THIS IS A NEW POST
News
test test test
|
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration for now must stop firing workers during the government shutdown, a federal judge ordered on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco said the cuts appeared to be politically motivated and were being carried out without much thought.
“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” she said. “It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”
She granted a temporary restraining order blocking the job cuts, saying she believed the evidence would ultimately show the cuts were illegal and in excess of authority.
Emails sent to the White House and the Office of Management and Budget after the judge’s ruling Wednesday were not immediately returned.a dawdawd
The judge’s decision came after federal agencies on Friday started issuing layoff notices aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. The layoff notices are part of an effort by Trump’s Republican administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
The American Federation of Government Employees and other federal labor unions had asked Illston to block the administration from issuing new layoff notices and implementing those that were already sent out. The unions said the firings were an abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress.
Illston’s order came as the shutdown, which started Oct. 1, entered its third week. Democratic lawmakers are demanding that any deal to reopen the federal government address their health care demands. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted the shutdown may become the longest in history, saying he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they hit pause on those demands and reopen.
Democrats have demanded that health care subsidies, first put in place in 2021 and extended a year later, be extended again. They also want any government funding bill to reverse the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill passed this summer.
The Trump administration has been paying the military and pursuing its crackdown on immigration while slashing jobs in health and education, including in special education and after-school programs. Trump said programs favored by Democrats are being targeted and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”
In a court filing, the administration said it planned to fire more than 4,100 employees across eight agencies.
The unions say the layoff notices are an illegal attempt at political pressure and retribution and are based on the false premise that a temporary funding lapse eliminates Congress’ authorization of agency programs.
The government says the district court lacks jurisdiction to hear employment decisions made by federal agencies.
|
Some members of two Arlington advisory bodies are unhappy with changes being imposed on their groups’ responsibilities.
A joint meeting of the Bicycle Advisory Committee and Pedestrian Advisory Committee last week offered a chance for the groups reporting to County Manager Mark Schwartz to lay out the new ground rules that Schwartz has requested. But the general sentiment on those advisory groups was that the changes could be costly to transportation planning in the long run.
Among the switches: The panels will no longer receive briefings or be asked to weigh in on specific projects. Instead, they will be asked to send representatives to and monitor the broader community-engagement efforts for those projects.
That proposal drew particular flak from members of the Bicycle Advisory Committee.
“It doesn’t sound like there’s any specific desire or system [by county leaders] to get advice from us other than ‘hey, go participate in the public process,'” said BAC member Mike Hanna.
“We’re not the general public. We’re the committee that was specifically appointed by the county manager to provide this kind of advice,” Hanna said.
Dana Bres, vice chair of the BAC, said forcing that group’s participation into the general community-engagement effort makes little sense.
“My gripe, for lack of a better term, with the engagement process is, it’s at some level trivial,” Bres said. “The public says ‘you should do something here’ and then you go from there to an almost full-fledged project” without needed vetting in between.
The result? “We end up getting something that is three-quarters done that doesn’t work,” Bres said.
Cynthia Palmer, who chairs the BAC, said eliminating the advisory panels from a significant review role results in “a resource that is not being used.”
“Sometimes a five-minute conversation with our committees … can save you resources and money and everything else,” Palmer said.
BAC member Gillian Burgess argued that it would go against the groups’ charters to follow county staff’s request to serve more as advocates for transportation planning and funding.
“We don’t advocate. We don’t advise anyone else. We advise the county manager,” she said. “He has been very clear he does not want the advisory committees going outside of him. It’s 100% clear. That’s what the charter is.”
Trying to calm the waters were Hui Wang, the newly promoted chief deputy director of the Department of Environmental Services, and Valerie Mosley, bureau chief of transportation planning and capital projects.
“I get the sentiment. I totally get it. You want us to be more intentionally seeking your advice,” Wang said.
She suggested the possibility of reaching a middle ground.
“We’re going to go back and think through what additional things, what intentional communication, we can do so you feel your opinion is not being thrown in a black hole,” Wang said.
The process changes being sought would bring transportation planning into line with a six-step public-engagement process enacted by county leaders in 2018.
Wang said it was necessary to “make sure we are going through the proper process for every project.”
“It does come at a cost,” she said. “The cost is while we are doing all that engagement and trying to capture the larger community, we do not have the same amount of attention and specific conversation with the committees and commissions. It really comes down to resources and how to use them the best way.”
