21 views

Oct. 21, 2025, 5:29 PM EDT / Updated Oct. 21, 2025, 7:18 PM EDTBy Julie Tsirkin, Monica Alba, Frank Thorp V and Raquel Coronell UribePaul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s pick for a top watchdog position, announced Tuesday that he was withdrawing from consideration because he did not have enough Republican support to be confirmed.”I will be withdrawing myself from Thursday’s HSGAC hearing to lead the Office of Special Counsel because unfortunately I do not have enough Republican votes at this time,” he said, referring to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which would review his nomination.Trump nominated Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency that protects federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, such as retaliation for whistleblowing.Ingrassia had come under scrutiny in recent weeks after Politico reported that he a colleague had accused him of sexual harassment, citing three unnamed administration officials. In a new article Monday, Politico reported on a text chat in which Ingrassia allegedly sent messages saying that he had a “Nazi streak” and that Martin Luther King Jr. Day should be “tossed in the seventh circle of hell.”Ingrassia’s lawyer Monday night pointed to a previous statement denying Ingrassia had “harassed any coworkers — female or otherwise, sexually or otherwise — in connection with any employment.” The lawyer, Edward Paltzik, suggested the text messages reported Monday may not be authentic and added that “even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor.”Ingrassia had faced growing backlash from Senate Republicans. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Monday that Ingrassia’s nomination was “not going to pass” and that he thought the White House should pull it.Asked by NBC News on Tuesday whether he thought the White House would pull the nomination, Thune said: “I think they’ll have something official to say about that, but you know, you know what we’ve said, and you’ll probably hear from them soon.”Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla.; James Lankford, R-Okla.; and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., all told reporters they intended to vote against Ingrassia.The possibility of Ingrassia’s withdrawal was also discussed during Trump’s lunch with Republican senators in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, according to two officials familiar with the discussion.Lankford, in telling reporters Tuesday morning that he was a “no” on the nomination, said, “I think it’d be very difficult for a lot of federal employees to be able to say he’s impartial when he says things like ‘Never trust an Indian,’ the comments he’s made about Jews.”“They ought to withdraw him,” Johnson said Tuesday morning.Another Republican senator on the Homeland Security Committee, Joni Ernst of Iowa, declined to say how she would vote but, she said Monday that Ingrassia would have “an uphill battle.”Ingrassia, a former podcaster, had a history of inflammatory comments even before he was nominated. He came under fire for saying Jan. 6, 2021 — when rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election — should be declared a national holiday, calling it “a peaceful protest against a great injustice.” He had also called Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel a “psyop.”Julie TsirkinJulie Tsirkin is a correspondent covering Capitol Hill.Monica AlbaMonica Alba is a White House 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.Raquel Coronell UribeRaquel Coronell Uribe is a breaking news reporter. 

- Latest News - October 22, 2025

Some Senate Republicans on Monday indicated the nominee, Paul Ingrassia, would not make it through the Senate.

Source link

TAGS:
21 views

Oct. 21, 2025, 5:39 PM EDTBy Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong and Monica AlbaWASHINGTON — As the government shutdown crosses the three-week mark, Democrats are increasingly calling on President Donald Trump to get more involved in finding a solution.And some Republicans acknowledge that Trump has been disengaged and say it wouldn’t hurt if he got more involved.”Hakeem and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the health care crisis, address it and end the Trump shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday, referring to his House counterpart, Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “We urged him to meet with us, and we said we’ll set up an appointment with him any time, any place before he leaves.”And as Republican senators ate cheeseburgers at a private lunch meeting with Trump on Tuesday, there was little discussion of the shutdown, several of them said afterward.“He mentioned it briefly, but my sense is that nothing’s changed,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “We’ll talk about all the issues the Democrats want to talk about once the government reopens.”That has been the GOP strategy all along — to hold firm on its short-term funding bill and expect Democrats to back off their demands to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. It hasn’t worked, with the Senate voting 11 times to reject the bill that passed the Republican-led House version and seeing no votes changing by even one senator.Trump has met only once with Schumer and Jeffries, on Sept. 29 — two days before the shutdown began — and it didn’t go well. He reacted hours later by taunting the two Democrats with an artificial intelligence-generated post that put words in Schumer’s mouth and a sombrero on Jeffries’ head.Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Trump’s involvement is “essential” to ending the shutdown because GOP leaders on Capitol Hill won’t cut a deal without his blessing.“Republicans here are not going to make a move without Trump saying that he’s ready to end this,” Schiff said. “He doesn’t seem particularly interested or to care. And until that changes, I think we’re going to be at an impasse.”Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said Trump has been disengaged only because “he’s had his hands full with Israel and international matters.”“So he’s had every reason to be disengaged and just to let legislators handle this themselves,” she said, adding that Democrats should deal with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., instead of Trump.But Thune — along with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. — have both made it clear that they won’t negotiate directly with Democrats and that those discussions can happen only at the Appropriations Committee level.Thune told NBC News that Trump will get involved in how to handle the Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of this year, which would raise premiums on millions of enrollees.“I think the president’s ready to get involved in having the discussion about the enhanced premium tax credits. But I don’t think they’re prepared to do that until they open up the government,” he said before the meeting.The White House said its position on shutdown negotiations hasn’t changed since funding initially lapsed on Oct. 1. And as for any possible talks, Trump said Tuesday he would meet with Democrats only “with one major condition,” which is “open up the country first.”A White House official told NBC News, “We are happy to have a policy conversation but not while the American people are being held hostage.” The White House has urged Democrats to join Republicans in passing a stopgap measure and says it would then be open to having a discussion on health care issues and beyond.“Our position has been consistent,” the official said. “Democrats are wish-casting a scenario where the president comes in and gets involved” because they don’t have another solution right now. As the shutdown has dragged on, the White House has carried on with business as usual. Trump has traveled domestically and overseas, participating in more than a dozen events. At the end of this week, he will depart on a multiday trip to Asia, where he is expected to take part in several world summits.President Donald Trump with Louisiana State University and LSU Shreveport baseball teams at the White House on Monday.Saul Loeb / AFP – Getty ImagesSen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Trump’s “refusal to engage” is prolonging the shutdown, “because the Republicans are not in a position to want to agree to anything without his green light.”“The question is, when will President Trump engage? What he does, we’ll solve this. If he chooses to be unengaged, we won’t. Because the only way to avoid shutdowns — or the only way we get out of them — is when the president engages. Thus far, he’s chosen to focus on everything else but keep the U.S. government open.”Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he has been “somewhat astonished” that the self-styled “ultimate dealmaker” has refused to deal on this matter.“It’s very easily solved. There’s a clear path,” he said. “Get in a room. Agree to extend the health care tax credits.”In Trump’s absence, Johnson has stepped in to fill the void. Throughout the three-week shutdown, Johnson has held daily news conferences in the Capitol with members of his leadership team and a rotating cast of key Republicans, blasting Democrats for blocking the House-passed funding bill and backing what he calls the “Schumer shutdown.”On top of that, he has launched an aggressive media blitz about the shutdown, doing nearly 50 interviews since Oct. 1 with TV networks, radio shows, streaming shows and print and digital outlets, Johnson’s office said. They include appearances on Fox News, Newsmax, NBC News, NewsNation, MSNBC, a Wall Street Journal podcast and “The Sean Spicer Show.”In each appearance, the message is the same: Johnson says he won’t sit down and negotiate with Democrats over their demands because they simply need to pass the House’s continuing resolution, or CR. He has had one recent phone call with Jeffries, but neither has revealed what they discussed.“I don’t have anything to offer,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “I don’t have any partisan priority I can pull off of the CR to make it more palatable for them. There’s nothing to negotiate.” Asked Tuesday whether Trump’s engagement is the key to breaking the impasse, Jeffries replied: “Of course Donald Trump should come to the negotiating table.”Asked whether Trump should get more engaged, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., responded, “I don’t think it could hurt, but I don’t see any indication that the president’s wanting to do that.”“This shutdown will stop when everybody takes their egos out back and shoots them. And that hasn’t happened yet,” he said. “Everybody’s still up on their high horse. And I thought they would have fallen off by now. But they haven’t. So the soap opera continues.”Sahil KapurSahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.Scott WongScott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News. Monica AlbaMonica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.Frank Thorp V contributed.

