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Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel — who previously criticized the FBI’s intelligence work and who moved resources out of domestic extremism — told FBI employees that he’s bringing “strong leaders” back to headquarters and conducting an “in-depth internal study” to improve the FBI’s intelligence work, according to an email seen by NBC News.
The FBI’s most infamous intelligence failure in recent years came at the tail end of Trump’s first term, when the bureau missed all the warning signs ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A Justice Department inspector general report found last year that the bureau missed the “basic step” of canvassing field offices for intelligence ahead of the attack.
The Jan. 6 committee leaned away from a deeper examination of the FBI’s failures, instead focusing its report on Trump, but a top investigator to the committee told NBC News in 2023 that “what happened at the Capitol was also affected by law enforcement failures to operationalize the ample intelligence that was present before Jan. 6, about the threats of violence.”
Patel said before he became director that intel shops were the “biggest problem the FBI has had” and that he would take FBI employees out of headquarters to return to the field to “chase down criminals.” Now, he says, the FBI’s mission “all starts and ends with intelligence.”
CNN first reported on the email.
Government workers, from the military to food inspectors, are paying the price for dysfunction in Washington. NBC’s Tom Costello reports for “TODAY” on the impact of the government shutdown and who is not getting a paycheck.
Your Medicare, Medicaid or Affordable Care Act coverage won’t vanish during the government shutdown, but changes to some benefits and fewer government workers to help could still disrupt care for millions.
At the heart of the shutdown fight is whether Republican leaders accept a demand from Democrats to extend Obamacare subsidies before they expire at the end of the year and premiums start skyrocketing. Democrats also sought to undo Trump’s Medicaid cuts, but the GOP has shown no interest.
Fortunately for everyday people, core programs such as Medicare and Medicaid will keep running because their funding is built into law. But a popular Medicare benefit — telehealth — has already ended for many, and so-called discretionary programs, such as Community Health Centers (CHCs), may be at risk unless Congress acts soon.
Here’s what the shutdown means for health care coverage.
Read the full story here.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he would meet today with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut.”
He said they would discuss whether the cuts would be “temporary or permanent.”
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” he added.
Trump also noted in the post that Vought was “of PROJECT 2025 Fame.” Vought was a top author of the controversial conservative blueprint for reshaping the federal government, which Trump sought to distance himself from during his campaign.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with CNBC this morning that he could “guarantee” Republicans will not meet Democratic leaders’ demands to extend Obamacare subsidies as a way to end the government shutdown.
Bessent also warned that shutting down the government could lead to “a hit to the GDP,” although most economists have downplayed the impact of the shutdown. They have noted that the longest lapse in government funding, which occurred in Trump’s first term, shaved only 0.4% off of the country’s economic output.
Democrats are negotiating “like terrorists,” Bessent said, adding, “They want to say, ‘This is what we have to have, and if we don’t get it, we’re going to close down the government.'”
The treasury secretary also downplayed the threat of layoffs or permanent cuts to the federal workforce, calling the concerns a Democratic “talking point.” He then called Senate Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, “weak” and “discombobulated,” saying they were using the shutdown as an opportunity.
“President Trump, in the first nine months now, has been unstoppable,” Bessent said. “They’ve tried to stop him in the courts, they tried to stop him in the press, and now they’re trying to stop him with the shutdown.”
Trump said in a clip of an interview with One America News Network set to air today that he could make permanent cuts to projects favored by Democrats during the government shutdown.
Asked whether he thought federal workers would be fired during the funding lapse, Trump blamed Democrats, saying, “Well, there could be firings and that’s their fault, and it could also be other things. I mean, we could cut projects that they wanted, favorite projects, and they’d be permanently cut.”
“A lot of people are saying Trump wanted this closing — I wanted this — and I didn’t want it,” the president continued. “But a lot of people are saying it because I’m allowed to cut things that should have never been approved in the first place, and I will probably do that.”
E.J. Antoni, who was withdrawn this week as Trump’s nominee to be the next Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, thanked senators who met with him after his nomination in a statement, but called it “unfortunate” that some “lack the courage” to back change.
