Mike Johnson wants more time for negotiations as JD Vance blames Democrat over potential shutdown
More reactions from Congressional leaders’ meeting with Trump on the government shutdown.
House speaker Mike Johnson said he wants to allow more time for negotiations, Reuters reports.
Meanwhile, vice-president JD Vance is blaming Democrats, saying Congress is heading towards a shutdown because Democrats “won’t do” the right thing, per Reuters.
“I think we’re headed to a shutdown,” Vance said, Semafor reports.
Not sensing much progress between Dems and GOP leaders/Trump WH …
VP Vance: “Now they come in here and say: ‘if you don’t give us everything we want we’re going to shut down the government.’ It’s preposterous”
“I think we’re headed to a shutdown”
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 29, 2025Share
Updated at 17.23 EDT
Key events
Show key events only
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Closing summary
Here’s the key events in US politics news today, which produced a proposed Trump administration peace plan for Gaza with buy-in from Israel’s prime minister and a broad array of other governments, but no deal to avert the looming shutdown of the US federal government. “I think we’re headed to a shutdown,” JD Vance said.
In the background to all this news, the Trump administration was expected to send in national guard troops and other federal law enforcement to Portland, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; and, according to the state’s governor, Chicago, Illinois, in further escalation of the administration’s symbolic deployment of troops into politically progressive cities.
Donald Trump announced his proposed 20-point peace plan for Gaza, and held a public appearance with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he approved the plan. Neither leader took questions on the plan from journalists.
Hamas negotiators reportedly received a copy of the plan today, but have not yet responded.
The plan calls for a transitional government of Gaza that would involve international figures, including Trump and former UK prime minister Tony Blair, whose inclusion sparked some immediate pushback, given his historic role in supporting the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and the history of British colonization.
Meanwhile, the US federal government was headed for a shutdown on 1 October, as congressional leaders failed to reach an agreement on the US budget before the shutdown deadline.
Democrats are continuing to negotiate for extensions of healthcare subsidies for Americans that are due to expire soon. An end-of-day meeting with Trump and congressional leaders from both parties failed to produce a deal.
The pending shutdown may be more severe for Americans than in the past, as the Trump administration is threatening to permanently fire federal employees during the shutdown, rather than simply furlough them temporarily.
Airlines and other aviation groups warned that the federal government shutdown could immediately affect airline passengers, as well as slow the pipeline of air-traffic-controllers currently in training to fill a huge gap in these crucial jobs.
YouTube, following the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter/X, is caving to a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump in response to the platforms deactivating his profiles after the January 6 insurrection in Washington. YouTube will pay $24.5m to settle the lawsuit: more than $20m of that is reportedly expected to fund the construction of a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom at the White House.
The Trump administration announced it was filing a lawsuit against Minnesota for the state’s immigration sanctuary policies, following similar lawsuits against Los Angeles and New York.
The US Treasury said on Monday that secretary Scott Bessent has chosen White House personnel official Michael Friedman as his new chief of staff, replacing Dan Katz, who is due to take the No 2 job at the International Monetary Fund, Reuters reports.
Friedman, who served as a special assistant for presidential personnel, played “a pivotal role” in staff selection for key positions across Donald Trump’s administration, Treasury said. Prior to joining the administration, Friedman held leadership roles at supply chain technology and e-commerce startups.
Updated at 21.24 EDT
Minnesota leaders have responded to the Trump administration’s new lawsuit against the state’s immigration “sanctuary” policies, with Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison calling the lawsuit “baseless” political retaliation against the state, while pledging to respond in court, the Associated Press reported.
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said the city will continue to fight for its immigrants, adding that it “will not back down”.
Updated at 21.09 EDT
The decision by New York City mayor Eric Adams to suspend his sputtering re-election bid is unlikely to slow the upstart candidacy of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, political analysts said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old Uganda-born state assembly member, has polled well ahead of his main rival, former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, with five weeks to go before election day, and persistent attacks by Donald Trump may only serve to burnish Mamdani’s image with New Yorkers opposed to the president’s policies.
Mamdani “is well ahead of Cuomo and something would have to dramatically change the narrative of the race for there to be a shift in the polling to suggest Mamdani could lose, and I don’t see that happening right now”, said Basil Smikle, political analyst and professor at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies.
Updated at 20.39 EDT
Dara Kerr
YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a suit brought by Donald Trump in 2021 that alleged the platform wrongly suspended his channel after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Google subsidiary is the latest in a long string of tech companies to make a multimillion-dollar payout to the president over past decisions about his accounts.
Facebook-parent company Meta settled a similar lawsuit with Trump in January for $25m, and the social media platform X, previously Twitter, settled another for $10m in February. Most of the payout from the Meta suit will go to Trump’s presidential library fund. For the YouTube settlement, Trump has directed $22m of the payment to go to restoring and preserving the National Mall and supporting construction of the White House ballroom, according to documents filed in the US district court for the northern district of California. The lavish ballroom is expected to cost around $200m.
‘W’e’ve been under British colonialism already:’ Tony Blair’s ‘surprise’ role in Gaza
The Associated Press has some initial reactions to a “surprise” element of Trump’s Gaza peace plan: a proposal to create a transitional government for Gaza supervised by a “Board of Peace,” including Trump himself and former UK prime minister Tony Blair.
Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, told the Washington Post: “We’ve been under British colonialism already. He has a negative reputation here. If you mention Tony Blair, the first thing people mention is the Iraq war.”
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said: “Tony Blair? Hell no. Hands off Palestine.”
In recent weeks, reports of Blair’s involvement raised eyebrows among advocates due to the history of British imperialism in the region and in particular Blair’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq that was premised on claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which were proven false, the Associated Press reports. Blair himself faced criticism after his WMD claims were debunked. The 2003 US-led invastion widely criticized for a destabilizing effect on the region and its heavy death toll.
Republicans in Washington spent most of the day blaming Democrats for the coming federal government shutdown on 1 October, with some of them attacking Democrats’ use of the same budget negotiating tactics they themselves advocated for in the past.
From California, Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor, used his high-profile social media feed to blast out an alternate message:
Republicans have control of the House, Senate, and White House.
If the government shuts down, it’s on them.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 29, 2025Share
Updated at 19.55 EDT
From California, Politico reports state Republicans are worried about how little money they have raised to attempt to block the Democratic governor Gavin Newsom’s campaign to get voters approval to redraw election maps so that the state is likely to send five more Democrats to Congress –a counter to Texas Republicans’ move to reduce the number of Democrats representing Texas.
“Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reportedly told House colleagues this summer that he planned to raise $100 million to defeat Democrats’ mid-decade gerrymander at the ballot box. So far he appears to have produced little more than $7 million,” Politico reports. More details on the dollars raised on each side here.
Updated at 19.59 EDT
Justice department sues Minnesota over sanctuary policies
The US Department of Justice said on Monday it has sued Minnesota and state officials over its immigration sanctuary policies, the latest move in a legal campaign by Donald Trump’s administration against jurisdictions run by Democrats, Reuters reports.
Over the summer, the justice department sued the cities of New York and Los Angeles over similar immigration policies. It also sued Boston earlier this month.
The administration has argued that sanctuary laws, which restrict the extent to which local law enforcement and government agencies can cooperate with federal immigration efforts, impede Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Representatives from Minnesota’s governor and attorney general offices, the Hennepin sheriff’s office, and the mayors’ offices for St Paul and Minneapolis did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
More context on what the administration’s previous lawsuit against Los Angeles looked like:
Updated at 20.00 EDT
The governor of Illinois said on Monday that the Trump administration was sending 100 members of the national guard to Chicago, even as the Trump administration is also sending troops to Portland, Oregon, another majority Democratic city, the Associated Press reports.
Trump has waffled on sending the military, but Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday it appeared the federal government would deploy 100 troops. Pritzker said the Illinois National Guard received word that the Department of Homeland Security sent a memo to the Defense Department requesting troops to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and facilities.
An immigration processing center outside Chicago has been the site of frequent protests and aggressive tactics by federal agents. The enforcement recently escalated, with agents using boats on the Chicago River and marching Sunday on Michigan Avenue and in upscale neighborhoods.
… The sight of armed, camouflaged and masked Border Patrol agents making arrests near famous downtown Chicago landmarks has amplified concerns about the Trump administration’s growing federal intervention across US cities.
Updated at 20.01 EDT
The $22m Trump will receive from YouTube to settle a lawsuit over the company’s choice to suspend his YouTube page after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 election will fund “a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom at the White House”, the Wall Street Journal reports:
Trump’s share of the settlement—$22 million—will go to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall, earmarked for the construction of a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom Trump is building at the White House, according to the court documents.
Updated at 18.52 EDT
YouTube to pay Trump $24.5m for banning his account after 6 January – reports
Multiple news outlets are reporting that YouTube, which is owned Google parent company Alphabet, has agreed to pay nearly $25m to settle a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over his suspension from the online platform in the wake of the 6 January insurrection.
JUST IN: Google pays $24.5 million to settle lawsuit Trump filed in 2021 over YouTube ban post #Jan6. $22M of that will go to build the new White House ballroom Trump wants to construct. It was 1 of 3 similar suits legal experts found dubious. Doc: https://t.co/NMatIHJ3d1
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) September 29, 2025
The Wall Street Journal has some key additional details, reporting that Alphabet executives wanted to make sure their $24.5m settlement was smaller than Meta’s $25m settlement with Trump in January.
Updated at 18.52 EDT
Carter Sherman
Louisiana issued a warrant for a California-based doctor accused of mailing abortion pills to the red state, court records filed earlier this month show.
The warrant is part of a burgeoning effort by anti-abortion activists and red states to target telemedicine abortion, which now accounts for one in four US abortions, and abortion providers who ship pills across state lines. These providers operate out of blue states, like California, that have enacted “shield laws” that aim to protect abortion providers from out-of-state prosecution.
The 2024 warrant for the doctor remains outstanding, according to the documents, which were filed as part of Louisiana’s effort to join a federal lawsuit that seeks to limit access to the common abortion pill mifepristone.
Read the full story here:
Updated at 18.34 EDT
There’s been plenty of blatant hypocrisy in Republicans’ statements about Democratic members of Congress and their approach to the coming shutdown, as multiple Congressional reporters have noted today:
And Russ Vought, who accused Dems today of hostage-taking, instigated much of the conservative opposition to CRs during the Biden presidency in protest of high spending levels https://t.co/rJlmlwDaDl
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) September 29, 2025