(WASHINGTON) — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to pass the House-approved deal to fund the government, heightening the alert for a potential government shutdown at the end of the week.
If a deal isn’t struck to bring over some Democratic support, the government will shut down at the end of the day Friday.
Two days is a long time on Capitol Hill, so there is still plenty of time for a deal to emerge, but Schumer’s statement certainly heats up shutdown fears.
Schumer pointed the finger at Republicans for leaving Democrats out of the funding negotiations.
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path drafting their continuing resolution without any input any input from congressional Democrats,” Schumer said on the floor Wednesday.
Unlike in the House, where Republicans can act unilaterally to pass legislation, the Senate needs Democrats to pass a funding bill.
At least 60 votes are needed for a funding bill to clear key procedural votes, called cloture votes, which means at least seven Democrats would be needed to pass any funding bill through the Senate.
Schumer made clear on Wednesday that right now, Democrats won’t provide those votes.
“Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR,” Schumer said.
For several days, Democrats have been grappling behind the scenes about whether to furnish the requisite votes to pass the funding bill approved by House Republicans Tuesday. On the one hand, many Democrats say this bill gives President Donald Trump and Elon Musk unilateral power to continue slashing the federal government. On the other, some Democrats understand that a decision to vote against the bill could likely force an undesirable government shut down.
After days of closed-door meetings and tight-lipped interaction with the press, Schumer said Democrats will instead advocate for a 30-day clean stopgap bill meant to buy more time for appropriators to complete full-year funding bills.
“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” Schumer said.
Just because that’s what Democrats want, doesn’t mean it’s a vote Democrats will get.
They are the minority in the Senate, and they do not have control over what bills are brought to the Senate floor for a vote. There’s nothing that Democrats can do to force a vote in the Senate on a 30-day clean stopgap measure, but they may be able to wheel and deal with Republicans to get a vote on it.
With Schumer saying that Democrats are not ready to proceed, the Democrats hold the cards. If they do not furnish the votes to clear this procedural hurdle and get on to the bill, things could be at a stand still, and a shut down could be on the horizon.
Meanwhile, House Democrats are urging their Senate colleagues to vote no on the funding bill they almost unanimously opposed when it passed through the House on Tuesday evening.
“House Democrats are very clear. We’re asking Senate Democrats to vote ‘no’ on this continuing resolution, which is not clean, and it makes cuts across the board,” said Vice Chair Ted Lieu, flanked by five other members of House leadership at a press conference at the Issues Conference at the Lansdowne Resort. Lieu’s comments came before Schumer pushed for a 30-day clean stopgap bill.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that conversations are “continuing” with Schumer all the way down to rank-and-file Democratic members about keeping the Democratic caucus united against the bill.
“The House Democratic position is crystal clear as evidenced by the strong vote of opposition that we took yesterday on the House floor opposing the Trump-Musk-Johnson reckless Republican spending bill,” Jeffries said.
Late Wednesday, Democratic House leaders called on House Republicans to return from recess to Washington to “immediately” take up a short-term measure that would fund the government through April 11.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
Allison Robbert for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Since Donald Trump took office 100 days ago, the president and his administration have faced an average of more than two lawsuits per day, challenging nearly every element of his agenda.
The breakneck pace of the president’s policies has been matched in nearly equal force by a flood of litigation — at least 220 lawsuits in courts across the country — challenging more than two dozen executive orders, the firing of twenty high-ranking government officials, and dozens of other executive actions.
While the Trump administration has had some victories in the courts, federal judges have blocked key parts of Trump’s agenda ranging from parts of his immigration policy and military guidelines to his effort to roll back diversity and equity initiatives.
“The administration has basically gone on a shock-and-awe bombing campaign,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University. “There is a huge amount of what they are currently doing that they probably could have achieved lawfully, but they have crashed through any of the existing legal guardrails in an attempt to do everything, everywhere, all at once.”
The suits have come at a steady clip — 20 in January, approximately 70 in both February and March, and about 50 so far in April — as the Trump administration has rolled out its new policies.
Approximately 60 of those cases have focused on the president’s immigration policy, with courts so far blocking the president’s attempts to remove birthright citizenship, withhold funding from sanctuary cities, remove noncitizens to countries other than their place of origin with little-to-no due process, and strip thousands of their temporary protected status. Some of those policies have earned the president rebukes from judges questioning the rationale for his unilateral immigration policy.
