Senate advances Republican stopgap spending bill with Democrat help – US politics live

Ten democrats just voted to advance the government spending bill, the Associated Press reports. They are:

• Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer

• Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second highest-ranking Senate Democrat

• Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats

• Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada

• Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania

• Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan

• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York

• Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii

• Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire

• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire

A spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown has narrowly cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate, paving the way for passage as a midnight deadline looms.

Ten Democrats joined with Republicans to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the measure. Democrats confronted two painful options Friday as a midnight deadline loomed. They could allow the passage of a bill they believe gives President Donald Trump vast discretion on spending decisions.

Or they could vote no and let funding lapse. The top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, said Democrats really didn’t have a choice because a shutdown would have far worse consequences for Americans

The US senate passed the HALT fentanyl act on Friday on a roll call vote of 84-16. The act would impose harsher penalties on people who traffic the drug and would reclassify fentanyl as a schedule one substance, a classification for drugs that have a high potential for abuse.

Senator Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, applauded the bill’s passage in a statement saying,

Together, we’ve taken steps to open the doors of research to permanently schedule the deadliest substances the United States has ever faced and to send a clear message that Congress is willing and ready to act.

Together, we’ve taken an important step to live up to our commitment to our constituents and to the loved ones lost—to put them first and to serve them.”

The US Justice department is investigating whether Columbia University concealed “illegal aliens” on its campus, according to a top U.S. Justice Department official. Agents with the Department of Homeland Security searched two university residences with a warrant Thursday evening.

No one was arrested, and it was unclear whom the authorities were searching for. But by Friday afternoon U.S. officials had announced developments related to two people they had pursued in connection with the demonstrations.

A Columbia doctoral student from India whose visa was revoked by the Trump administration fled the U.S. on an airliner. A Palestinian woman who had been arrested during the protests at the university last April was arrested by federal immigration authorities in Newark, New Jersey.

Donald Trump just made a little bit of local news: he’s cancelling the construction of a new FBI headquarters in Maryland.

The FBI is currently based in downtown Washington DC, but has long been eyeing a move to the city’s suburbs. After years of wrangling by the congressional delegations of Maryland and Virginia, the federal government selected the former as the site of the new HQ, but Trump says he’ll put a stop to that:

You have that big FBI building, and it’s a very big building, and they were going to build an FBI headquarters three hours away in Maryland, a liberal state, but that has no bearing on what I’m about to say. But we’re going to stop it, not going to let that happen. We’re going to build another big FBI building right where it is, which would have been the right place, because the FBI and the DoJ have to be near each other.

The president said he had discussed it with FBI director Kash Patel, who said he preferred a smaller building:

He said, I’m just going to take a old Department of Commerce building that’s about 25% the size, and that’s what I need. We’re going to have the best staff that you’ve ever seen, and that’s what I need. It’s in a nice location, but I don’t need that big building.

With the niceties out of the way, Donald Trump is laying into Joe Biden and his attorney general Merrick Garland, airing a mostly familiar list of grievances about their administration.

“There could be no more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent and reward the wicked. That’s what they were doing at a level that’s never been seen before, and it’s exactly what you saw with Joe Biden Merrick Garland and their cronies,” Trump said.

Turning to his familiar rhetoric over immigration, Trump said of Biden: “They imported illegal alien murderers, drug dealers and child predators from all over the world to come into our country, while putting elderly Christians and anti-abortion activists on trial for singing hymns and for saying prayers.”

While Biden did preside over large levels of undocumented border crossings, there’s no evidence they encouraged them to enter, and it was widely viewed as a political liability for the president.

And as he often does, Trump has also repeatedly referenced the long saga of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Trump has thus far confined his remarks to recognizing the team at the justice department, including attorney general Pam Bondi and Emil Bove, who was previously his defense attorney and acted as deputy attorney general for the first few weeks of his term.

“We’re turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization and surrender to violent criminals, and we’re restoring fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law. And you’re the people that are doing it,” Trump said.

