the last H-1B lottery round, which closed its registration in March, about 339,000 people applied. Of those, 120,141 applications were selected for the lottery, according to USCIS data.The proposal faces a 30-day public comment period before it is considered by the administration for a final rule, a process that could take months.If the changes are adopted, companies seeking to hire lower-wage workers from India and China for computer-related jobs appear likely to be among the most affected. For more than a decade, about 60% of H-1B workers approved every year have held computer-related jobs, according to Pew Research.Start-ups and smaller companies who cannot afford to pay their workers in the higher pay categories compared to major tech companies would also be impacted, Wang said.Deedy Das, a partner at Menlo Ventures venture capital group, said in a social media post that the latest proposal would hurt many tech companies.“Overall, it’s really bad for startups, early employees, helps IT consulting shops and can be easily gamed,“ Das wrote.Trump’s announcement of a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas touched off a frenzy among current visa holders, the companies that employ them and countries around the world as they worked to understand the edict.Eventually, the White House clarified that it would be a one-time fee and apply only to new visa applicants. Trump said companies would have to pay the fee for new H-1B visa applications submitted after Sept. 21. That’s a steep rise from current fees, which are usually $2,000 to about $5,000.Both the fee and Tuesday’s proposal are likely to face challenges in court. A growing chorus on both the left and the right say an over-reliance on the visa by U.S. firms has put U.S.-born workers at a disadvantage. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has called the H-1B visa program a “scam,” while the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute has claimed that some of the companies most reliant on H-1B visas, such as Amazon and Facebook’s parent, Meta, have also had sizable layoffs, though it did not cite evidence that the use of the visa and the layoffs are related.In the first half of 2025, Amazon received approval for more than 12,000 H-1B visas, while Meta received more than 5,000. Representatives for both companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Daniella SilvaDaniella Silva is a national reporter for NBC News, focusing on immigration and education.Rob WileRob Wile is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covering breaking business stories for NBCNews.com.Nicole AcevedoNicole Acevedo is a national reporter for NBC News and NBC Latino.
October 29, 2025
Oct. 28, 2025, 7:07 PM EDTBy Abigail Williams, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Katherine DoyleWASHINGTON — Some of President Donald Trump’s aides have advised him against shifting the U.S. position on independence for Taiwan to favor China, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions, ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.The aides have privately expressed concern that Trump, who is pushing to reach a sweeping trade deal with China, may choose to ignore their advice, the people with knowledge of the discussions said. They said they worry that Trump could walk away from long-standing U.S. policy on Taiwan or more subtly shift the U.S. position by framing it with new language.“Everyone is holding their breath,” one of the people with knowledge of the discussions said.Stocks hit record highs over hopes of China trade deal00:47Administration officials have told Trump to expect Xi to seek a public declaration from him that the United States “opposes” Taiwan’s independence, the people with knowledge of the discussions said. Xi has for months pushed for a shift in the U.S. position on Taiwan from the current one, which is that the United States does “not support” its independence, to saying the United States “opposes” it.While many Americans might see that as a different way of saying the same thing, were Trump to say the United States opposes Taiwan’s independence or even that independence is not a good idea at this time, it would send shock waves across Asia and be seen as a huge gift to Xi.Openly expressing opposition to Taiwan’s independence would be seen as moving the United States from a neutral position on the issue to clearly standing on the side of China. For decades, U.S. administrations have adopted a policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan, known as the “One China” policy, and presidents have taken the public position of not supporting its independence.A White House official told NBC News: “President Trump has repeatedly affirmed that his Taiwan policy has not changed. President Trump leads on all foreign policy — he always puts forward deals that put the American people first.”Asked what the Trump administration’s policy on Taiwan’s independence was, a senior State Department official said, “The policy on Taiwan hasn’t changed one bit.”“It’s as consistent as it’s been for decades,” the official said Monday.China sees democratic and self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland by military force if necessary. Taipei rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty and seeks to maintain its de facto independence even if it is not formally recognized by most countries.“The Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests, and the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-US relations,” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said by email when he was asked for comment.“There is but one China in the world, Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. This is a consensus of the international community and a political commitment made by the U.S. to China,” Liu said.Taiwanese officials are also uneasy about the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting and have expressed their own concerns to State Department officials that Trump could abandon Taiwan to secure a win from the meeting, one of the people familiar with the discussions said.Asked by reporters about Taiwan’s apprehension, Secretary of State Marco Rubio brushed the concerns aside.“What people are worried about is we’re going to get some trade deal where we’re going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan,” Rubio said Saturday en route to Asia for this week’s meetings. “No one is contemplating that.”Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry took to social media soon after, expressing its appreciation to Rubio for “reaffirming no one is contemplating walking away from Taiwan.”Abigail Williams, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Monica Alba reported from Washington and Katherine Doyle from Tokyo.Abigail WilliamsAbigail Williams is a producer and reporter for NBC News covering the State Department.Courtney KubeCourtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Carol E. LeeCarol E. Lee is the Washington managing editor.Katherine DoyleKatherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News. Monica Alba contributed.
November 18, 2025
House passes bill to release Epstein files
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