What we're covering
• Another failed vote: The government shutdown will extend into next week as senators are leaving Capitol Hill after failing to advance the GOP funding bill for a 10th time. Has the government shutdown affected you? CNN wants to hear your story.
• Trump-Putin call: President Donald Trump will meet tomorrow with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. Today, he spoke with President Vladimir Putin and announced he’ll meet with the Russian leader in Hungary within “two weeks or so.”
• New indictment: Meanwhile, John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-adversary, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland and is accused of sharing highly classified information with family members over email.
Vance says Russia and Ukraine "not at the point where they can make a deal" yet
Vice President JD Vance said despite the Trump administration’s efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, ultimately, it’s up to the warring parties “to cut a deal,” and they are just not there yet. At the same time, Vance expressed confidence a peace deal would be reached and stressed President Donald Trump’s continued involvement in talks with each side.
“I think it surprised all of us, including the president, that this is a particularly tough nut to crack, and as much as energetic diplomacy from the president of the United States can get people to the one-yard line, eventually you have to have the two parties who are willing to cut a deal,” Vance said in an interview with Newsmax that aired Thursday afternoon.
“And right now, for all of our work – and we’re going to keep on working at it – the Russians and Ukrainians are just not at the point where they can make a deal. I do think that we will eventually get there, but it’s going to take a lot more work, because I think as we learned, the parties started so far apart,” Vance said.
Vance also said the difficulty in reaching peace between Russia and Ukraine stems from “a fundamental misalignment of expectations.”
“The Russians tend to think that they’re doing better on the battlefield than they actually are, and I think that’s made it harder to strike a deal in these last couple of months, even though, again, we’ve made progress. I do think we’re going to get to a deal, but we just got a little bit further to go,” Vance said.
Speaker Johnson says House has “always been prepared” to vote on Obamacare subsidies but doesn't promise date
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the House was always planning to hold a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, but stopped short of guaranteeing a date for such a vote.
Democrats have made the enhanced health care subsidies – which expire at the end of the year – a major point of contention during the ongoing government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on MSNBC earlier today that he told Democrats he could guarantee a vote on the ACA subsidies by a certain date.
Johnson told CNN that it’s “always been the intention” to hold a vote on ACA subsidies, but that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wants a “guaranteed outcome of that vote, and that’s not something we can deliver today, because we haven’t had all that deliberation yet.”
But the speaker said the standoff over the government shutdown is “not a health care fight,” but “a fight about keeping the lights on.”
“The Obamacare subsidy was an issue that was always going to have to be resolved by way of consensus, and thoughtful deliberation, and discussion. There has been a lot of that on this subject. There is currently and there will be going forward. That has nothing to do with the short-term stopgap funding measure,” he said.
Watch some of the interview below
Catch up on the top headlines in politics today
The government will remain shut through the weekend as senators are leaving town.
This is a good point to catch up on other essential news in politics today:
• Former Trump aide indicted: John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser-turned-adversary, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland. You can follow our live coverage here and we’re also tracking the people Trump and his administration have targeted so far.
• First DOJ case against Antifa: The Justice Department brought its first terrorism case tied to its crackdown on Antifa.
• A key personnel retires: The admiral overseeing US Southern Command, which has responsibility for forces in the Caribbean where the US has carried out multiple legally ambiguous strikes against alleged drug cartels, is retiring one year into his tenure, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said today.
• Trump threatens Hamas: If the militant group keeps killing people in Gaza, “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” the president said.
• The US president also said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss the war in Ukraine after the two men had a lengthy phone call that Trump described as “very productive.” It came ahead of Trump’s meeting tomorrow with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
• ICE in Chicago: ICE arrested a police officer in a Chicago suburb. The Department of Homeland Security says the officer overstayed a tourist visa that expired in 2015. Separately, a judge in Illinois said she had “serious concerns” over whether federal law enforcement agents were following her order to avoid violent encounters with protesters and journalists in Chicago.
White House official says ruling halting federal layoffs is “an absurd statement on its face”
President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff James Blair responded Thursday to a federal judge’s ruling halting the administration’s layoff of federal workers during the government shutdown, calling the ruling out of San Francisco “an absurd statement on its face.”
“Everybody knows this, including the Democrats – they knew that layoffs were going to occur and reductions in force could occur if they shut down the government, that’s something that has always happened during a government shutdown,” Blair told Fox Business Network in an interview. “This is a judge trying to make law from the bench and assert something that is not the case, that has never been the case, and both parties understand that, they both agreed to it.”