Under the six-step engagement process, “we are trying to reach everyone we can who has an interest and wants their voice to be heard,” Mosley said.
Eric Goodman, acting chair of the Pedestrian Advisory Committee, said there could be a middle ground.
One step would be for planning staff to provide the committees with direct notification when new community-engagement processes start up. That way, the bodies could designate a member or members to keep track of them.
As for the litany of concerns raised at the meeting? Wang said staff had heard them “loud and clear,” but are not the ones with final authority to address them.
At his meeting with the pedestrian and bicycle groups in the spring, Schwartz suggested combining the two bodies, but has not moved forward on that.
The county manager’s concerns about the Bicycle Advisory Committee date back years. In 2018, Schwartz removed a number of its members and installed a new chair to make the group “more fully representative” of the biking community.
|
Thieves Pepper Spray Witness — “At approximately 6:36 p.m. on October 14, police were dispatched to the report of a larceny in progress. Upon arrival, it was determined two female suspects entered the business, collected merchandise and exited the store without payment. A witness confronted the suspects as they entered their parked vehicle, during which the passenger, Suspect Two, deployed pepper spray before both suspects fled the scene in the vehicle.” [ACPD]
Flyover Scheduled Today — From AlertDC: “The U.S. Military will conduct an Aircraft Flyover in the NCR over Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, October 16 at approximately 11:10AM.”
More Federal Layoffs Planned — “The Trump administration could slash more than 10,000 federal jobs during the government shutdown, White House budget director Russell Vought said Wednesday. “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding,” said Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.” [CNBC, Axios, Associated Press]
Reporters Vacate Pentagon — “Nearly every Pentagon reporter from almost every major media outlet in America turned in their press badges Thursday, after refusing to endorse the Defense Department’s new rules that they say would make it impossible to do their jobs independently.” [Axios, WTOP]
No Info on Paused Federal Grants — “Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration is not providing Virginia legislators or the public details of hundreds of millions of dollars of paused federal grants, according to records requests and documents acquired by VPM News and WAMU.” [VPM]
GOP Shows Reply Texts — “We texted Arlington Democrats earlier this week about an 11-year-old victim of Richard Kenneth Cox. Here are some responses from Arlington Dems and the original text.” [NSFW: Arlington GOP/X]
Beyer Tackling Energy Costs — “Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) today led 21 U.S. Representatives representing districts within the PJM Interconnection service territory, the largest power grid operator in the United States, to demand that PJM take key steps to address skyrocketing energy bills for American households.” [Press Release]
Fintech Week in Pentagon City — “Promising to bring “the brightest minds in finance, technology, and regulation to explore the future of fintech,” DC Fintech Week got underway at Amazon HQ2 on Tuesday.” [DC News Now]
Doc Looks at W&OD Trail History — “A new PBS documentary is airing this weekend, and it features Northern Virginia’s own Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail… Harnik says the W&OD Trail — which partially opened in 1974 in the City of Falls Church with the help of NOVA Parks and Dominion Energy — was instrumental in pushing the national rails-to-trails movement forward.” [FFXnow]
Warm End to Month? — “Looking ahead at DC’s weather thru back half of October: Lots of highs in the 60s to near 70 — close to average or a little above. A few chances of rain (next one Sunday night); we need it!!! Watching tropics at end of month.” [CWG/X]
It’s Thursday — Expect sunny conditions and a high temperature around 62 degrees, accompanied by a north wind blowing at 9 to 14 mph and gusts reaching up to 26 mph. Thursday night will be clear with the temperature dropping to a low of around 42 degrees, while the north wind continues to blow at approximately 8 mph. [NWS]
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is selling his Arlington home after it was repeatedly targeted by activists.
The nearly 6,000-square-foot house, custom built with interiors that “embrace a refined Southern California aesthetic,” is listed for $3.75 million. Located on a cul de sac adjacent to a park in a quiet northern Arlington neighborhood, it sold new in 2023 for $2.875 million, records show.
Miller, said to be “the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy,” is one of the administration’s most controversial figures. On at least two occasions this year, including most recently in mid-September, activists have written messages of protest in front of his house and in the nearby park.
“Stephen Miller is destroying democracy,” “stop the kidnapping,” we [love] immigrants,” “hate has no home in Arlington,” “no white nationalism,” and “trans rights are human rights” are among the chalk messages seen last month before being washed away.
