The US Senate on Friday passed a stopgap spending bill, averting a partial government shutdown, after Democrats backed down in a standoff driven by anger over US President Donald Trump’s campaign to slash the federal workforce.
After days of heated debate, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer broke the logjam on Thursday night, saying that he would vote to allow the bill the advance.
Schumer said he did not like the bill, but believed that triggering a shutdown would be a worse outcome as Trump and his adviser Elon Musk were moving swiftly to slash spending.
Photo: Bloomberg
The US Senate voted 54-46 to pass the bill and send it to Trump for signing into law, after fending off four amendments.
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives earlier this week passed the measure, which largely leaves spending steady at about US$6.75 trillion in the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30.
Democrats had expressed anger over the bill, which would cut spending by about US$7 billion and which they said does nothing to stop Trump’s campaign to halt congressionally mandated spending and slash tens of thousands of jobs.
The moves come as Trump is locked in a trade war with some of the US’ closest allies that has sparked a major sell-off in stocks and raised recession worries.
Schumer’s maneuver sent shock waves through the Democratic Party and laid bare members’ divisions over how to stand up to Trump while they remain in the governing minority.
“When the Senate Minority Leader sells you out, the only option is to take back the party and country with grassroots activists in blue and red districts to stand up for the Constitution and our democracy,” Democratic US Representative Ro Khanna wrote in a social media post.
Senate Democrats refrained from attacking Schumer, focusing their harsh words on Trump and Musk.
US House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to answer reporters’ questions about whether he backed Schumer’s leadership at a Friday news conference, exposing stunning cracks in the party leaders’ strategy.
Schumer’s decision particularly rattled House Democrats, who were huddled at a retreat in a suburb of Washington. Jeffries rushed back to Washington to hold an impromptu news conference on the spending bill.
US House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar told reporters that Schumer’s move had caught him by surprise.
More than 60 members signed a letter to Schumer on Friday urging him to reject the measure.
Lawmakers including former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi and New Yorker US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez heaped public criticism on Schumer on Friday, even without naming him directly. Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X on Thursday that an affirmative vote was “unthinkable.”
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS