Judge Blocks Trump From Using Shutdown to Fire Anyone He Wants

The Trump administration can’t fire federal workers while the government is shut down, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Tuesday afternoon. 

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s ruling grants a preliminary injunction preventing firings while a lawsuit challenging their legality continues, and indefinitely extends an earlier temporary restraining order that would have expired Wednesday. Labor unions representing federal workers, including the American Federation of Government Employees, have sued to block President Trump’s mass layoffs, calling them an abuse of power. 

Illston’s ruling does not bode well for the White House. The judge, appointed by President Clinton, has said she believes the evidence will demonstrate the illegality of the mass firings. In hearings earlier this month, Illson said that layoff notices sent out by the government on October 10 appeared to be politically motivated and ill-thought out. 

So far, about 4,100 layoff notices have gone out to federal employees, some arriving in inboxes that workers aren’t legally allowed to check. Meanwhile, the government shutdown is entering its fifth week, with House Speaker Mike Johnson refusing to bring Congress back into session and SNAP benefits set to expire within days. 

Democrats are refusing to vote on a funding bill that leaves out extending health care subsidies, a sticking point from which Republicans are refusing to budge, or even offer a health care plan of their own. Federal workers may have a momentary reprieve, but the shutdown is still continuing with no new developments.  

This story has been updated.

Nearly two dozen states are suing the Trump administration for failing to salvage SNAP benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown.

Approximately 42 million Americans—about one in eight people—that participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program stand to go hungry after November 1, when  benefits are scheduled to expire. 

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” reads a message explicitly blaming Democrats on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website.

Two options remain to save the critical welfare program: a quick (if unlikely and, apparently, politically undesirable) resolution to the gridlock in Congress, or a chunk of change to keep the program chugging along until the next month.

A coalition of 23 attorneys general and three governors are fighting for the latter, arguing that the USDA not only has the funds to continue feeding Americans via SNAP through the month of November—the USDA also has “both the authority and legal duty” to do so.

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening: For the first time ever, SNAP benefits will not be available to the millions of low-income individuals who depend on them to put food on the table,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of four attorneys general co-leading the lawsuit. “With the holidays around the corner, we are seeing costs for groceries continue to increase and food banks facing unprecedented demand. We are taking a stand because families will experience hunger and malnutrition if the Trump Administration gets its way.” 

The agency held roughly $6 billion in contingency funds as of September 30, according to a USDA Lapse of Funding Plan that acknowledged Congress’s intent to keep SNAP benefits fully operational through the government shutdown. Days later, USDA officials directed states to put an indefinite hold on the rollout of November benefits as the federal branch researched the potential reality of distributing its emergency funds. 

When states demanded an answer following weeks of silence, the USDA announced that it would be suspending SNAP benefits indefinitely. In a separate memo, USDA officials reversed course on their Lapse of Funding Plan, claiming that they actually were not authorized to use the $6 billion contingency fund to provide SNAP benefits, lest the agency need the cash to tackle a major natural disaster such as a hurricane or a tornado.

The government has been shut down for more than 27 days as of Tuesday, making it the second-longest federal closure in U.S. history. It’s only bested by a 35-day shutdown between 2018 and 2019 that occurred during Donald Trump’s first term.

President Donald Trump’s administration is about to ruin a lot of people’s credit.

A new interpretative rule set published Tuesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will force people to include their medical debt and non-conviction criminals records on their consumer credit reports.

The CFPB had previously issued guidance allowing states to pass laws nixing the inclusion of medical debt, but that rule was revoked in May 2025. The CFPB published the latest interpretive rule to “clarify that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) generally preempts State laws that touch on broad areas of credit reporting.”

The new rule could pose serious problems for American consumers, who owe a collective $220 million in medical debt, and could prevent them from securing loans, buying homes, or obtaining lines of credit. The CFPB said that courts ought to overturn rules protecting consumers from including this potentially damaging information from their credit reports, which have been implemented in 15 states, including New York, Maryland, Maine, California, and Colorado.

This latest guidance comes at a difficult time, as health insurance premiums are expected to spike by thousands of dollars a year unless Congress can agree to extend Obamacare subsidies. Should those tax credits expire, the number of Americans drowning in medical bills is likely to increase.

Chi Chi Wu, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told Bloomberg Law that requiring medical debt to appear on credit reports would add “salt to the wound” for consumers already facing a hostile economic environment.

The CFPB is currently being run by Russell Vought, the White House budget director whom Trump previously compared to the Grim Reaper. Earlier this month, Vought said he hopes to “close down” the consumer watchdog soon. Meanwhile, the administration has argued in court that no such plan exists.

The Department of Justice has begun reviewing all of former President Biden’s pardons, in an effort to delegitimize anything he did as president and make Donald Trump’s previously pardoned political enemies more vulnerable. 

