House Democratic leaders reiterate opposition to government funding bill amid split in party
The looming midnight deadline for Congress to approve a government spending measure or cause a shutdown has left Democrats in a tough spot.
When the bill was up for a vote in the House, every single Democrat voted against it save one. It’s now in the Senate, where many Democrats say they are ready to vote it down, citing cuts it would make to non-defense spending. But the minority leader Chuck Schumer made the shock decision yesterday to announce he would vote to advance the measure, a sign that enough Democratic votes exist for it to clear the 60-vote threshold needed for passage in the Senate.
That’s sparked not an insignificant amount of tension in the party, which is reeling from its underperformance in the November election but split over whether voters will blame them for a shutdown, or instead focus their ire on Donald Trump and the Republicans, who control both the House and Senate.
Not longer after Schumer announced his support for the measure, House minority Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar released a statement reiterating their opposition to the funding bill – the subtext being that Democratic senators should hold firm against its passage:
Instead of working with Democrats in a bipartisan way to prevent a government shutdown, House Republicans left town in order to jam their extreme partisan legislation down the throats of the American people. The far-right Republican funding bill will unleash havoc on everyday Americans, giving Donald Trump and Elon Musk even more power to continue dismantling the federal government.
House Democrats are ready to vote for a four-week continuing resolution that keeps the government open and returns all parties to the negotiating table. That is the best way forward.
Donald Trump and Republicans are crashing the economy. They plan to take a chainsaw to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits and public schools – all in order to give massive tax cuts to their billionaire donors and wealthy corporations. House Democrats will not be complicit. We remain strongly opposed to the partisan spending bill under consideration in the Senate.
Key events
The Senate is scheduled to today convene at 10am with a range of business before it.
Consideration of the continuing resolution, which is the bill to fund the government through September and head off a shutdown that will otherwise begin at midnight, will come no earlier than 1.15pm, when the chamber is scheduled to begin voting.
But with Democrats split over whether to supply the necessary eight votes to advance the legislation, don’t be surprised if the chamber stays in session into the night figuring this out.
Also, a note on the math: the GOP controls the chamber, with 53 seats to the Democrats and their allies’ 47. But the minority party can filibuster most legislation, including this continuing resolution, which requires 60 votes to overcome – essentially seven Democratic votes.
However, Republican senator Rand Paul says he will not vote for the bill, so, in this case, the GOP needs eight Democratic votes to get it through.
House Democratic leaders reiterate opposition to government funding bill amid split in party
The looming midnight deadline for Congress to approve a government spending measure or cause a shutdown has left Democrats in a tough spot.
When the bill was up for a vote in the House, every single Democrat voted against it save one. It’s now in the Senate, where many Democrats say they are ready to vote it down, citing cuts it would make to non-defense spending. But the minority leader Chuck Schumer made the shock decision yesterday to announce he would vote to advance the measure, a sign that enough Democratic votes exist for it to clear the 60-vote threshold needed for passage in the Senate.
That’s sparked not an insignificant amount of tension in the party, which is reeling from its underperformance in the November election but split over whether voters will blame them for a shutdown, or instead focus their ire on Donald Trump and the Republicans, who control both the House and Senate.
Not longer after Schumer announced his support for the measure, House minority Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar released a statement reiterating their opposition to the funding bill – the subtext being that Democratic senators should hold firm against its passage:
Instead of working with Democrats in a bipartisan way to prevent a government shutdown, House Republicans left town in order to jam their extreme partisan legislation down the throats of the American people. The far-right Republican funding bill will unleash havoc on everyday Americans, giving Donald Trump and Elon Musk even more power to continue dismantling the federal government.
House Democrats are ready to vote for a four-week continuing resolution that keeps the government open and returns all parties to the negotiating table. That is the best way forward.
Donald Trump and Republicans are crashing the economy. They plan to take a chainsaw to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits and public schools – all in order to give massive tax cuts to their billionaire donors and wealthy corporations. House Democrats will not be complicit. We remain strongly opposed to the partisan spending bill under consideration in the Senate.
Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday signaled that next month’s US tariffs could be imposed on cars from all countries, including South Korea, Japan and Germany, according to Reuters.
Asked if president Donald Trump’s planned 2 April tariffs would impact automobiles coming from countries such as South Korea, Japan and Germany, he told Fox Business:
That would be fair, right? If you’re going to tariff cars from anywhere, it’s got to be tariffing cars from everywhere.”
Jasper Jolly
Donald Trump has threatened a 200% tariff on wine and champagne from European Union countries, in the latest threat of escalation in the global trade war started by the US president against the country’s biggest trading partners.
Trump said in a post on Thursday on his Truth Social platform that the tariffs on all alcoholic products from the bloc would be retaliation for a “nasty” 50% levy on American bourbon whiskey announced by the EU.
The EU’s action against bourbon whiskey – due to come into force on 1 April – was itself part of a €26bn ($28bn) response to Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, which came into effect on Wednesday.
Trump claims the US’s trading partners have taken advantage of the US and that tariffs will help him to bring back jobs – a theory that is roundly rejected by most mainstream economists.
The tariffs on the EU, Canada, Mexico and China – and those imposed in retaliation – threaten to tip the US economy into recession, and Trump has admitted there may be a “period of transition” while businesses start producing more in the US.
The White House has so far shrugged off the concerns of investors, after his tariff announcements were greeted with heavy stock market sell-offs that have wiped out all of the share price gains since his election in November.
Despite starting the trade war, Trump appeared to be infuriated by the EU’s retaliatory measures.
He wrote:
If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES.
This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”
The US already circumvents the protected geographical origin rules on European products – American supermarkets are full of US-made imitations of champagne and other delicacies such as parmesan and gorgonzola.
Trump to visit justice department to rally support for crime agenda
President Donald Trump is to visit the justice department on Friday to rally support for his administration’s tough-on-crime agenda, an appearance expected to double as a victory lap after he emerged legally and politically unscathed from two federal prosecutions that were dismissed after his election win last fall, reports the Associated Press.
“I’m going to set out my vision,” the Republican president said on Thursday about the purpose for a visit the White House is billing as “historic.”
The venue selection for the speech underscores Trump’s keen interest in the department and desire to exert influence over it after criminal investigations that shadowed his first four years in office and subsequent campaign.
The visit, the first by Trump and the first by any president in a decade, brings him into the belly of an institution he has disparaged in searing terms for years but one that he has sought to reshape by installing loyalists and members of his personal defence team in top leadership positions, reports the AP.
Although there’s some precedent for presidents to speak to the justice department workforce from the building’s ceremonial great hall, Trump’s trip two months into his second term is particularly striking. That’s because of his unique status as a onetime criminal defendant indicted by the agency he is now poised to address and because his remarks are likely to feature an airing of grievances over his exposure to the criminal justice system – including an FBI search in 2022 of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for classified documents.
Trump’s visit also comes at a time when attorney general Pam Bondi has asserted that the department needs to be depoliticised even as critics assert agency leadership is injecting politics into the decision-making process.
Here’s a bit more detail, via Reuters, on the Axios report that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has warned Congress has a funding shortfall of $2bn for this fiscal year.
Congress will send Ice an extra $500m as part of the stopgap spending bill, although that will not cover the funding it needs to continue work till end of September, the report said, citing two sources familiar with the communications.
The funding shortfall comes as Ice has stepped arrests since president Donald Trump took office in January. He has vowed to deport record numbers of people who migrated to the US illegally.
Ice detention facilities are filled to capacity at 47,600 detainees and the agency has been expanding its bed count – the number of beds available for detainees – with support from the US defence department, the US Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons (BoP).
The agency has an annual budget of approximately $8bn, according to its website, reports Reuters. The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a stopgap bill to keep federal agencies funded. The bill would extend government funding until the end of the fiscal year on 30 September. Increases in defence, veterans’ care and border security would be offset by cuts to some domestic programmes.
Ice was working with US lawmakers to secure more detention funding, an official from the agency told reporters on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
The White House and Ice did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Tesla tells US government Trump trade war could ‘harm’ EV companies
Elon Musk’s Tesla has warned that Donald Trump’s trade war could expose the electric carmaker to retaliatory tariffs that would also affect other automotive manufacturers in the US.