“I want to thank the President and the Treasury Secretary, all the senators who took the time to meet with me, and many others for their endorsements and faith in my abilities and commitment to the very reforms the American people asked this administration to deliver,” he said in a statement.
“It is unfortunate that there are other elected officials who lack the courage to support this commonsense agenda of real change in Washington,” he added.
Antoni, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, said he would continue working the conservative think tank and “advocate for the reforms BLS so desperately needs.”
“The American people deserve nothing less than for these improvements to be implemented immediately as part of a larger agenda to make government more efficient and make the American Dream more attainable,” he said.
Antoni’s nomination came under scrutiny after the White House said he was a “bystander” at the Capitol riot Jan. 6, 2021. Separately, he drew attention from the business community last summer when he told Fox Business Network that BLS should publish quarterly data rather than monthly jobs reports until those reports are more “accurate.”
Antoni was nominated in August following Trump’s firing of previous BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a weaker-than-expected jobs report. Antoni did not respond to a request for comment on the withdrawal of his nomination at the time.
Because yesterday marked the start of the 2026 fiscal year, the WIC program — which provides free, healthy food to low-income pregnant women, new moms and children under 5 — was due for an influx of funding.
Instead came the government shutdown.
If it persists, access to the federal program, known in full as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, could be jeopardized. A U.S. Department of Agriculture letter to WIC state agency directors yesterday confirmed that states would not receive their next quarterly allocation of funds during the shutdown.
According to the National WIC Association, a nonprofit advocacy organization that represents state and local WIC agencies, “devastating disruptions” may deny millions of moms and children access to nutritious foods if the government remains closed for longer than a week or two.
Read the full story here.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters yesterday that layoffs of federal workers because of the government shutdown are “imminent.”
“Unfortunately, because the Democrats shut down the government, the president has directed his Cabinet and the Office of Management and Budget is working with agencies across the board to identify where cuts can be made. And we believe that layoffs are imminent. They are, unfortunately, a consequence of this government shutdown,” Leavitt said.
She didn’t give specifics on the extent of the workforce reductions.
OMB Director Russell Vought told House Republicans on a conference call yesterday afternoon that the firing of federal employees would begin in “one to two” days, GOP sources on the call said. Vought didn’t outline the specifics of the plans.
The Senate will return at noon today, but will not hold any votes in observance of Yom Kippur.
Majority Leader John Thune, R-N.D., said yesterday that while the floor will be open for speeches, “it will be fairly quiet around here, but I’m sure there’ll be a lot of conversations going on.”
Tomorrow, the Senate will again vote on whether to take up the same partisan short-term funding bills that have already failed three times. The chamber will also vote a bloc of 108 Trump nominees.
What happens after that depends on how discussions with Democrats go and whether more of them vote with Republicans to pass the House-passed stopgap bill, which retains the status quo in government spending.
Thune said bipartisan conversations happening and he gets “readouts from all those huddles, and I have had personal conversations with members and their members, on both sides.”
The aim, he said, is to build the number of Democratic caucus members who support the GOP bill to a “critical mass” of “at least eight, hopefully more than that.”
The political arm of Everytown for Gun Safety launched a $1 million ad buy in Virginia to boost Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger ahead of the November election.
As part of the buy, first reported by NBC News, the group will begin running two digital ads across the state that tout Spanberger’s biography and her time in Congress. The ads will target independent and moderate voters in the state with a message focused on public safety.
One 30-second ad focuses on Spanberger’s career before Congress as a CIA officer. A narrator in the ad says Spanberger is running for governor “to keep you and your family safe.”
A second 30-second spot highlights her years in Congress, touting her work “across the aisle to hire more police officers and keep guns away from violent criminals.”
“As a federal law enforcement officer and Moms Demand Action volunteer, Abigail Spanberger knows from experience what it takes to protect families from gun violence,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund. “Ensuring her election as Virginia’s next governor is a top priority for Everytown, and our volunteers will go all-out to help one of their own become Governor.”
Spanberger faces Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, currently the state’s lieutenant governor, in the race to succeed GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is term-limited.
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