House Speaker Mike Johnson said he plans to hold a vote next week on whether to order the Justice Department to release all the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The White House has “urged” federal agencies to get employee paychecks out “expeditiously and accurately” in the coming days, a senior administration official said.
Some agencies, including the General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management and the departments of Energy, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs, could get their checks as soon as this weekend, according to the White House’s projections, the official said.
Other departments, including Education, State, Interior, Transportation and some agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the Social Security Administration, could get their backpay by Monday, the official said. Still others, including Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Treasury and DOJ, could receive their checks by the middle of next week, the official said.
Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced at a news conference that some Transportation Security Officers who showed “exemplary service” during the shutdown will receive $10,000 bonus checks.
It’s not clear how many officers will get the bonuses, but Noem highlighted a few TSA employees during the news conference who would be receiving the extra pay. She held a stack of white envelopes in her hand before passing out checks to many TSA officers who were at the news conference.
She said those who are receiving bonuses took “seriously security concerns and measures” during the shutdown, but also, “they went above and beyond” by helping others, serving extra shifts and transporting others back and forth to work.
During an interview with Fox News this week, Trump criticized air traffic controllers who wouldn’t work without pay during the shutdown and floated the idea of bonuses for those who did not take absences.
“I want to reward the people that showed up without a lot of nonsense, without a lot of talk,” he said.“They did their job and in many cases, they worked longer hours to get us through this period,” Trump added.
Asked where the money for the bonuses would come from, he said: “I don’t know. I’ll get it from some place.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., has been hospitalized “out of an abundance of caution” after a fall, according to a post on X attributed to his spokesperson.
“Upon evaluation, it was established he had a ventricular fibrillation flare-up that led to Senator Fetterman feeling light-headed, falling to the ground and hitting his face with minor injuries,” the post said.
Fetterman is “doing well” and “opted to stay” at the hospital for doctors to evaluate medication. He fell during on an early morning walk, the post said.
“Senator Fetterman had this to say: ‘If you thought my face looked bad before, wait until you see it now!'” the post said.
Fetterman had a pacemaker implanted in 2022 after his stroke.
The hearing challenging Halligan’s appointment has wrapped up after more than am hour of legal arguments.
The judge did not rule from the bench, but said she anticipates issuing a decision by Thanksgiving, which is two weeks away.
Judge Cameron Currie grilled a lawyer for the Justice Department about what she described as a gap in the Comey grand jury transcript.
Currie said there was a significant period of time missing in the grand jury material she reviewed, between 4:28 p.m. and when Comey was indicted later that evening. Currie said it was possible there was no court reporter in the room at the time, meaning only Halligan and the grand jury would have been in the room.
The judge also questioned a filing from U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi saying she’d reviewed and signed off on the proceedings.
“It became obvious to me that the attorney general could not have reviewed” that material because of the missing minutes, Currie said.
“She said she reviewed the proceedings,” DOJ attorney Henry Whitaker said.
“She could not have,” Currie shot back.
“She reviewed the witness testimony,” Whitaker then replied, walking back his previous response.
A lone protester stands outside the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, as lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James argue that the U.S. prosecutor who brought charges against their clients was appointed unlawfully.
Alex Wong / Getty Images
The proceeding in which attorneys for James Comey and Letitia James are challenging the appointment of U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan and the indictments she brought against them is underway.
Comey attorney Ephraim McDowell was the first person up, and told U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie that the case against his client should be dismissed because Halligan’s appointment was unlawful and she was the only person who presented the case against the former FBI director to the grand jury.
“Here the only thing that matters is whether Ms. Halligan had proper appointment when she stood up in front of the grand jury,” McDowell told the judge, contending she did not, meaning she was effectively a private citizen when she presented the case to the panel.
Ben McAdams, a Democrat who defeated a Republican incumbent in 2018 but narrowly lost re-election two years later, has launched a comeback bid in Utah.
The Democrat is jumping into the new congressional seat created after a court tossed the state’s old congressional lines and approved a new map with a solid Democratic district in Salt Lake City.
“I’m tired of leaders in D.C. and Trump talking about affordability like it’s just some slogan. We need wages that can actually buy groceries, we need homes that families can afford. And nobody should be afraid of medical bills,” McAdams said in a video announcing his bid.
Health and Human Services employees were told the agency would try to get furloughed employees paychecks with back pay on or before Nov. 21, according to an email obtained by NBC News.
State Department employees received guidance late last night instructing them to report back to work this morning following the signing of the short-term government funding measure, known on Capitol Hill as a continuing resolution, or CR.
“Now that a CR has been enacted, we can all continue the critical work of advancing our national interests on behalf of the American people,” an undersecretary for management at the State Department, Jason S. Evans, wrote in email obtained by NBC News. “We look forward to all our people returning to work expeditiously on your next scheduled workday.”
The email included a link to FAQs for employees on returning to work and an update on issues related to back pay and bidding for their next positions and overseas posts.
Despite a vote to end the government shutdown, the ripple effects are being felt at airports across the United States with the Federal Aviation Administration announcing it will hold flight cancellations at 6% as it continues to assess whether the system can gradually return to normal operations. The goal is to relieve the stress of staffing shortages, but it’s unclear when airlines will be able to resume their full slate of takeoffs. NBC’s Sam Brock reports for “TODAY.”
Billy Edmonson voted for Trump in 2024 because of his stances on border security, gun rights and the economy. One year after casting his ballot, Edmonson is finding it difficult to make ends meet.
“Everything’s already so expensive. … That’s the worst thing about his presidency so far, is he promised things coming down and prices are not coming down. I make more money than I’ve ever made in my life right now, and it has, financially, been a struggle,” said Edmonson, a 35-year-old construction worker from Missouri.
Edmonson recalled that Trump promised to start lowering prices on his first day in office.
“It just doesn’t seem like there’s been a whole lot of focus on, ‘Hey, let’s get these prices down.’ It’s just been like, ‘Hey, prices are high because Biden did this.’ It’s like, well, Biden’s not in office anymore,” said Edmonson, a self-described independent, later adding, “It’s personally frustrating.”
Edmonson is not alone. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of registered voters, including 30% of Republicans, said in the recent national NBC News poll that Trump has fallen short of their expectations on the cost of living and the economy. After being one of the big reasons why Trump won a return to the White House in 2024, Trump’s performance on the economy has become one of the big drags on his second term.
Read the full story here.
The group Airlines for America, which includes airlines such as American, Delta and United, released a statement calling for a long-term solution to make sure air travel isn’t hurt in the future by political disagreements.
“We implore Congress to ensure future funding bills do not allow aviation to become collateral damage in Washington’s policy debates,” the trade group said in a statement.
Airlines for America pointed to a $5 billion Federal Aviation Administration fund that the group says “could be used to pay air traffic controllers during future shutdowns.”
“We ask Congress to consider legislation that would implement a long-term solution,” Airlines for America said.
Federal workers, including air traffic controllers, went unpaid during the shutdown. Last week, the Trump administration announced that flights would be cut to reduce strain as the shutdown dragged on.
Speaker Mike Johnson said the House will vote next week to repeal a provision slipped into the bill to end the shutdown that would allow senators to sue the government for potentially millions of dollars if their data is obtained without notifying them.
Johnson said he was “shocked” and “angry” when he learned about the provision, which would uniquely benefit eight Republican senators, whose phone records — but not the contents of their calls or messages — were found to have been accessed as part of the investigation that led to former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Read the full story here.
Speaker Mike Johnson defended Republican lawmakers’ handling of the Epstein files and said “more is to come” as the House is set to vote next week on releasing more of the files. After a weekslong delay, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., yesterday secured the signatures they need to bypass GOP leaders and force a floor vote to compel the Justice Department to release all the files in its investigation into Epstein.
The Smithsonian has announced it will reopen several museums tomorrow, including the Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum and its annex in Virginia, which houses planes and space artifacts.
Other museums and the National Zoo are set to reopen on a “rolling basis by Monday,” the Smithsonian’s website said.
Trump can’t seem to escape Jeffrey Epstein. All summer, the Trump administration tried to brush back questions, including from allies, around its handling of the late financier’s case. The issue quieted down for over the past few weeks, with the government shut down and Congress preoccupied.
But it re-emerged yesterday, just as the shutdown is set to end. The latest twist comes at an inopportune time for Trump, with the president already in the midst of criticism from longtime supporters over his economic rhetoric and policy proposals in the wake of Republican candidates being routed in last week’s off-year elections.
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When acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan walks into federal court here in Virginia this morning, it will be Halligan — not the criminal defendants she hopes to prosecute — at the center of the court’s attention.
Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both frequent targets of Trump, filed separate motions in their respective cases, arguing that Halligan is unlawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney and therefore the indictments against them should be thrown out. In a rare joint hearing, attorneys for Comey and James will argue this together before U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, who is traveling up from the District of South Carolina.
Read the full story here.
Multiple federal agencies have told their employees to report to work today, according to three administration officials. The directive came before Trump signed a short-term funding bill last night.
Government workers at the Health and Human Services Department, Department of the Interior, Housing and Urban Development Department, and Department of Justice were all advised to come in on Thursday, regardless of when the measure was signed.
Read the full story here.
NBC News