While the White House has repeatedly placed blame on congressional Democrats for not reopening the government, it is initiating layoffs during this shutdown by choice – administrations are not required to cut jobs when government funding lapses. The layoffs are separate from the furloughs that always occur when government funding runs out.
Blair also previewed Trump’s anticipated announcement Friday on the federal government’s efforts to slash funding for federal programs backed by Democrats in Congress.
“Look, layoffs have already begun, that’s begun happening, and programs have already begun to get cut– and look, it’s necessary, just so the American public understands, we are running out of money,” he said. “So [OMB Director] Russ Vought and the president are using every creative but legally allowable maneuver they can to keep the most essential programs going.”
Trump suggests it "may not be perfect timing” to pass Russia sanctions bill
President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that it “may not be perfect timing” to pass the Russia sanctions bill and said he will talk to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune “later.”
That comes after Thune told CNN in a brief hallway interview that the Senate will soon take up sanctions’ legislation aimed at punishing Russia for its war against Ukraine.
The bipartisan measure, which has 85 co-sponsors, has been held up for months as congressional leaders have deferred to Trump’s desire to hold off on sanctions and pursue diplomacy.
Vice President JD Vance also stressed support for tariffs as a negotiating tool as opposed to sanctions.
CNN’s Ted Barrett and Kit Maher contributed to this report.
Trump says he will be meeting with Putin “within two weeks or so”
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin “within two weeks or so.” He also revealed that next week, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“I would say within two weeks or so, pretty quick. Marco Rubio is going to be meeting with his counterpart, as you know, Lavrov, and they’ll be meeting pretty soon. They’re going to set up a time and a place, very shortly, maybe it’s already set up. They’ve already spoken,” the president said.
Trump has frequently floated “in two weeks” as a timeline for developments in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Pressed by CNN’s Kristen Holmes on why this upcoming summit in Hungary would deliver different results than the August summit in Anchorage, the president said the thinks that “Alaska actually set a stage.”
“And that wasn’t very long ago, but it set a stage. You have to understand; I came into this situation. I didn’t start this war,” he said.
Johnson signals he's willing to leave House out of session indefinitely while he says members have "lots of issues" to address
Speaker Mike Johnson signaled on Thursday that he’s willing to keep the House out of session indefinitely as the government shutdown is due to drag into next week with no offramp in sight.
“Right now, we’re on a 48-hour notice for return for votes, and I am praying every day that they end this ridiculous shutdown for partisan political purposes so we can get right back,” he told CNN.
Johnson insisted he’s “anxious to get back to legislative session,” adding that he wants to “put the priorities of the American people first,” including pay for military, TSA agents and border control, veterans’ services and aid to pregnant women in need.
“We got to start all that right now,” said Johnson, who has opted to not schedule votes in the House since September 19.
Pressed by CNN on why he wouldn’t bring the House back to hold votes on other important legislation, Johnson responded, “we’ve got lots of issues” that the chamber has to get to.
The Senate went home for the weekend on Thursday afternoon after failing for a 10th time to advance a bill to reopen the government. They’ll return on Monday, the 20th day of the shutdown, to hold another vote on the stopgap bill, though Democrats have shown no appetite to offer up enough votes to pass the bill while Republicans refuse to negotiate extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies while the government remains closed.
Zelensky has arrived in the US. Here's the key context ahead of his meeting with Trump tomorrow
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Washington, DC, ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump tomorrow, where he is likely to make the case for going on the offensive against Russia.
What Ukraine wants: Zelensky has pressed for European nations to be able to buy more sophisticated, longer-range Tomahawk missiles from the US, which could then be passed onto Ukraine. Zelensky has also sought additional Patriot air defense systems, as part of a fresh effort to turn the tide of the war.
Zelensky said today that Moscow is “rushing to resume dialogue” amid discussions about the potential supply of American Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
Where Trump stands: The US president has yet to commit to either the Tomahawk missiles or Patriot systems even as he’s grown increasingly frustrated with Russia.
But, Trump had a “lengthy” conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier today and the two leaders plan to meet in Budapest, though he didn’t specify when. Putin told Trump that Ukrainian access to Tomahawks would severely damage US relations with Russia, according to Putin aide Yury Ushakov.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha claimed the possibility that the US may give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine “forced” the conversation between Putin and Trump.
Murkowski laments "nobody is winning when everybody's losing" amid shutdown
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski expressed frustration with the complete stalemate on Capitol Hill as neither party has shown an appetite over the past 16 days to budge on their positions, warning that there could be grave consequences for Americans most in need of help.
