https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/18/the-king-of-the-shutdown-00614718

In an administration full of disruptors, Russ Vought is a different beast.

Vought, as head of the White House’s budget arm, has assembled one of the most powerful and exacting teams in Washington, all aimed at slashing the federal bureaucracy and ensuring what’s left bends to the administration’s will.

He has increased the number of policy lieutenants typically operating at the Office of Management and Budget and supercharged their mandate to ensure White House priorities are pushed into each agency.

That handiwork is now in motion as the Trump administration targets funding cuts to what it calls “Democrat agencies” and threatens more mass layoffs called “reductions in force,” or RIFs. On Friday, Vought said that $11 billion in Army Corps of Engineers projects in mostly blue states would be paused.

Vought’s expanded policy army, the nearly dozen “Program Associate Directors” or PADs, are charged with combing line-by-line through the nearly $7 trillion federal budget for programs to slash and helping him play what he’s called “budgetary twister” (finding money to blunt the most politically painful parts of the shutdown).

Beyond numbers, Vought’s lieutenants also are steeped-in-policy wonks who each lead an office composed of dozens of political and career servants. All of this positions Vought’s OMB as a potent political strike force.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5565121-treasury-warns-white-house-photos/amp/
The Treasury Department told employees not to share images of the White House demolition, as construction for President Trump’s $200 million ballroom kicked off in the East Wing on Monday.

Treasury employees have a front-seat view to the construction, since the department’s headquarters are located by the East Wing. As images of the facade’s dismantling went viral Monday night, the Treasury Department warned its staff of “security” issues related to sharing the photos.

“Carelessly shared photographs of the White House complex during this process could potentially reveal sensitive items, including security features or confidential structural details,” a Treasury spokesperson told The Hill in an email.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have urged our employees to avoid sharing these images,” the spokesperson added.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the Treasury Department sent out an email to its employees Monday evening urging restraint before disseminating photos of the construction.

“As construction proceeds on the White House grounds, employees should refrain from taking and sharing photographs of the grounds, to include the East Wing, without prior approval from the Office of Public Affairs,” the email read, according to the Journal.

Demolition crews started the process of tearing down part of the East Wing on Monday to begin construction on the planned ballroom.

“It just started today, so that’s good luck,” the president said during an event in the East Room hosting two national champion college baseball teams.

Trump noted there will be a knockout panel behind where he delivered the remarks in the East Room that will go into the new ballroom.

>every /news/ OP is just a wall of text copypasted from a news article
No wonder this board is dead.
I think I will stick to https://www.reddit.com/r/news/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/22/white-house-trump-new-ballroom-demolition

Trump administration officials confirmed to various outlets on Wednesday that the White House’s East Wing will be demolished “within days”, a revelation given the administration has not submitted plans for the new ballroom to the federal agency that oversees construction of federal buildings.

In discussion with reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Donald Trump was asked by Jeff Mason of Reuters to respond to the widespread surprise that the entire East Wing is being torn down. Trump said that the wing he described as a separate building “was never thought of as being much; it was a very small building”.

“Rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building,” he continued. “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure.”

Then, pointing at a model of the new ballroom on a table in front of him, and a new structure leading to the ballroom in the location where the East Wing used to be, Trump added: “The way it was shown, it looked like we were touching the White House. We don’t touch the White House.”

“That’s a bridge, a glass bridge going from the White House to the ballroom,” Trump said, of the new structure that will replace the East Wing.

Trump said the result is “going to be probably the finest ballroom ever built” and that the ballroom is “being paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine”.

The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing a senior administration official, that the ballroom plans will mean the demolition of the entire East Wing. The official also said the demolition should be finished by this weekend.

>durr Trump is Moscow's bitch muh NATO muh election interference

Meanwhile, in reality:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/22/politics/bessent-sanctions-russia

The Trump administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies as it called on Moscow to agree to an immediate ceasefire in the war with Ukraine.

President Donald Trump had for weeks signaled he could impose penalties against Russia for its continuation of the war but had failed to take major punitive measures until Wednesday. The announcement came as Trump said he had “canceled” an anticipated meeting with Putin because he “didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get.”

In remarks in the Oval Office, Trump explained he “felt it was time” for the sanctions, noting he “waited a long time” to impose them. Still, the US president said he hopes “they won’t be on for long” because the war will end.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement Wednesday that it was “the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire.”

“Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” he said.

22nd daily thread covering The 2025 Republican Shutdown/ Hostage Taking of the United States Government

Day 22 Updates:
- (CNBC) Government shutdown becomes 2nd longest in U.S. history, only surpassed by Trump's previous shutdown record: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/22/government-shutdown-trump-democrats.html
-Former Defense Secretary Panetta- Trump's inability to govern signals weakness to foes: https://www.axios.com/2025/10/22/government-shutdown-democracy-failure-defense-leon-panetta
- (CBS) Senate Republicans continue wasting time pushing same bill for 12th time expecting different outcome: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/government-shutdown-latest-day-22-second-longest-shutdown-in-history/

Reminders:

-The Republicans created this situation when they used the nuclear option to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill, which created the CR at the center of the current shutdown, with a simple majority of 51, meaning not even all Republican Senators voted in favor of it. They did this knowing it would lead to an eventual deadline where they would either need Democrat votes or to use the nuclear option to avoid a shutdown.

-Republicans are refusing to use the nuclear option which would allow them to end the shutdown right now.

-Republicans are refusing to make any concessions at all to Democrats to entice them to vote for the CR the Republicans are forcing through.

-The Republican Speaker of the House is refusing to call the House into session until the shutdown ends, meaning even if Senate Republicans wanted to make concessions, they can't because they would need to be sent to the House for approval before they could be ratified.

22nd thread, with daily coverage of The 2025 Democrat Shutdown

Day 22 Updates:
- (CBS) Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is so determined to keep the government shutdown for as long as possible, he delivered a "marathon" 22-hour long speech as part of his unprecedented filibuster https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeff-merkley-senate-speech-trump/
- (CNN) Senate Democrats again block GOP-backed funding bill - https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-government-shutdown-news-10-22-25
- (Politico) The White House has tried to blunt the shutdown's impacts on Americans. But that may not last much longer. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/22/the-longer-the-shutdown-lasts-the-harder-it-is-to-mask-00618958


Why did Democrats shutdown the US government? In 2021 they passed emergency corporate subsidies for COVID, and decided they would expire on Jan 1, 2026. But now, this makes them angry that these corporate subsidies are expiring as planned, and so they are shutting down the government.

US ranchers oppose Trump’s plan to import more Argentine beef and experts doubt it will lower prices

https://apnews.com/article/beef-prices-cattle-imports-trump-argentina-9f8e9efd6e74e958c586ea1e32797ba2

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — President Donald Trump ’s plan to cut record beef prices by importing more meat from Argentina is running into heated opposition from U.S. ranchers who are enjoying some rare profitable years and skepticism from experts who say the president’s move probably wouldn’t lead to cheaper prices at grocery stores.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association along with the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America and other farming groups — who are normally some of the president’s biggest supporters — all criticized Trump’s idea because of what it could do to American ranchers and feedlot operators. And agricultural economists say Argentine beef accounts for such a small slice of beef imports — only about 2% — that even doubling that wouldn’t change prices much.

South Dakota rancher Brett Kenzy said he wants American consumers to determine whether beef is too expensive, not the government. And so far there is little sign that consumers are substituting chicken or other proteins for beef on their shopping lists even though the average price of a pound of ground beef hit its highest point ever at $6.32 in the latest report before the government shutdown began.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/us/politics/trump-justice-department-compensation.html

President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.
The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims. It is also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president’s former lawyers atop the Justice Department.
Mr. Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that often is the precursor to lawsuits. The first claim, lodged in late 2023, seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the F.B.I. and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the claim has not been made public.
The second complaint, filed in the summer of 2024, accuses the F.B.I. of violating Mr. Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents. It also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling sensitive records after he left office.
Lawyers said the nature of the claims posed undeniable ethics challenges.
“What a travesty,” said Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University. “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93dqew8l3xo
President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to have come away empty-handed from a White House meeting after US President Donald Trump indicated he was not ready to supply sought-after Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Zelensky said after the cordial bilateral talks that he and Trump had talked about long-range missiles, but decided not to make statements on the issue "because the United States does not want an escalation".

Following the meeting, Trump took to social media to call for Kyiv and Moscow to "stop where they are" and end the war.

The Trump-Zelensky meeting came a day after Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone and agreed to meet him in Hungary soon.

Zelensky believes using Tomahawks to strike at Russian oil and energy facilities would severely weaken Putin's war economy.

While Trump did not rule it out, his tone at the White House on Friday was non-committal.

"Hopefully they won't need it, hopefully we'll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks," the US president said, adding: "I think we're fairly close to that."

He described the weapons as "a big deal" and said that the US needed them for its own defence. He also said that supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine could mean a further escalation in the conflict, but that discussions about sending them would continue.

Asked by the BBC if the Tomahawks had prompted Putin to meet Trump, the US president said: "The threat of that [the missiles] is good, but the threat of that is always there."

The Ukrainian leader suggested his country could offer drones in exchange for the Tomahawks, prompting smiles and nodding from Trump.

Zelensky also complimented Trump on his role in securing the first phase of a peace deal in the Middle East, suggesting the US leader could build on that momentum to help end Russia's war in Ukraine.