The chalk messages were written just days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah, prompting Miller’s wife, the podcaster and former communications official Katie Miller, to post a message of defiance on social media.
“To the ‘Tolerant Left’ who spent their day trying to intimidate us in the house where we have three young children: We will not back down. We will not cower in fear. We will double down. Always, For Charlie,” she posted via X on Sept. 14, accompanied by a video of some messages being removed with a garden hose.
She subsequently posted a photo of “DEI enriches us all” written in chalk on a sidewalk, labeling it “the rallying cry of the losers of the Left.” Miller’s podcast, which launched in August, was often recorded in the home’s living room.
Several media outlets including the Daily Mail (UK) reported on the chalk protest and the Millers’ reaction to it. During an appearance on The Sean Hannity Show, Stephen Miller and Hannity asserted that the messages amounted to “terroristic threats.”
The family was subsequently seen moving out a couple of weeks ago, neighbors said, and the home was listed for sale on Oct. 7. An elaborate set of Halloween decorations were also removed. It is unclear where the family moved to.
“At this time, the house is on the real estate market as the Millers have moved,” the most recent edition of the neighborhood civic association newsletter reported.
A White House spokeswoman did not respond to ARLnow’s request for comment.
An organization claiming credit for the September chalk protest, Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity, has denied handing out leaflets or sharing personal information about the Millers while writing on the sidewalk in chalk. In an Instagram post, the group said members were “expressing our concerns about the harm being done to our most vulnerable neighbors.”
Arlington voted 77.5% to 19.5% for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump last year, though Trump improved his local numbers slightly over 2020.
During the first Trump administration, Miller’s then-home in the CityCenterDC development was targeted by activists who handed out faux “wanted” posters with his photo and address. Social media photos from a few months ago alleging that similar “wanted” signs were posted on utility poles in nearby neighborhoods could not be independently verified by ARLnow.
The family’s Arlington home remains on the market, according to online listing services, despite no “for sale” sign being posted.
The home has six bedrooms and 6.5 baths, and features carrara marble kitchen countertops, a “black leathered marble island,” a “boutique style dressing room,” a “spa inspired bath [that] includes radiant heated floors,” “a covered rear porch with retractable screens,” and “comprehensive security.”
“This is luxury living at its finest,” the listing said.
This is not the only protest in front of an Arlington home to make recent headlines. In 2024 pro-Palestinian protesters spent months camped out in front of then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s house on N. Chain Bridge Road. Earlier this year, pro-Palestinian protests targeted the north Arlington home of a foundation board member; protesters spray painted the driveway, posted flyers, banged pots and pans, and called the homeowner a “war criminal.”
No racial or ethnic group in Arlington comes close to earning enough household income to afford median priced single-family homes in Arlington, and some groups struggle to afford median-priced condominiums, according to new data.
Even the county’s white population, which has by far the largest median household income, is “nowhere near” being able to afford median priced single-family housing, said Keith Waters of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University.
He was speaking at the Oct. 9 meeting of the county’s Housing Commission, laying out a somewhat bleak affordability picture while saying Arlington still has done better than some communities in addressing housing shortages.
Based on Center for Regional Analysis data, the minimum household income needed to purchase a median priced home in the current market is:
- $332,876 for single-family homes
- $252,347 for townhouses
- $132,224 for condominiums
Median household income in the county by race/ethnicity currently stands at:
- $173,878 for white households
- $154,556 for mixed-race households
- $125,870 for Asian households
- $105,275 for Hispanic households
- $89,570 for Black households
From a statistical standpoint, “none of the median household income of any racial group can afford the median single-family home [and] none of the racial groups can afford the median townhome,” Waters said.
Though sobering, the information was welcomed by Housing Commission chair Kellen MacBeth.
“It’s helpful to know what the landscape is looking like,” he said.
The scenarios assume a 20% down payment, typical taxes and insurance costs, and residents spending no more than 30% of gross income on housing. The calculations don’t take into account the ability of some homeowners to roll over past housing profits into their next home.
Much of the data also precede this year’s federal-government and contractor layoffs. So far, the Arlington housing market has seen only modest impacts, with the per-square-foot cost of recent home sales declining but still at $500. Even with declines over the past year, that figure remains among the highest in the region.
The average sales price of single-family attached homes in the county recently surpassed $1.8 million, in part because of general housing inflation and in part due to older, smaller homes being torn down and replaced with larger properties available to those with the means to purchase them.
The Mason analysis suggests Arlington’s total households will grow 17% to more than 155,000 by 2025. The bulk of that growth will be in the rental segment, with the percentage of rental properties growing from 59% of total properties now to 64% in a quarter-century’s time.
While Arlington has limited land area for significant increases in single-family homes, the growth in multifamily housing stock has been “incredibly steady” in recent years, MacBeth said.
But Jason Schwartz, another commission member, said more needs to be done to broaden options across the economic spectrum.
“It’s just incredibly frustrating,” he said of challenges related to constructing more housing.
Schwartz brought up another issue — that of seniors aging in place in the homes they have owned for years.
With children grown, they are now “one- or two-[person] households that are in a three-, four- or even five-bedroom [home] — more bedrooms than people,” he said.
Schwartz said he wasn’t advocating for removing those property owners against their wishes.
“Obviously we’re not going to say, hey, we’re going to kick you out of your home to a studio or one-bedroom [apartment] if you’re a senior,” he said.
But Schwartz did seem to suggest making residents aware of their options when situations like those arise.
“We need to make it so we’re [taking] a balanced approach,” he said.
Outlets Reject Pentagon Press Rules — “Fox News, the former employer of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on Tuesday joined a chorus of news outlets refusing to sign an agreement with the Pentagon that could limit journalists’ rights to gather or report information not officially authorized for release.” [Axios, Associated Press, Washington Post]
Regional Economy on the Brink — “Twenty-two states are either in a recession or on the precipice of a downturn, according to an intriguing analysis from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics… in trouble are the states most exposed to federal job cuts, like Virginia and Maryland. Unemployment in Washington, D.C., was 6% in August, the highest in the country.” [Axios]
Controllers Giving Flyers to Fliers — “‘Hi – good morning. I’m an unpaid air traffic controller.’ That’s what a worker said as he approached travelers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Tuesday morning. As the government shutdown hits the two-week mark, Tuesday is the first day air traffic controllers won’t get a full paycheck, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. On Oct. 28, they won’t get paid at all.” [NBC 4]
Arlington Restaurants on TV — “Chamber President & CEO Kate Bates and Chair-Elect @bismahahmed_ joined @fox5dc to kick off the start of #ARLRestaurantWeek, hosting a speed tasting of three meals from La Posada, Maison Cheryl, and Celtic House.” [Arlington Chamber/X]
Police Plan Community Meetings — “The Arlington County Police Department’s (ACPD) Community Engagement Division invites the public to the fall quarterly community meetings covering community issues, crime prevention tips and quality of life concerns.” [ACPD]
WETA Radio Weathers Cuts — “WETA, with its offices down the road in Shirlington, has been on the air 24-7 through the thick and thin over many years here, through the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic, with comforting voices spinning the hits, so to speak, from Handel, to Haydn, to Mozart to Beethoven… the station has had to lay off five percent of its staff and folks hope there will be no more if the public steps up to help.” [FCNP]
Local Firm Sells Unit — “Trident Maritime Systems, an Arlington-based developer of integrated maritime systems, said it has sold its UK business to Alexandria-based private equity firm DC Capital Partners.” [Potomac Tech Wire]
No Plastic for Leaf Collection — “Mr. Autumn Man Knows: Leaves placed in plastic garbage bags can’t be composted and won’t be collected. Place leaves and other yard waste at the curb only in paper bags and the green curbside cart.” [Arlington DES/X]
New Legal Notice — Convenience store seeks off-premises beer and wine license; 30-day objections. [Public Notices]
It’s Wednesday — Expect sunny skies and a high temperature near 70 degrees with a north wind at 8 to 11 mph, gusting up to 21 mph. For Wednesday night, the skies will remain clear, and the temperature will drop to around 45 degrees. The north wind will persist at approximately 9 mph. [NWS]
Missing Middle’s critics are launching another round of opposition as Arlington County returns to accepting permit applications for this kind of construction.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit over Arlington’s Expanded Housing Option filed an emergency motion yesterday (Monday) in the Supreme Court of Virginia. They’re seeking to block a Virginia Court of Appeals order that allows the county to resume issuing permits for multifamily construction in previously single-family-only neighborhoods.
“A stay in the Supreme Court of Virginia putting Missing Middle Housing (MMH) on hold will protect homeowners, homebuyers, renters, and developers in Arlington,” Dan Creedon, a member of the anti-Missing Middle group Neighbors for Neighborhoods, said in a press release. “If the Supreme Court reverses the Court of Appeals and MMH is again invalid — a decision that could take up to a year — illegal MMH housing will be spread across the County. Then what?”
In tandem with the emergency motion, Neighbors for Neighborhoods released a video underscoring the cost of Missing Middle housing that has already been built in Arlington and the concerns of some homeowners who live near it.
One man who lives near a six-unit building under construction in Virginia Square raised concerns about how the project at 3802 14th Street N., which is taller and has a much larger footprint than its neighbors, will impact the surrounding area.
“This is out of scale with the neighborhood,” the neighbor said in the video. “The infrastructure wasn’t designed for this, and it just doesn’t belong right here.”
Both opponents and advocates of Missing Middle housing have much to say about the cost of homes already built under the zoning change approved in March 2023. One unit of a new duplex on N. Troy Street is currently for sale for $1.6 million, at the site of single-family home that sold for about $860,000 in 2023.
Critics argue that the price tag illustrates how little this new type of housing will help middle-income people. They contrast this with the impact of affordable housing projects like the one currently underway at the Goodwill on S. Glebe Road.
“The County Board has dug in its heels on a failed MMH policy that has produced more housing units for upper-income households, but not a single one for those who need affordable housing,” Creedon said.
But Jane Green — co-founder of YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, which supports Missing Middle — noted that the Troy Street home’s price is less than the $1.8 million average sales price for detached single-family homes in Arlington last month. And it’s significantly lower than the $2.4 million average price of all newly built single-family homes in the county last year.
“The opponents of Missing Middle like to tout the relatively low price of the older home that was torn down in order to build the duplex on N. Troy, but the reality is that almost no homes selling for under $1 million in Arlington are marketable without substantial renovation,” Green told ARLnow. “Most will be torn down and if they aren’t lucky enough to become a duplex or a sixplex, they will end up as $2.4 million homes that are even less affordable.”
An opinion piece published on Greater Greater Washington last month called the six-unit project in Virginia Square “one of the most promising EHO examples under construction.” Guest contributor Jason Schwartz argued that the century-old home that this replaces, which sold for $913,000 in 2022, is “completely obsolete in the housing market.”
“These homes will be perfect for families looking for something larger than a typical apartment, but much smaller than the existing inventory of new single-family homes,” Schwartz wrote. “They will also be great options for empty-nesters or other households looking to downsize.”
This week’s anti-Missing Middle video sought more donations for the privately funded lawsuit, which will likely have to go back to a lower court for a retrial if the Virginia Supreme Court rules in favor of the defendants. A GoFundMe for the litigation has raised about $150,000, compared to the county’s legal tab of about $1.4 million, according to Neighbors for Neighborhoods.
Creedon told ARLnow that his organization hasn’t set a specific fundraising goal, since “that amount is totally dependent on what the County does on appeal and how the homeowners have to respond.”
“Imagine how many low and moderate-income households could benefit from $1.4 million — the amount of taxpayer funds that the County has spent on its outside lawyers, not to mention the huge amounts it will continue to spend defending MMH,” Creedon wrote.
Green, meanwhile, agreed that Missing Middle won’t solve affordability issues in Northern Virginia, but argued that it will help.
“YIMBYs of NoVA recognize the continued need to increase the supply of attainable homes for families at all income levels,” she said. “Missing Middle is one small piece, and we are committed to finding more solutions. A future without EHO housing is not a viable option to increase the middle-income housing supply.”
A man is dead after police say he was last seen fleeing from state troopers on the 14th Street Bridge.
On Oct. 1, an early morning car chase that started on I-95, on charges of reckless driving, ended on the 14th Street Bridge after the suspect’s vehicle was disabled by spike strips deployed on I-395, according to Virginia State Police.
“Troopers were able to stop the vehicle, but the suspect driver fled from the car, leaping off the bridge and onto a catwalk, fleeing the scene,” VSP said in a press release later that day.
Traffic camera video posted by local public safety watcher Dave Statter showed troopers looking over the bridge after the suspect made the leap. Officers from Arlington County, as well as D.C. police and U.S. Park Police, helped to search for the suspect but were unable to find him.
As first reported today by Statter, the body of the man police say is the suspect was recovered from the river several days later.
“Virginia State Police has been notified that a body recovered from the Potomac River on Oct. 4, 2025, has been identified as Mohammed K. Hasan, the suspect from the pursuit on Oct. 1, 2025,” a VSP spokesman confirmed to ARLnow.
There’s no official word yet on how the man died.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted Monday the federal government shutdown may become the longest in history, saying he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they hit pause on their health care demands and reopen.
Standing alone at the Capitol on the 13th day of the shutdown, the speaker said he was unaware of the details of the thousands of federal workers being fired by the Trump administration. It’s a highly unusual mass layoff widely seen as way to seize on the shutdown to reduce the scope of government. Vice President JD Vance has warned of “painful” cuts ahead, even as employee unions sue.
“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history,” Johnson of Louisiana said.
With no endgame in sight, the shutdown is expected to roll on for the unforeseeable future. The closure has halted routine government operations, shuttered Smithsonian museums and other landmark cultural institutions and left airports scrambling with flight disruptions, all injecting more uncertainty into an already precarious economy.
The House is out of legislative session, with Johnson refusing to recall lawmakers back to Washington, while the Senate, closed Monday for the federal holiday, will return to work Tuesday. But senators are stuck in a cul-de-sac of failed votes as Democrats refuse to relent on their health care demands.
Johnson thanked President Donald Trump for ensuring military personnel are paid this week, which removed one main pressure point that may have pushed the parties to the negotiating table. The Coast Guard is also receiving pay, a senior administration official confirmed Monday. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss plans that have yet to be formally rolled out.
At its core, the shutdown is a debate over health care policy — particularly the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are expiring for millions of Americans who rely on government aid to purchase their own health insurance policies on the Obamacare exchanges. Democrats demand the subsidies be extended, but Republicans argue the issue can be dealt with later.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said with Republicans having essentially shut down the chamber now for a fourth week, no real negotiations are underway. They’re “nowhere to be found,” he said on MSNBC.
With Congress and the White House stalemated, some are eyeing the end of the month as the next potential deadline to reopen government.
Open enrollment begins Nov. 1 for the health program at issue, and Americans will face the prospect of skyrocketing insurance premiums. The Kaiser Family Foundation has estimated that monthly costs would double if Congress fails to renew the subsidy payments that expire Dec. 31.
At the end of October, government workers on monthly pay schedules, including thousands of House aides, will go without paychecks.
A persistent issue
The health care debate has dogged Congress ever since the Affordable Care Act became law under then-President Barack Obama in 2010.
The country went through a 16-day government shutdown during the Obama presidency when Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2013.
Trump tried to “repeal and replace” the law, commonly known as Obamacare, during his first term, in 2017, with a Republican majority in the House and Senate. That effort failed when then-Sen. John McCain memorably voted thumbs-down on the plan.
With 24 million now enrolled in Obamacare, a record, Johnson said Monday that Republicans are unlikely to go that route again, noting he still has “PTSD” from that botched moment.
“Can we completely repeal and replace Obamacare? Many of us are skeptical about that now because the roots are so deep,” Johnson said.
The Republican speaker insists his party has been willing to discuss the health care issue with Democrats this fall, before the subsidies expire at the end of the year. But first, he said, Democrats have to agree to reopen the government.
The longest shutdown, during Trump’s first term over his demands for funds to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall, ended in 2019 after 35 days.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is exercising vast leeway both to fire workers — drawing complaints from fellow Republicans and lawsuits from employee unions — and to determine who is paid.
That means not only military troops but other Trump administration priorities don’t necessarily have to go without pay, thanks to the various other funding sources as well as the billions made available in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is now law.
The Pentagon said over the weekend it was able to tap $8 billion in unused research and development funds to pay the military personnel. They had risked missed paychecks on Wednesday. But the Education Department is among those being hard hit, disrupting special education, after-school programs and others.
“The Administration also could decide to use mandatory funding provided in the 2025 reconciliation act or other sources of mandatory funding to continue activities financed by those direct appropriations at various agencies,” according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO had cited the departments of Defense, Treasury and Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget as among those that received specific funds under the law.
“Some of the funds in DoD’s direct appropriation under the 2025 reconciliation act could be used to pay active-duty personnel during a shutdown, thus reducing the number of excepted workers who would receive delayed compensation,” CBO wrote in a letter responding to questions raised by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.