Government shutdown firings and furloughs add pressure to budget fight

The Senate will come back into session today and is expected to vote for the eighth time on the House-passed continuing resolution, which is backed by Republicans. There is no indication that lawmakers have shifted their stances to change the outcome for the bill, which has failed to advance seven times.

The House remains out of session this week.

Speaker Johnson place blame on Senate Democrats for the continuation of the government shutdown, now the nation’s fifth longest, saying yesterday that the shutdown “should end tomorrow.”

“The Democrats in the Senate’s next opportunity to end this, to change this, and vote yes and reopen the government will be tomorrow, and I pray that they will do the right thing,” he said.

Democrats have urged Republicans to address health care issues, like Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire, in efforts to reopen the government.

Trump is set to meet at the White House today with Argentine President Javier Milei, just days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. “directly purchased Argentine pesos” and “finalized a $20 billion currency swap framework with Argentina’s central bank.”

Milei, whose country has been facing economic turmoil, is a Trump ally.

Trump and Milei previously held a meeting when the two leaders were in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. During the meeting, Trump endorsed Milei for another term.

Later, Trump will posthumously award conservative activist Charlie Kirk with a Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced this morning that she is running for the Senate, pitching herself as the Democratic Party’s best chance to beat Republican Sen. Susan Collins next fall — and saying she does not plan to serve more than one term.

“I’ve won two statewide offices, and unlike other people in the primary right now, I’ve actually won public office, won elections,” Mills said in an interview ahead of her launch.

“And I’ve stood up to Donald Trump, and I have delivered progress for Maine people when it comes to health care, clean energy, public health, education. And I’m willing to fight for that in the U.S. Senate,” she said.

Mills is a top recruit for Senate Democrats, and she said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., encouraged her to run. But she will face a fight for her party’s nomination, with multiple candidates already in the race and making their own pitches for why they are best suited to defeat Collins, the only Republican senator from a state Kamala Harris won last year.

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The tenuous ceasefire in the two-year Israel-Hamas war was holding Tuesday even as complex issues remained ahead, a day after widespread jubilation over the return to Israel of the last 20 living hostages held in Gaza and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange.

The list of more immediate questions includes those on when Hamas will return to Israel the bodies of the 24 hostages believed to be dead in Gaza, as well as the health conditions of the released hostages and freed Palestinians.

Only four of the deceased hostages — whose release is also part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump — were turned over to Israeli authorities on Monday. On Tuesday, the Israeli military identified two of them — Guy Illouz from Israel and Bipin Joshi, a student from Nepal.

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