In an unsigned letter to Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, Tesla said it “supports fair trade” but that the US administration should ensure it did not “inadvertently harm US companies”.
Tesla said in the letter:
As a US manufacturer and exporter, Tesla encourages the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices.”
The company, led by Musk, a close ally of Trump who is leading efforts to downsize the federal government, said it wanted to avoid a similar impact to previous trade disputes that resulted in increased tariffs on electric vehicles imported into countries targeted by the US.
Tesla said:
US exporters are inherently exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to US trade actions. The assessment undertaken by USTR of potential actions to rectify unfair trade should also take into account exports from the United States.
For example, past trade actions by the United States have resulted in immediate reactions by the targeted countries, including increased tariffs on electric vehicles imported into those countries.”
Trump has imposed significant tariffs that will affect vehicles and parts made around the world.
The EU and Canada have announced large-scale retaliations for tariffs on steel and aluminium imports into the US, while the UK has so far held off on announcing any countermeasures.
Tesla’s share price has fallen by more than a third over the last month over concerns about a potential buyer backlash against Musk, who has shown support for Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, theatrically brandished a chainsaw at a conservative conference, and accused Keir Starmer and other senior politicians of covering up a scandal over grooming gangs.
This week Trump said he was buying a “brand new Tesla” and blamed “radical left lunatics” for “illegally” boycotting the EV company – a day after Tesla’s worst share price fall in almost five years.
Danish foreign minister responds to Trump: ‘Greenland is not open to annexation’
Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen rejected on Friday president Donald Trump’s latest remarks about annexing Greenland, saying the Danish autonomous island could not be taken over by another country.
“If you look at the Nato treaty, the UN charter or international law, Greenland is not open to annexation,” he told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Johns Hopkins University announced it was planning to cut more than 2,000 jobs after the Trump administration slashed $800m in grants to the renowned academic institution.
The funding for the positions had come from the US Agency for International Development, which the administration has gutted with massive cuts. A total of 247 domestic US workers and another 1,975 positions abroad in 44 countries will be affected by what amounts to the largest layoff in the history of the university.
The job losses will affect the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and its affiliated non-profit for international health, Jhpiego. The school of public health includes over 80 research institutions that focus on issues such as gun violence, maternal health, and the economic impacts of Alzheimer’s disease.
The grant elimination announcement comes on the same day that hundreds of professors, researchers and other staff with the school of public health held a rally meant to show support for “American scientists and science amid federal layoffs and cuts to research funding”, according to the Hub, a publication of the public health school.
“This is a difficult day for our entire community. The termination of more than $800m in USAid funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work here in Baltimore and internationally,” the university said in a statement shared with media.
Johns Hopkins receives the most federal research funding, and is the largest private employer, in both Maryland and Baltimore and employs more than 150,000 people, the university said in a statement to the Guardian.
Those who lost their jobs due to the most recent grant funding cuts will be given 60 days’ advance notice before they are laid off or furloughed, the statement continued.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Russian president Vladimir Putin had sent president Donald Trump a message about his proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine via Trump’s special envoy and that there were grounds for “cautious optimism”.
According to Reuters, Putin held late night talks with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, in Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov said Putin was “in overall solidarity” with Trump on Ukraine, but that there was a lot of work to do.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has warned Congress has a funding shortfall of $2bn for this fiscal year, Axios reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
EU has the resources to respond to Trump’s tariff threats, French central bank chief says
The European Union has the resources to respond to president Donald Trump’s threats to levy more tariffs on the European Union, French central bank governor and European Central Bank (ECB) board member François Villeroy de Galhau said on Friday.
According to Reuters, he added that he wanted to see the escalations in a possible spiraling trade war cease. Villeroy de Galhau added that Trump’s view of the economy is a “losing” view.
The Trump administration has called on the Pentagon to provide military options to ensure the country has full access to the Panama canal, two US officials told Reuters on Thursday.
Donald Trump has said repeatedly he wants to “take back” the Panama canal, which is located at the narrowest part of the isthmus between North and South America and is considered one of the world’s most strategically important waterways, but he has not offered specifics about how he would do so, or if military action might be required.
One US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a document, described as interim national security guidance by the new administration, asked the military to look at options to ensure “unfettered” access to the Panama canal.
A second official said the US military had a wide array of potential options to guarantee access, including ensuring a close partnership with Panama’s military.
The Pentagon last published a national defense strategy in 2022, laying out the priorities for the military. An interim document sets out broad policy guidance, much like Trump’s executive orders and public remarks, before a more considered policy document like a formal NDS.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BMW said it does not expect newly imposed US tariffs to remain in place until the end of the year, adding that if the situation changed, so would its outlook, reports Reuters.
BMW forecast a 5-7% earnings margin for its automotive segment in 2025, but that calculation was based on the assumption that the tariffs imposed so far would remain in place until the end of the year, which the carmaker does not expect to be the case, executives Oliver Zipse and Walter Mertl said. “If the situation changes, we will need to adjust the outlook,” chief financial officer Mertl added.
This week on the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Heather Boushey, an economist and former adviser to Joe Biden, about what Donald Trump’s long game is with his trade war, and how voters will view his handling of the economy should there be a “Trumpcession”. You can listen to the podcast at the link below:
‘Betrayal’: AOC condemns Schumer’s ‘slap in the face’ decision to support Republican funding bill
Here’s a little more on the comments to reporters by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. According to a post on X by Kadia Goba, political reporter at Semafor, Ocasio-Cortez said:
There are members of Congress who have won Trump held districts in some of the most difficult territories in the United States; who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people … just to see some Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk. I think it is a huge slap in the face, and I think that there’s a wide sense of betrayal.”
Schumer decision to vote for Republican funding bill a betrayal and ‘huge slap in the face’, says AOC
The Senate finds itself on Friday in a familiar position, working to avoid a partial government shutdown with just hours to spare as Democrats confront two painful options: allowing passage of a bill they believe gives president Donald Trump vast discretion on spending decisions or voting no and letting a funding lapse ensue.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer gave members of his caucus days to vent their frustration about the options before them, but late on Thursday made clear he will not allow a government shutdown. His move gives Democrats room to side with Republicans and allow the continuing resolution, often described as a CR, to come up for a vote as soon as Friday, reports the Associated Press. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that Senator Chuck Schumer’s statement was “a huge slap in the face, and I think that there’s a wide sense of betrayal.”
A procedural vote on Friday will provide a first test of whether the package has the 60 votes needed to advance, before final voting likely later in the day. At least eight Democrats will need to join with Republicans to move the funding package forward.
“While the CR still is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer said.
Senate majority leader John Thune and others used their floor time on Thursday to make the case that any blame for a shutdown would fall squarely on Democrats.
Schumer said Trump would seize more power during a shutdown, because it would give the administration the ability to deem whole agencies, programmess and personnel non-essential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired.
“A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, the state and the country,” Schumer said.
More on that in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments:
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Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, said that he will vote to allow the deeply partisan Republican spending bill become law because a government shutdown would do more harm.
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Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that Senator Chuck Schumer’s statement was “a huge slap in the face, and I think that there’s a wide sense of betrayal.”
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Stocks plunged again after Trump’s threat to impose a 200% tariff “on all wines, Champagnes, and alcoholic products” from European Union countries if the trading bloc makes good on its threat to retaliate for steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the US president by adding a 50% tariff on American products, including Kentucky bourbon.
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In a letter sent to the president of Columbia University and the co-chairs of its board of trustees on Thursday, the Trump administration’s antisemitism taskforce demanded nine specific changes to university policies and structures before negotiations over federal funding would begin.
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Columbia announced the same day it received the letter that it had complied with item one on the list of demands: expelling and suspending pro-Palestinian student protesters who occupied a campus building last year or took part in a Gaza Solidarity encampment.
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Representative Raúl Grijalva died after a long battle with cancer, his office announced on Thursday. His seat will remain vacant until at least September.
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In 1996 a federal judge found the legal provision now being used to target Mahmoud Khalil unconstitutional. She was Donald Trump’s sister.
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The Trump administration has appealed to the supreme court to uphold the president’s executive order curtailing birthright citizenship.
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The US Postal Service will reduce its staff by 10,000 through early retirements, and has signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency (Doge) to streamline its operations, postmaster general Louis DeJoy announced.