- Latest News - October 21, 2025

As the government shutdown crosses the three-week mark, Democrats are increasingly calling on President Donald Trump to get more involved in finding a solution.

Source link

TAGS:
20 views

Oct. 21, 2025, 2:41 PM EDTBy Ryan NoblesWASHINGTON — As the government shutdown barrels along, the impact on everyday Americans is growing.It’s creating additional stress on social service programs, which are now bracing for an increased need, including from people who don’t normally rely on their support.Food banks from coast to coast were already seeing an uptick in visits from federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay. Now, they are preparing for an additional influx from Americans who rely on federal food benefit programs, which are set to run out of funding at the end of the month, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, and WIC, the food program for women, infants and children.“When food banks serve families, it’s usually a 1-to-9 ratio, so one meal provided by food banks versus nine provided by SNAP dollars. If those SNAP dollars get cut in half, that would mean that a local food bank quadruples their output just to meet that need,” Craig Rice, CEO of Manna Food Center in Maryland, told NBC Washington.Manna Food Center serves a significant federal workforce population, and the ongoing shutdown has forced it to make additional preparations to meet the increased need.“We’re going to be adding emergency bags so federal government employees will be able to come and ask for emergency assistance, and we’ll be able to assist them,” Rice said.Federal workers will be reimbursed at the end of the government shutdown, under a law passed by Congress in 2019. But Congress hasn’t made any progress toward reopening the government, leaving federal employees with no certainty about when they’ll get paid again.In Nevada, the Clark County Aviation Department is reaching out to the public, asking for help for its employees who are working without pay and will soon be in need of basic essentials to get through the day.“We’re gonna be opening it up for our federal employees to come get the essentials that they need. Nonperishable food items, we’re accepting gift cards for retail, for gas, for grocery stores, baby supplies, all the things that they need to help get them by during this government shutdown,” Luke Nimmo, the department’s public information officer, told 3 News in Las Vegas.And it’s not just food and hygiene items; counties across America will also be facing the possibility of a child care crisis. Programs like Head Start could soon be out of funding. In Kansas City, 17 Head Start-supported child care sites are in danger of closing at the end of the month, forcing families to quickly find alternatives, which may not be available.“I think families need to be prepared and not rely on things that can just be pulled out from under them,” Demetria Spencer, owner of Delightful Learning Center childcare in Kansas City, told KSHB.In some areas, state and local governments are finding ways to close the federal funding gap to continue to provide services that millions of Americans rely on. Authorities in Johnson County, Missouri, for example, have tapped some funds to help with administrative costs for WIC if federal funding runs out. But even that would only be a temporary reprieve.“We’re gonna continue to operate and provide services as long as we’re able to,” Charlie Hunt, director of the Johnson County Health and Environment Department, told KSHB.Ryan NoblesRyan Nobles is chief Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News.

- Latest News - October 21, 2025

Federal workers affected by the shutdown are accessing food banks, while food programs like SNAP and WIC are going to run out of funding next month.

Source link

TAGS: