Senate Republicans projected a unified front at the White House Rose Garden Tuesday, arriving at President Donald Trump ’s invitation as they refuse to yield to Democratic demands for health care funds into the fourth week of the government shutdown.
While hosting, Trump praised the GOP leadership, singling out senators by name, trashed former President Joe Biden and previewed his own upcoming foreign travel and tariff policies.
“We’re a wealthy nation
again,” he said.
The country, meanwhile, is feeling the financial hit of the shutdown, which is on track to become among the longest in U.S. history. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are going without pay, Head Start programs for preschoolers nationwide are scrambling for funds, and economists warn of curbed economic growth.
Still, there are few signs of any end to the stalemate.
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Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says the U.S. is experiencing a “moment of extreme political violence, and that impacts every single person in public service.”
“But we will not be intimidated,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries is speaking at the Capitol following the arrest of a man charged with threating to kill him. The suspect had also been part of President Trump’s mass pardon of those convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., arrives to speak to reporters on the House steps on day 16 of the government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“When it comes to these extremists out there, you better watch how you talk when you talk about me,” Jeffries said.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said he had warned on the day of the mass pardons “that President Trump and his administration would be responsible for whatever happens with these people. “
“They’ve got a responsibility to rein them in,” Raskin said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., listens as President Donald Trump speaks as he hosts a lunch with Republican Senators on the Rose Garden patio at the White House, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune says Republicans are a “united team” amid the government shutdown.
Thune made the remarks after GOP senators dined with President Donald Trump at the White House.
The South Dakota Republican reiterated said he believes Trump wants to sit down and negotiate health care subsidies with Democrats who are demanding they be extended. But not until they vote to reopen the government, he said.
“Senate Republicans, House Republicans and the president of the United States are all in favor of reopening the federal government,” Thune said.
The president noted that, historically, the sitting president’s party often loses seats in Congress during the midterms.
“Statistically, when you look, a president gets elected and for some reason … you lose the midterms. I don’t know why,” he said, adding that no could really explain why such a historical norm usually holds.
“We have to win the midterms,” Trump continued. “Otherwise, all of the things that we’ve done, so many of them, are going to be taken away by the radical left lunatics.”
The party that wins the presidency usually does struggle in the next electoral cycle -- which could bode well for congressional Democrats in 2026.
An exception was 2022, however, when Democrats defied historical odds in congressional races -- even after Joe Biden’s 2020 election.
Usually during a shutdown, all non-essential federal government activities are on hold.
But the Trump administration has found ways to ensure troops get a paycheck and minimize other impacts of a shutdown.
Now, Trump is hinting at easing another casualty of the shutdown.
“We should probably just open them,” Trump said of museums closed during the shutdown.
The Smithsonian museums, research centers and the National Zoo are shuttered because of the shutdown -- at least for now
The president says he’s been watching the anti-tariff ads paid for by Canada’s Ontario province, saying he’d do the same thing if he was Canadian.
Still, Trump doesn’t think the ads are convincing to his supporters watching TV in the U.S.
“I do believe that everybody’s too smart for that,” Trump told senators who were gathered for lunch at the Rose Garden.
Trump credited his tariffs for generating what he claims will be $20 trillion worth of investments in America.
The White House has been unable to verify the sum is anywhere close to the level claimed by the president. Trump is traveling in the next several days to Japan and South Korea, in part, to finalize the terms of investments from those countries as part of an agreement to minimize the tariff rates Trump is charging on foreign goods.
In the middle of complimentary shoutouts to various GOP senators, Trump paused to note that one of their own was not attending the lunch.
“We have everybody one but person,” Trump said. “You’ll never guess who that is.”
It was an easy guess — the uninvited was Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a constant thorn in the side of the White House who, as Trump said, “automatically votes no on everything.”
If Paul had asked, Trump said he would “begrudgingly” allow him to come.
Earlier this year, Paul was told that he and his family would not be invited to the big congressional picnic that the president hosts for members of Congress every summer.
After Paul called it a petty move, Trump issued an invite on his social media account, saying “of course” Paul and his family were invited to the South Lawn event.
The president is spending part of his Tuesday playing host, having Senate Republicans over for lunch at the Rose Garden.
“The incredible Rose Garden, it’s just an incredible place,” Trump said in remarks that opened up the lunch.
Dozens of GOP senators and senior administration officials are in attendance on the patio, which was decked out with yellow umbrella-covered tables for the occasion.
Cheeseburgers and fries are on the menu, as well as “Rose Garden chocolates” for dessert.
Plans are on hold for President Trump to sit down with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to talk about resolving the war in Ukraine, according to a U.S. official.
The meeting had been announced last week. It was supposed to take place in Budapest, although a date had not been set.
The decision was made following a call between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The official requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The back-and-forth over Trump’s plans are the latest bout of whiplash caused by his stutter-step efforts to resolve a conflict that has persisted for nearly four years.
-By Matthew Lee and Chris Megerian
Trump on Tuesday received the Richard Nixon Foundation’s Architect of Peace Award, inviting surviving members of the former president’s family to the Oval Office.
White House aide Margo Martin posted pictures of the event, which was closed to the news media, on the social media site X.
Trump took Nixon family members to the West Wing colonnade to see his Presidential Walk of Fame and a picture of Nixon, who resigned in 1974 following the Watergate scandal.
Past winners of the award include former President George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George H.W. Bush. Kissinger has twice won the award, which was established in 1995.
Vance, making his first trip to Israel as vice president, said he came to the country once before, but only “for about 36 hours.”
This time, his plans include visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. It contains the site of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, as well as the believed location of his burial tomb.
“I think the world’s Christians will know that this country, that this region of the world means a great deal to me,” Vance said.
Mahmoud Khalil appeared Tuesday in a federal appeals court in Philadelphia as he challenges Trump administration efforts to deport him over his pro-Palestinian activism at Columbia University.
The government wants to overturn a lower court order granting Khalil’s June release from a Louisiana immigration jail. Its attorney, Drew Ensign, said the case belongs before an immigration judge in Louisiana who ruled that Khalil could be deported. “All of this is being conducted in an improper forum,” Ensign said. “So that should be a full stop.”
Khalil’s attorneys asked the three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm the order, which prevents his detention and deportation.
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident married to an American citizen, issued a statement after the hearing: “I’m stating unequivocally: I will continue my legal fight in federal courts for my rights, and for everyone’s right, to free speech.”
▶ Read more about Khalil’s efforts to block his deportation
More than 100 U.S. Census Bureau workers have been told they will be laid off in December due to a lack of funding from the federal government shutdown.
The 101 employees work at the Census Bureau’s call center in Tucson, Arizona, according to a mass layoff notice filed earlier this month with the state of Arizona. These workers help conduct surveys and answer questions about the statistical agency’s surveys. The bureau has another call center in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Earlier this year, around 1,300 Census Bureau employees took deferred resignations, voluntary separations or early retirement in recent months as part of the DOGE efforts to cut federal government spending.
“Both sides are transitioning from two years of very intense warfare to now a peacetime posture,” Kushner said during a press conference with Vance.
Kushner acknowledged the violence in Gaza that has tested the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, but downplayed it: “A lot of people are getting a little hysterical about different incursions one way or the other," he said.
The U.S. president’s top advisers to the Middle East met with 10 of the released hostages and their families Tuesday.
“It was really an emotional moment,” Witkoff said. Many of them were emotional and grateful to Trump for his work in securing the ceasefire and release of hostages, he added.
“I didn’t see any victims in that room,” Witkoff said. “I saw very strong people.”
JD Vance visited a newly opened civilian military cooperation center in Israel that the U.S. says is central to keeping Trump’s Gaza peace plan on track, and said the fragile ceasefire is going “better than I expected.”
Vance also tried to downplay that his visit was meant to be some sort of urgent play to keep the ceasefire agreement in place.
“My visit had nothing to do with the events of the past 48 hours,” said Vance, who was on his first visit as vice president to Israel and only his second ever to the country.
Vance was expected to meet with families of hostages whose remains are still in Gaza and some of the living hostages released last week. He urged a ‘little bit of patience’ amid growing Israeli frustration with Hamas’ slow pace of return of remains of hostages.
“Some of these hostages are buried under thousands of pounds of rubble. Some of the hostages, nobody even knows where they are,” Vance said. “It’s just a reason to counsel in favor of a little bit of patience.”
▶ Read more about developments involving Israel, Hamas and Gaza
Protesters have taken to wearing oversized inflatable costumes to deflate tensions and draw attention at rallies against Trump administration’s policies.
Crowds across the U.S. and abroad rallied Saturday during “No Kings” demonstrations against what they call a slide into authoritarianism. While Republicans dismissed them as “Hate America” rallies, many had a festive, red-white-and-blue feel.
The trend began in Portland, Oregon, when a protester showed up in inflatable frog costume. Now, crowds there gathering daily and nightly outside an immigration facility have embraced the absurd, adding unicorn, axolotl, dinosaur and banana costumes.
▶ See a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, who chairs the Senate health committee, and the Senate’s No. 2 Republican John Barrasso, R-Wy, on Tuesday introduced a resolution nominating Trump for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Operation Warp Speed.
Cassidy said the project that accelerated vaccine development with pharmaceutical companies during Trump’s first term “not only saved millions of lives but brought the American economy back to life.”
The praise highlights a tension between some Republicans’ support for vaccines and the Trump administration’s erosion of trust in the shots.
Trump recently falsely suggested a link between vaccines and autism. And Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has taken steps to sow doubt in immunizations, including changing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and firing a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee.
Powerful anti-vaccine advocates and people selling potentially harmful goods such as raw milk are profiting from the push to write anti-science policies into law across the United States.
They portray the Make America Healthy Again movement as grassroots, but it’s fueled by a web of well-funded national groups led by people who’ve profited — financially and otherwise — from sowing distrust of medicine and science.
The Associated Press found state legislation that includes language in the text or public testimony that explicitly spells out that a reason to change the law is to make money or increase sales for dairy farmers.
▶ Read more about who’s profiting from the anti-science push
More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections — vaccines, milk safety and fluoride — have been introduced in statehouses across the U.S. this year. It’s part of an organized, politically savvy campaign to enshrine a conspiracy theory-driven agenda into law.
An Associated Press investigation found that the wave of legislation has cropped up in most states, pushed by people with close ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Around 30 have been enacted or adopted. The effort would strip away protections that have been built over a century and are integral to American lives and society.
▶ Read more about what the AP investigation found
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders accused Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday of stalling for time amid diplomatic efforts to end his invasion of Ukraine. Their statements oppose any move to make Kyiv surrender land captured by Russian forces in return for peace, as Trump has on occasion suggested.
Eight European leaders as well as senior European Union officials said in a joint statement they intend to go ahead with plans to use Moscow’s billions of dollars (euros) of frozen assets abroad to help Kyiv win the war, despite some misgivings about the legality and consequences of such a step. They also expressed support for Trump’s peace efforts ahead of a meeting with Putin in Budapest, Hungary.
No date has been set for the Budapest summit, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated Tuesday there’s no sense of urgency. “Preparation is needed, serious preparation,” he told reporters.
▶ Read more about diplomatic efforts for peace between Russia and Ukraine
Trump said in a social media post that he’s not ready to give a green light to U.S allies who have “explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm” offered to go into Gaza and “straighten out Hamas” if the militant group continues to “act badly.”
The Republican president said he told these countries and Israel, ‘NOT YET!’ because “There is still hope that Hamas will do what is right.”
If they don’t, Trump said “an end to Hamas will be FAST, FURIOUS, & BRUTAL!”
Trump commented while Vice President JD Vance is visiting Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others to help shore up the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
The president also thanked Indonesia for helping out with the Middle East.