“Everybody thinks they’re winning. Nobody is winning when everybody’s losing,” she lamented on Thursday afternoon, hours after the Senate failed for a 10th time to advance a bill to reopen the government.
Murkowski explained that she didn’t think either party feels there is an “incentive” to get together and negotiate right now because, “both sides think that there is political advantage for them sticking with the positions that they have.”
Shutdown will extend into next week, as senators leave town
The government shutdown will extend into next week, as senators are leaving town with no further votes expected until Monday. The House remains out of session.
The Senate did not take any votes this past Monday, as it was a government holiday, and have no votes planned for Friday or over the weekend.
Senate Democrats block defense spending bill, as bipartisan trust withers on Capitol Hill
Senate Democrats blocked debate on a defense appropriations bill on the floor on Thursday afternoon, as bipartisan trust continues to wither amid the government shutdown.
The final vote was 50 to 44, and the bill needed 60 votes to advance.
Democrats cited their inability to trust that Republicans will be able to tie the Senate version of the defense bill to other appropriations packages with strong Democratic support, like the labor, health and human services, education bill.
However, Senate Republican Leader John Thune expressed frustration that they couldn’t, at the very least, take the first step to get on the bill.
Earlier in the week, Thune had said that he does want to combine the defense bill with other appropriations bills, like the labor bill, into a so-called “minibus.” But, in order to do so, he needs unanimous consent, and Democrats do not trust that he can get all of his Republican colleagues to agree to that proposal.
Several Senate Democrats, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, voted to advance the bill.
The other Democratic Senators who voted with Republicans were Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Sen. John Fetterman. Senate Majority Leader John Thune changed his vote to “no,” so that procedurally he will be allowed to bring the bill up for consideration again.
Democratic senator accuses President Trump of stalling bipartisan talks on ending the government shutdown
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware on Thursday criticized President Donald Trump’s role in stalled bipartisan talks among lawmakers in order to end the government shutdown.
“President Trump came in and immediately began breaking the guardrails that support our appropriations process and spending with rescissions, with shutdowns, with taking money back,” the senator said in an interview on Capitol Hill.
“President Trump and Speaker Johnson need to be part of a conversation about that path forward for us to get out of this government shutdown,” he said.
His comments come after the Senate voted for the 10th time on a House spending proposal in an effort to reopen the government. The vote, however, failed.
He added: “there’s been a loss of trust between Senate Democrats and the administration and the House because of what’s happened over the last six to nine months in terms of respecting bipartisan spending bills that were signed into law last year. So we need more engagement and more clarity from the leadership of the Republican caucuses who control Congress.”
GOP senators shut down Democrats' calls to negotiate as standoff deepens
Democrats said today they’ll need more than a guaranteed vote on extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies beyond this year before voting to reopen the government. GOP senators, meanwhile, rejected their adversaries’ pleas for any negotiations before the government reopens.
Here’s what people on both sides are saying:
GOP Sen. John Cornyn said he thinks Democrats need “some sort of face-saving device here, because they have gotten themselves into a box canyon, and apparently can’t find their way out.”
“If we capitulate to their outrageous demands now, can you imagine what it’ll be like then? I mean, this is bad behavior. It’s overreach on their part, and they need to reopen the government,” Cornyn told CNN’s Manu Raju.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal told Raju that he wouldn’t “rule out” a one-year extension of the credits, but said his “preference” is to “confront this issue right now and extend it for more than one year.”
“(Republicans) are saying right now they won’t negotiate. But that position is unsustainable. It’s untenable in democracy for one side to say our way or the highway. That’s just not the way our democracy works,” he said.
In a sign of how difficult it could be to get Democrats on board with the promise of an ACA subsidies vote with no guaranteed outcome, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would be “glad” to vote on a bill, but he said would oppose extending the credits, calling former President Obama’s signature healthcare law the “Unaffordable Care Act.”
GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt defended the Trump administration’s moves to cut back the federal workforce amid the shutdown, telling Raju, “eventually this Democrat obstruction is going to reach the place where people are going to get fired.”
Trump says he will meet with Putin in Budapest, though does not specify a date
President Donald Trump said on social media Thursday that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, though he did not specify when that meeting may take place.
“I have just concluded my telephone conversation with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, and it was a very productive one,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Pressed for more information after the conclusion of the call, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration would provide “more details as soon as we can.”
“This call literally just happened, so we will provide you with more details as soon as we can,” Leavitt told reporters.
Meantime, top Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev said the call was “positive and productive.”
This post has been updated with comments from a key Putin aide. CNN’s CNN’s Billy Stockwell and Nina Subkhanberdina contributed reporting to this post.
Jeffries calls repeated failed government funding votes "legislative insanity"
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the continued Senate votes on the House-passed short-term funding resolution “legislative insanity” after the package failed the Senate for the 10th time this afternoon.
Jeffries spoke to reporters alongside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after a brief meeting in Schumer’s office.
“Hakeem and I just had another really good meeting, and we’re on the same page. The American people are in a crisis in healthcare, and we are fighting for them,” Schumer said.
“The American people are seeing that we are on their side, doing everything we can to get the Republicans to negotiate and address this crisis,” he added.
Asked about Senate Majority Leader John Thune saying he can commit to giving them a vote on extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, Schumer replied, “We’re not negotiating in public, plain and simple, and Leader Thune has not come to me with any proposal at this point.”
Senate Democrats block GOP bill to reopen government for 10th time
The Senate failed to advance Republicans’ stopgap funding bill once again in a 51 to 45 vote.
Republicans need 60 votes to advance the bill that would fund the government through late November.
Three senators in the Democratic caucus voted with most Republicans. They were:
• Catherine Cortez Masto
• John Fetterman
• Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats
GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted against advancing the measure. Senate GOP leader John Thune switched to no at end, a procedural move that will allow him to bring it back up again in the future.
New poll shows little change in views of either party, as public broadly assigns blame for shutdown
Americans see plenty of blame to go around for the shutdown, according to an AP-NORC poll released Thursday: 58% say that Republicans in Congress deserve at least “quite a bit” of responsibility, with 58% saying the same of President Donald Trump, and 54% in regard to Democrats in Congress.
Roughly half of the public, 48%, assigns a great deal of blame to Trump and 45% to congressional Republicans, compared to 40% who say the same of congressional Democrats.
More than 8 in 10 Democratic-aligned adults say Trump and congressional Republicans, respectively, bear a great deal of responsibility, while 73% of Republican-aligned adults say that congressional Democrats deserve a great deal of responsibility.
Overall, the Democratic Party’s favorability rating stands at 32% and the GOP’s at 40% — in both cases, effectively unchanged from the AP-NORC’s September polling.
More about the poll: The AP-NORC poll was conducted October 9-13, using a nationally representative panel to survey 1,289 adults through online and live telephone interviews. Results among the full sample have a margin of error of +/-3.8 percentage points.
Senate GOP leader says it's not good "optics" for Democrats to block Defense Department spending bill
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is frustrated that Democrats are signaling they will likely block taking up the defense appropriations bill when a vote takes place Thursday afternoon.
Democrats say they want to vote for the defense bill but are demanding Republicans agree to attach spending bills for other departments – like possibly Health and Human Services, Labor, Transportation and Justice — to the Pentagon bill, which is considered popular and must-pass legislation.
Thune has said he also wants those bills added to the DOD bill once they formally begin debate on it, but Democrats are wary of going along because they say it’s some GOP senators who are blocking consent to add those bills and they don’t trust that will change.
Thune argued Democrats have the opportunity later in the process to filibuster the bill and said it’s critical – especially with the government shutdown – the appropriations process move forward.
“If they want to stop the defense bill, I don’t think it’s very good optics for them. Particularly since this is just getting on it, and they would have multiple opportunities after this to block it if they want to,” he told reporters.
Democrats say Thune can vote again to take up the defense bill in the future once he has the necessary consent to add those bills and they will support it.
Trump says “lengthy” call with Putin is ongoing
President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s having a “lengthy” conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which comes just a day before the president is scheduled to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
“I am speaking to President Putin now. The conversation is ongoing, a lengthy one, and I will report the contents, as will President Putin, at its conclusion. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Speaker Johnson says he's "mad Mike" on day 16 of government shutdown with "no idea" on how it will end
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was “mad Mike” on day 16 of the government shutdown with no end in sight.
“Many of you have asked all of us, how will it end? We have no idea. It’s up to the Democrats,” Johnson said.
“I don’t like being mad Mike, I want to, I want to be happy. I want to be the happy warrior. But I am so upset about this,” Johnson said.
When asked by CNN if it was time for President Donald Trump to get more involved in the stalemate on Capitol Hill, Johnson said, “he already has been.”
Johnson said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer would not accept Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s offer to have a standalone vote on extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies without a “guaranteed outcome.”
Pressed whether he would put a vote on ACA subsidies on the House floor, Johnson said “none of us can guarantee an outcome on that” and said the government needed to be open to allow negotiations over the enhanced subsidies to kick into full force.