“It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, said of Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. “There are moments in the world’s history when people look back and ask, ‘Where were the lawyers, where were the judges?’ In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable. I refuse to let that beacon go dark today.”
Courts have also blocked the Trump administration from effectively banning transgender people from military service, limiting gender-affirming care, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, attempting to freeze trillions in funding to states and nonprofits, and moving to block billions in foreign aid.
But in many cases federal courts have not stopped the president outright — tentatively allowing the mass firing of thousands of government employees, greenlighting a historic federal buyout, and, for now, allowing the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development. The Department of Education and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau are also undergoing massive staffing reductions as judges actively consider the legality of the Trump administration’s cuts.
The president’s supporters have decried the litigation as a “judicial coup,” while those opposing his policies have praised judges for serving as a check against the administration. But the seemingly constant conflict between the Trump administration and the judiciary could risk permanent damage to the separation of powers at the heart of the Constitution, some judges have warned.
“Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around,” wrote federal Judge Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee who rebuked the Trump administration inaction after being ordered to return a man from a Salvadoran prison.
Acting in ‘bad faith’
In the first hundred days since Trump took office, lawyers challenging his actions in court alleged that his administration violated court orders at least six times, according to court records reviewed by ABC News.
While no judge has held members of the Trump administration in contempt of court, two federal judges have sharply rebuked the government for acting in “bad faith” during ongoing lawsuits. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — who heard arguments over the deportation of two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — ultimately determined the Trump administration likely violated his order by failing to return the migrants to the United States.
An appeals court temporarily blocked Judge Boasberg from beginning the process of contempt proceedings, but his most recent ruling invoked the words of former Chief Justice John Marshall to describe the stakes of the Trump administration’s actions.
“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely ‘annul the judgments of the courts of the United States’ would not just ‘destroy the rights acquired under those judgments’; it would make ‘a solemn mockery’ of ‘the Constitution itself,'” Boasberg wrote.
Lawyers representing the Trump administration have argued that Judge Boasberg’s order fell outside his jurisdiction because the flights in question had left U.S. airspace, and have insisted that a federal judge should not dictate U.S. foreign policy.
The Trump administration has also faced legal challenges for its refusal to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native living in Maryland, to the United States after he was mistakenly deported to his home country despite an order barring his deportation there due to fear of persecution.
The administration has so far declined to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite the Supreme Court ordering his release, though administration officials have complied with a lower court’s order to provide regular updates about him.
The administration has rebutted orders to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States despite the Supreme Court ordering them to facilitate his release.
Judge Wilkinson, in the meantime, has condemned the Trump administration’s attempt to send alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” he wrote. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 65% of respondents said Trump’s administration is trying to avoid complying with federal court orders, and 62% said they don’t think his administration respects the rule of law.
‘It was a sham’
With the Trump administration just 100 days in, most lawsuits have not made their way through the appeals process to the Supreme Court — but the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to block some court orders on an emergency basis.
Those appeals have led to some losses for the Trump administration — among them a 5-4 Supreme Court decision ordering the Trump administration to unfreeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funds for work that aid groups have already completed on the government’s behalf.
On the flip side, the Supreme Court — citing largely technical reasons — handed the Trump administration a series of temporary wins, including vacating an order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. In that case, the justices opted to throw out the case because the case was filed in the wrong court, declining to weigh in on the merits of the issue.
The Supreme Court also handed the Trump administration a temporary win by blocking a lower court’s ruling that barred the Trump administration from firing thousands of probationary government employees without cause. The district judge who blocked the firings slammed the Trump administration for using a “sham” and “gimmick” to fire thousands of federal workers.
“I just want to say it is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said. “That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements.”
But the Supreme Court vacated his order because the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit — a group of unions and interest groups — lacked the legal standing to bring the lawsuit.
Over the next month, the Supreme Court is set to hold oral arguments for the first time in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, which confers American citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil regardless of their parents’ immigration or citizenship status.
The Trump administration also asked the Supreme Court to take up a legal challenge to the Pentagon’s transgender service ban after three judges blocked it from taking effect.
‘A shocking abuse of power’
Despite President Trump’s vow to restore free speech and end censorship, his administration has faced multiple lawsuits challenging his actions on the grounds they violate the First Amendment.