“My team has already initiated a review of the Biden administration’s reported use of autopen for pardons,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote Tuesday on X. “@RepJamesComer’s new information is extremely helpful, and his leadership on this issue is invaluable. We’ll continue working with @GOPoversight to deliver accountability for the American people.”

This move from the Justice Department comes as Comer and House Oversight Committee Republicans released a 93-page report earlier in the day alleging without evidence that there was a “cover-up of [Biden’s] cognitive decline,” and that his aides were making decisions for him. Using an autopen is commonplace among modern presidents, and Trump himself has admitted he has used one. 

This baseless, useless accusation against a former president comes on day 28 of the government shutdown.  

“What’s important about an autopen investigation is that the government is still shut down, Trump is still out of the country and Mike Johnson still hasn’t sworn in Rep-elect Grijalva, who would be the 218th signature on a petition to force a vote on the Epstein files,” HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery wrote on X. 

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is taking shots at Republicans’ lack of action in reopening the government, directing her ire at White House staff and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Greene expressed her frustrations on a House Republican conference call Tuesday, saying that she was tired of people listening to White House political staff, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News reported. She also said Senate Majority John Thune should abolish the filibuster to pass a funding bill and reopen the government.

In a post on X, Greene confirmed Sherman’s reporting, and added that she said “I have no respect for the House not being in session passing our bills and the President’s executive orders.” Greene also once again attacked Johnson for failing to produce a single health care plan that would keep costs down for Americans. Democrats have demanded that tax credits for the Affordable Care Act be extended in order to vote to reopen the government, the primary sticking point in the shutdown.

“Johnson said he’s got ideas and pages of policy ideas and committees of jurisdiction are working on it, but he refused to give one policy proposal to our GOP conference on our own conference call,” Greene wrote.

Later, Greene told The Washington Post’s Kadia Goba that she was muted on the call, and then reprimanded by Johnson, who said, “Stop attacking your own party, Marjorie.” A source close to Republican leadership didn’t deny the incident, saying it was standard practice for a third party to mute the line after questions to give leadership a chance to respond.

In recent months, Greene has not hesitated to criticize her own party, calling out Republicans and Donald Trump on everything from the Epstein files to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Trump has been dumbfounded by the Georgia congresswoman’s turn, asking other Republicans what happened to her. Johnson doesn’t seem to have an answer to her or any of his other critics as the government shutdown stretches to nearly a month.

A federal judge slammed Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino Tuesday for agents terrorizing children at a Halloween parade over the weekend, according to Jon Seidal of the Chicago Sun Times.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis was kind enough to walk Bovino through each point of the temporary restraining order he’d allegedly violated. Ellis issued the order restricting federal officials’ use of force against protesters and journalists earlier this month. Bovino was summoned to federal court last week after he was recorded throwing what appeared to be tear gas canisters at protesters.

Referring to videos of multiple incidents with federal law enforcement in Chicago, the judge said that Border Patrol’s use of force did not appear to be justified. “It is difficult for me to see that the force being used is necessary to stop an immediate and serious threat of physical harm to a person,” she said.

This was particularly clear in an incident Saturday, when federal agents tear-gassed multiple costumed school-age children en route to a Halloween parade, Ellis said.

“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday. And it’s gonna take a long time for that to come back, if ever,” Ellis said.

It seemed that Ellis tried to give the Border Patrol chief the benefit of the doubt when discussing the multiple blatant violations of her order, claiming that the order was either unclear, not read, or read and ignored. “Given the fact that you and I took essentially the same oath, I know Option 3 is not something—that just wouldn’t happen,” she said.

Ellis spoke directly to Bovino about his own alleged infraction, insisting that he needed to give a clear warning before deploying crowd control tactics. “Again, a warning has to be, ‘I’m going to deploy tear gas, if you do not do’ whatever it is,” she explained.

Bovino refused to answer affirmatively when asked whether he believed the allegations against other agents suggested that they’d violated Ellis’s TRO. “Well, your honor, I believe that each situation is dependent on the situation. And, you know, I’d like to know more about what happened,” Bovino replied.

Ellis asked Bovino to ensure that officers display identifiers in one of two “conspicuous” locations on their person and that all officers, including Bovino, wear a body camera. She also gave Bovino until Friday to procure all use-of-force reports since the beginning of September. Ellis asked that he return to meet her every day until a preliminary injunction hearing next month.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is apparently tired, despite doing little this month during the government shutdown.

Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday that people have been telling him, “You look so tired on TV.”

“I am so tired, because we’re not sleeping a lot. We’re working overtime,” Johnson said, adding that House committees are still conferencing to put together legislation to be ready to go as soon as the House is back in session.

But the House hasn’t been in session since September 19, thanks to Johnson, well before the government shutdown began on October 1. Not only is no legislation being debated or passed, but Johnson has refused to swear in Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in Arizona last month.