Donald Trump’s event at the justice department is getting under way, with attorney general Pam Bondi introducing him and invited guests.

She mentioned that the parents of a child who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant are in attendance.

“Thanks to Donald Trump, they will all be deported very soon,” Bondi said.

Trump is coming onstage now.

Donald Trump is late to this speech at the justice department.

Back in the Senate, the big question of when the chamber will vote on the government funding bill, and if it will have enough Democratic support to pass, has not yet been answered.

All Republican senators are expected to vote for the bill, with the exception of Kentucky’s Rand Paul. He’s on the floor right now, raging against the legislation.

Here’s what he had to say:

The bill before us doesn’t change anything. The bill before us keeps the same Biden spending levels.

We were told, with relentless fury, that we would fight for the taxpayers come spring, and we are given a bill that doesn’t change … the course of accumulating $2tn in debt every year. The powers that be, I believe, waved the white flag of surrender when they presented the American people with this bill that fails to make the cuts that are necessary to slow down the accumulation of our debt.

Donald Trump is set to take the stage at the justice department for a speech billed as outlining his crime-fighting agenda.

It’s a stark reversal of fortunes for the president when it comes to his relationship with the department, which was tasked with investigating and prosecuting him under Joe Biden.

The choice of venue is also unusual, as the department operates semi-independently from the White House and presidents rarely stop by its headquarters. Trump, however, has made clear that he intends all organs of the government, including its prosecutors, to answer directly to him:

Meanwhile, Canada today swore in Mark Carney as prime minister, and among his first tasks will be dealing with the trade war with the United States that has escalated over the past weeks. Here’s more on Carney’s new administration, from the Guardian’s Leyland Cecco:

Mark Carney has said Canada will never be part of the US, after being sworn in as the country’s 24th prime minister in a sudden rise to power.

“We will never, in any shape or form, be part of the US,” the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England told a crowd outside Rideau Hall in Ottawa, rejecting Donald Trump’s annexation threats. “We are very fundamentally a different country.”

Canada “expects respect” from the US, he added, while also voicing hope his government could find ways “to work together” with the Trump administration.

Less than a week ago, Carney beat the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the former government house leader Karina Gould and the former member of parliament Frank Baylis with a dominant 85.9% of the vote, in a closely watched leadership race. He has no prior elected experience and does not have a seat in the House of Commons, making him a rarity in Canadian history.

Carney is expected to announce an election in the coming days, reflecting both the urgency of Canada’s trade war with the US, and the awkward reality that as prime minister without a seat in parliament, he is unable to attend sessions of the House of Commons.

Nevada’s Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto says she will vote for the continuing resolution that prevents a government shutdown:

A government shutdown would be devastating for the American people. It would force tens of thousands of Nevada military personnel, union members, law enforcement agents and nurses to work without pay. Shutting down the government gives President Trump and Elon Musk even more power to cherry-pick who is an essential employee, who they want to fire, and what agencies they want to shutter. And a shutdown would force federal courts to slow work on lawsuits against this administration’s illegal actions. The last government shutdown cost the American economy $11 billion and thousands of hardworking Americans were harmed. I cannot vote for that.

She joins minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman as the only Democrats to have explicitly said they will support the bill. Several others, however, have not yet spoken out.

Fellow Nevada Democratic senator Jacky Rosen, who eked out re-election in November even as Donald Trump won her state’s electoral votes, says she will not support the spending bill:

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have complete control of the federal government, and they’re using their power to help Elon Musk continue to systematically dismantle basic government functions from veterans’ health care to aviation safety and cancer research

I cannot vote for an irresponsible and hyper-partisan bill that gives Trump and Musk even more power to hurt millions of Americans all while Congressional Republicans continue to push for cuts to Medicaid to pay for more tax breaks for the ultra-rich and giant corporations.

But the press really did try to get House Democratic leaders to reveal their true feelings about Chuck Schumer and other Senate colleagues who are ready to pass the spending bill they oppose.

“You keep engaging in these parlor games because you want to take the focus off the American people,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries replied to one particularly pushy reporter. “What we’re saying is we look forward to continuing to work with our Senate colleagues, all of them, in opposition to the extremism that’s being unleashed on the American people.”

Whip Katherine Clark put it this way:

Most American people, they can’t name us. They don’t know who Chuck Schumer is, but they do know what this administration and Elon Musk and the GOP are planning for them, and it’s why you’re seeing this uproar in town halls.

More about those town halls:

House Democratic leaders told a press conference they remain firmly opposed to the government funding bill, but batted away questions about how Senate Democrats should vote on it.

“House Democrats remain strongly opposed to the partisan, Republican spending bill that will hurt families, hurt veterans, hurt seniors and hurt the American people. It is a false choice that Donald Trump, Elon Musk and House Republicans have been presenting between their reckless and partisan spending bill and a government shutdown,” said the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.

He demanded that the Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, return to the negotiating table to hammer out a bill that can attract bipartisan support:

We’re ready to pass a four week spending bill that keeps the government open and will allow the House and the Senate to negotiate an actual agreement that meets the needs of the American people, but we do not support A bill that is designed to hurt the American people.

Reporters wanted to know his thoughts on the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer’s argument that a government shutdown would be worse than the spending legislation.

“That’s a question that is best addressed by the Senate,” Jeffries replied.

Asked to elaborate on his recent conversations with Schumer, Jeffries replied:

He and I have had repeated and private conversations throughout the week, and those conversations will remain private.

Earlier in the day, the Associated Press reported that Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s Democratic senator, hinted that he would support Chuck Schumer stepping down as minority leader.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Warnock was actually referring to Democrats’ chances of retaking the White House and Senate over the next four years, not Schumer.

Nancy Pelosi’s statement against the government funding bill was a notable flareup of infighting within the Democratic party, and between the House and Senate.

Though she’s no longer House speaker or party leader, Pelosi remains a force in Democratic politics, and played a major role in the pressure campaign that pushed Joe Biden to end his bid for a second term. Now, she has urged Senate Democrats not to back a continuing resolution to keep the government open – a position that puts her at odds with minority leader Chuck Schumer, who views the bill’s passage as a necessary evil.

Pelosi has long put women’s rights at the center of her politics, and noted in her statement that senator Patty Murray and congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, two top appropriators, are both against the bill.

Here’s what Murray has said about it:

Good morning. I am a firm 100% NO on House Republicans’ slush fund CR.

I will NOT vote to let Elon and Trump pick winners and losers with your taxpayer dollars.

Senators were not elected to beg Trump for federal resources.

And DeLauro:

Last week, House Democrats opposed giving Elon Musk and Trump a blank check funding bill that would allow them to gut programs and services families rely on.

The Senate must pass a short-term spending bill so we can pass bipartisan bills that protect programs for our communities.

New York state Democrats have thrown their support behind Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer after the senator said he would vote for the Republican funding bill in order to avert a government shutdown.

In a statement on Friday, chair Jay S Jacobs said:

“Reading the angry comments directed toward Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer by fellow Democrats compels me to weigh in on this issue. Too many Democrats prefer the ‘circular firing squad’ and ‘eating our own’ to the more effective approach of finding the right long-term strategy. Once again, this is such a case.

Shutting down the government would lend legitimacy to President Trump’s efforts to cut funding from all of the departments and agencies of the government using the argument that he was forced – by the Democrats – to not spend the money that was not allocated. Every day that the government remains shut and on austerity would be another day of MAGA mayhem.

Senator Schumer is 100% correct. Anger about his reluctance to invoke the use of the filibuster – an arcane rule of the Senate that we regularly condemn when employed by the other side in order to thwart the wishes of the democratically elected majority in that body – as odious as it is to contemplate the reality of a Republican majority – may feel good giving vent to our frustration, but will work against our long-term desire to win back the Congress in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028.”

On Friday, the Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned Schumer’s “acquiesce” to the Republican bill bill, saying: “We have time to correct course on this decision. Senate Democrats can vote no.”