Four law firms have sued the Trump administration after they were targeted for their past work, with each firm arguing the Trump administration unlawfully retaliated against them and violated their First Amendment rights. Judges have temporarily blocked the Trump administration from targeting Susman Godfrey LLP, Jenner & Block LLP, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and Perkins Coie LLP.
“The framers of our Constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power,” U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said regarding the order targeting Susman Godfrey LLP.
At least nine law firms have already acquiesced to the Trump administration’s demands, agreeing to donate a total of $940 million in legal services to promote causes supported by the president.
After the Trump administration attempted to freeze more than $2 billion dollars in federal funding to Harvard University, the country’s oldest school cited the First Amendment in their lawsuit challenging the funding freeze, arguing the “threat of additional funding cuts will chill Harvard’s exercise of its First Amendment rights.” More than two in three Americans support Harvard in their ongoing dispute with the Trump administration, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.
“Harvard will be unable to make decisions regarding its faculty hiring, academic programs, student admissions, and other core academic matters without fear that those decisions will run afoul of government censors’ views on acceptable levels of ideological or viewpoint diversity on campus,” Harvard’s lawyers argued.
At least nine current or recent students have challenged the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke their visas or green cards, with several alleging they were targeted for their outspoken support of Palestinians. The Trump administration’s policy of revoking student visas marks the government’s most aggressive approach in more than two decades and the first time students have been targeted over their speech, according to immigration attorney Renata Castro.
“The government is looking at speech — the exercise of free speech — and using that to dig into perceived immigration violations so that they can revoke student visas,” Castro said.
The Trump administration also invoked a rarely used law — 8 U.S.C. § 237 (a)(4)(C)(i) — to justify removing noncitizens such as Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was a prominent figure during student protests at Columbia, because he and others allegedly harm U.S. foreign policy.
According to an analysis of past immigration cases conducted by political scientists Graeme Blair and David Hausman, the United States had only used that provision as a basis to remove a noncitizen two times in the last 25 years.
“The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent,” Khalil wrote in a public letter last month from an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. “At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”
Earlier this month, an immigration judge ruled that Khalil can be deported on the grounds that he threatens U.S. foreign policy. While he remained in ICE detention and prepared an appeal, Khalil’s wife gave birth to their child last week.
(WASHINGTON) — On the heels of terminating 10,000 jobs from the Department of Health and Human Services this week, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told ABC News some programs would soon be reinstated because they were mistakenly cut.
Kennedy’s comments were in response to a question about a branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that monitors lead levels among children and manages prevention across the country. The program was gutted on Tuesday.
“There were some programs that were cuts that are being reinstated, and I believe that that’s one,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said other programs across HHS would be reinstated as well.
Of the cuts that were made, he said some would be brought back because they were not the administrative roles that the Department of Government Efficiency, run by billionaire Elon Musk, was aiming to eliminate, such as communications or human resources jobs, and that research or “studies” were also wrongly swept up in the mass layoffs.
“We’re streamlining the agencies. We’re going to make it work for public health, make it work for the American people,” Kennedy said. “In the course of that, there were a number of instances where studies that should have not have been cut were cut, and we’ve reinstated them. Personnel that should not have been cut were cut — we’re reinstating them, and that was always the plan.”
That was news to Erik Svendsen, the director of the division that oversaw the CDC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention branch, who told ABC News in an interview that the work was completely stopped. Svendsen had not received any indication it would be reinstated or continued through another part of the CDC.
Kennedy did not respond to a question about when jobs would be reinstated. ABC News has reached out to HHS for more details on which roles, if any, have been asked to return.
It would not be the first time that jobs were reinstated after DOGE cuts. In the first round of firings, targeted at probationary workers, hundreds of CDC and Food and Drug Administration employees were later brought back.
“And one of the things that President Trump has said is that if we make mistakes, we’re going to admit it and we’re going to remedy it, and that’s one of the mistakes,” Kennedy said.
But even as he acknowledged that his department cut people mistakenly, Kennedy has maintained, including in comments earlier Thursday, that no front-line work or essential services were affected by the massive restructuring he’s overseeing.
“The cuts in all of our agency are not affecting science,” he said. “Front-line enforcement jobs and health delivery jobs are preserved.”
Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, six weeks into his historic return to the White House, delivered the longest joint address to Congress in history on Tuesday night.
Trump triumphantly took the dais to thundering applause from Republican majorities in the House and Senate, but the mood changed within minutes as he faced heckles from some raucous Democrats.
The president, though, signaled he is forging full steam ahead with his agenda (however divisive) as he claimed a “mandate” from American voters.
Here are the key takeaways:
‘America is back’
Trump opened his address by declaring to Congress and the nation: “America is back.”
A chant of “USA” immediately broke out among lawmakers as Republicans rose to their feet.
Trump quickly turned to touting the lightning speed with which he’s sought to enact his agenda, arguing his administration’s “accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years — and we are just getting started.”
Democrats interrupt, and one gets removed
But as Trump turned to talking about the 2024 election, claiming a wide “mandate” though data shows the victory isn’t the total landslide he’s often portrayed.
When Trump said he won the popular vote by “large numbers,” Democrats began audibly pushing back. Rep. Al Green of Texas was seen out of his seat and shaking his cane at Trump as he shouted, “There’s no mandate.”
Speaker Mike Johnson was slamming his gavel to restore order to the joint session and issued a warning to members to maintain decorum. Johnson shortly after instructed Green be removed from the chamber by the sergeant at arms after telling him to take his seat several times.
The back-and-forth between Trump and Democrats continued throughout the speech. At one point, Trump lashed out at Sen. Elizabeth Warren, bringing back his 2018 taunt of calling her “Pocahontas.”
Democrats held up signs that said “false” and “Musk steals.” Several walked out of the chamber as he was speaking.
Trump continues to take aim at Biden
Trump repeatedly went after former President Joseph Biden, continuing to criticize him for issues at the border or with the economy.
“The worst president in American history,” Trump said of Biden.
Trump is only six weeks into his second term, but already Americans are expressing dissatisfaction with many of his policies. A 538 analysis of public opinion polls found his approval rating on actions related to health care, foreign policy, government funding, trade and more to be underwater.
Trump praises Elon Musk and DOGE
Elon Musk, a controversial but highly influential adviser in Trump’s orbit, was in the chamber for Trump’s remarks. He left the White House for the speech moments before Trump and, like the president, received applause upon his arrival though it was more muted.
Trump spent a considerable amount of time early in his remarks praising Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency’s work slashing government spending and the federal workforce.
“The brand-new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight. Thank you Elon. He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need this. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Everybody here, even this side appreciates it, I believe,” Trump said.
The president read a laundry list of the alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” he claims DOGE has identified. He made several misleading claims about Social Security in the process, including that millions of Americans over the age of 100 were receiving benefits, which has been debunked.
Trump claimed DOGE’s work will help the economy overall.
“By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors, and put more money in the pockets of American families,” he said.
Pocket-book issues get little attention as Trump defends tariffs After hammering Biden on the economy during the 2024 campaign and pledging to voters to bring down prices on Day 1, Trump didn’t spend much time discussing how exactly he’d lower prices as he continued to lay blame on Biden.
“As president, I’m fighting every day to reverse this damage and make America affordable again,” Trump said in one of his only mentions of grocery prices. “Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control. The egg price is out of control, and we’re working hard to get it back down.”
The comment again sparked pushback from Democrats. The price of eggs has skyrocketed under Trump amid an avian flu outbreak.
Trump said the focus on how to defeat inflation will be on reducing the cost of energy and taxpayer savings through DOGE.
Trump, meanwhile, offered a defense of his tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico — which sent markets roiling on Tuesday. He said more “reciprocal” tariffs were in store.
“Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs they’re about protecting the soul of our country. Tariffs are about making America rich again,” he said.
Trump saved foreign policy for the end of his address. He again said his administration would “reclaim” the Panama Canal for national security reasons, and said they were trying to get Greenland for similar reasons.
After an explosive meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last week, Trump said he received from Zelenskyy earlier Tuesday and read part of it aloud.
“I appreciate that he sent this letter, just got it a little while ago,” Trump said, appearing to signal tensions have cooled a bit.
“Simultaneously, we’ve had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?” he said.
Trump also briefly touched on the Middle East, saying his administration is working to bring back hostages held in Gaza and that he wants to build on his 2019 Abraham Accords to bring stability to the region.