Johnson has dodged questions about Grijalva, claiming that he’s following a made-up Pelosi precedent and saying she won’t be sworn in until after the shutdown ends. Grijalva would be a deciding vote on whether to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, which could be the real reason for the delay.

Meanwhile, Johnson didn’t claim that he or House Republicans were hard at work negotiating with Democrats, which should be the preeminent concern, with SNAP benefits on the verge of ending thanks to the shutdown. If the speaker and his party are actually working hard, it doesn’t seem to be on reopening the government.

At least one speaker on Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest summit lineup has divided the conservative caucus.

Tucker Carlson, the former face of Fox News and an increasingly critical voice against Israel, has been a thorn in the side of the organization’s fundraising efforts for some time now.

Text message exchanges published by Candace Owens (and later confirmed by TPUSA) revealed that the organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, was grappling with whether to let Carlson speak at AmericaFest in the days before his assassination.

“Just lost another huge Jewish donor,” Kirk wrote. “$2 million a year because we won’t cancel Tucker.”

The donor was unnamed in the exchange, but The New York Times reported earlier this month that Robert Shillman, a Zionist tech billionaire, axed a $2 million pledge over Carlson’s participation in a previous Turning Point event.

“Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes,” Kirk added in another message.

The decision as to whether to include Carlson in future events has not gotten easier without Kirk’s leadership.

But other anti-Israel voices on the AmericaFest roster are posing their own problems. The inclusion of Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec, among others, have raised eyebrows in conservative circles wary of challenges to the larger party position, The Bulwark reported Tuesday.

“No, it’s not good that Carlson, Bannon, Posobiec, and [Texas Attorney General Ken] Paxton are speaking at TPUSA’s AmFest in December,” Kimberly Ross, a contributor at the conservative rag the Washington Examiner, tweeted last week. “It’s bad, actually. The cancer should be cut out.”

The organization has less than two months to figure out a solution: AmericaFest is scheduled to start on December 18.

House Republicans have turned their focus back to former President Joe Biden’s “autopen” while regular Americans—particuarly federal workers and SNAP recipients—suffer the consequences of the ongoing government shutdown. 

The House Oversight Committee issued a 93-page report Tuesday on Biden’s use of the autopen, a fairly standard practice among U.S. presidents, and called on the Department of Justice to begin an investigation. The report urges Attorney General Pam Bondi to consider whether the pardons or clemency Biden granted to individuals  are still valid, as well as any “executive actions that were signed using the Autopen.”

The Republican report alleges a “cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline” on the part of Dr. Kevin O’Connor and Biden aides Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini. 

“The cost of the scheme to hide the fallout of President Biden’s diminished physical and mental acuity was great but will likely never be fully calculated,” the report reads. “Barring evidence of executive actions taken during the Biden presidency showing that [he] indeed took a particular executive action, the committee deems those actions taken through use of the autopen as void.”

Of course, the GOP’s  probe did not include any evidence that anyone other than Biden made the decisions that his staff later carried out. Rather, it seems like another Trump vendetta, this time during the longest full shutdown in U.S. history.

“Other than the Rigged Presidential Election of 2020, the Biggest Scandal in American History is the ‘AUTOPEN!’ Whoever used it was usurping the power of the Presidency, and it should be very easy to find out who that person (or persons) is,” Trump posted back in May. “They did things that a Joe Biden, of sound mind, would have never done, like, Open Borders, Transgender for everyone, men in women’s sports, and far more. Fear not, however, we will bring America BACK, BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

Biden has repeatedly said that he made every final decision in the White House. 

President Donald Trump’s feeble attempts to kiss up to yet another authoritarian leader don’t appear to be working.

Ahead of Trump’s visit to Asia this week, the U.S. president made efforts to meet with Kim Jong Un, suggesting that he could use discussions about sanctions to bring North Korea’s reclusive leader to the table. It seems to have failed.

North Korea released a statement Tuesday that appeared to express support for China in ongoing trade disputes with the United States, according to journalist John Delury. The statement described a spokesperson for the Chinese government’s response to Trump’s recent threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on China starting on November 1.

“It is not a proper way of interacting with China to threaten China with high tariffs rather than reflecting upon themselves, the spokesperson added and urged the U.S. to correct its wrong approach,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s top diplomat Choe Son Hui met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, and expressed “invariable sympathy” and support for Russia’s efforts in its military campaign against Ukraine, Delury reported.

“Everything is going according to plan. Please convey my best wishes to him (Kim),” Putin told Choe, according to Reuters. North Korea has deployed an estimated 10,000 troops in Russia’s war in Ukraine, in return for military and economic aid from Russia.

On Monday, Trump met with the families of Japanese citizens abducted by the North Korean government, which Delury suggested meant he may have given up on the hope of meeting with the notorious dictator. It appears that Trump’s disastrous foreign economic policy has only pushed Russia, North Korea, and China closer together.