Politics

By Luc Cohen, Patricia Zengerle and Andrew Goudsward

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged powerful Senator Bob Menendez and his wife with taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen, which could complicate Democrats’ efforts to keep their slim majority in the U.S. Senate in next year’s elections.

Menendez later stepped down temporarily from his role as chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee until the case is resolved, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, adding that Menendez had a right to due process.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan said Menendez, 69, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash and gold bars in exchange for using his power and influence as New Jersey’s senior senator to benefit the government of Egypt and interfere with law enforcement probes into the businessmen.

Menendez has been an important ally to fellow Democrat Joe Biden as the president has sought to reassert U.S. influence on the world stage, rally support for congressional aid to Ukraine, and push back against a rising China.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, as well as several other Democratic state officials and members of the U.S. House of Representatives, called on Menendez to resign from the Senate.

“The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state,” Murphy – who would appoint a temporary replacement for Menendez should he resign – said in a statement.

Prosecutors are seeking to have Menendez forfeit assets including his New Jersey home, a 2019 Mercedes-Benz convertible, and about $566,000 in cash, gold bars and funds from a bank account.

The indictment contained an image of gold bars investigators seized from Menendez’s home as well as envelopes stuffed with cash found inside jackets bearing Menendez’s name hanging in his closet. Prosecutors said they found more than $480,000 in cash in his home.

Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, noted that Menendez’s website says that as a senator he cannot compel an agency to act in someone’s favor or influence matters involving a private business.

“Behind the scenes, Senator Menendez was doing those things for certain people – the people that were bribing him and his wife,” Williams said. He added the investigation was ongoing.

Menendez said in a statement that prosecutors mischaracterized routine legislative work.

“The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent,” Menendez said. “The facts are not as presented.”

A lawyer for Nadine Menendez, 56, who has been married to the senator since 2020, said she denied wrongdoing and would “vigorously defend” against the allegations in court.

MENENDEZ HAS FACED OTHER PROBES

The investigation marks the third time Menendez has been investigated by federal prosecutors, although he has never been convicted.

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey dropped a case in January 2018 in which Menendez was charged with accepting private flights, campaign contributions and other bribes from a wealthy patron in exchange for official favors. A 2017 trial on those charges ended in a jury deadlock. He was also investigated in 2006.

Senate Democratic rules require any member charged with a felony to give up their leadership position, although they can resume it if found not guilty. Senator Ben Cardin is expected to step in again as foreign relations chairman, as he did after Menendez was indicted in 2015.

Menendez, on his third term, has said he plans to seek re-election next year.

An investigation could complicate Democrats’ effort to expand their slim 51-49 seat majority in the 100-member Senate, although New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.

A Cuban American, Menendez has been the toughest opponent among Biden’s Democrats of any move by the administration to soften policies toward Cuba and Venezuela.

He has also been one of the Senate’s most vocal critics of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, especially resistant to major weapons deals for the kingdom.

Criminal charges against members of the 100-seat Senate are relatively rare. Ted Stevens, a former Republican Senator from Alaska, was found guilty of corruption in 2008, but the conviction was later overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct. Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, was arrested for lewd conduct in a bathroom in 2007 and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.

BUSINESSMEN ALSO CHARGED

Menendez, his wife and the businessmen – Wael Hana, Jose Uribe, and Fred Daibes – are all expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Sept. 27 to face charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.

Bob and Nadine Menendez also each face one count of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. The pair each face up to 45 years in prison, though any sentence would ultimately be determined by a judge and would likely be much shorter.

According to the indictment, Hana – who is originally from Egypt – arranged meetings in 2018 between the senator and Egyptian officials, in which officials pressed Menendez to sign off on military aid Washington had withheld over concerns about the country’s human rights record.

In exchange, Hana, 40, put Nadine Menendez on the payroll of a company he controlled that had the exclusive right to certify halal meat shipped to Egypt from the United States, prosecutors said.

The senator later sought to persuade the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not take any action to interfere with the company’s monopoly status, according to the indictment.

“We are still reviewing the charges but based upon our initial review, they have absolutely no merit,” a spokesperson for Hana said in a statement.

The Egyptian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors said Uribe, who worked in the trucking and insurance businesses, gave Nadine Menendez $15,000 in cash to help pay for a Mercedes-Benz convertible after her husband asked an official at the New Jersey attorney general’s office to resolve fraud investigations into Uribe’s associates favorably.

Daibes, a real estate developer, gave Menendez gold bars and cash after Menendez sought to influence a federal criminal case in New Jersey against Daibes for obtaining loans under false pretenses, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said. Daibes pleaded guilty and received a probationary sentence.

Lawyers for Uribe and Daibes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Stempel in New York and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Simon Lewis, Makini Brice and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Writing by Tom Hals; Editing by Mark Porter, Daniel Wallis and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Jonathan Landay, Idrees Ali and Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sending troops or firing missiles into Mexico to battle cartels, as proposed by Republican 2024 presidential candidates including former President Donald Trump, could lead to casualties and bloody reprisals on American soil without stemming the flow of illegal drugs, current and former U.S. military and government officials told Reuters.

Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley are among several Republican candidates who have said they might authorize military force in Mexico – should they win the election – to stem the flood of the cheap and potent synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States.

Fentanyl seizures at the southern U.S. border have exploded in recent years, rising from just 10.7 kg (24 lb) in 2014 to around 8,400 kg (18,500 lb) in 2022, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Almost 80,000 Americans died from opioid-related overdoses in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, with fentanyl being the primary culprit.

But sending troops into America’s top trade partner risks failing for several reasons, the current and former military and State Department officials said.

They argued that cartels could retaliate in U.S. territory and U.S. troops and Mexican civilians could die in firefights with heavily armed cartel members. Mexico would likely cut off cooperation with U.S. law enforcement, while fentanyl labs are hard to locate.

In any case, most fentanyl is smuggled by U.S. citizens.

“You send over a SEAL team. You take out a cartel leader. Okay, now who’s in charge? This could create the blowback effect of fracturing the cartels,” said a U.S. military officer with experience in Mexico, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We create more and more violent splinter groups that are harder to contain.”

The officer said cross-border U.S. raids could ignite gunbattles with cartel gunmen armed with military weapons, including machine guns and rocket launchers.

“This is just a much more sophisticated enforcement problem than I think a lot of people understand,” said Earl Anthony Wayne, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center think tank.

Fentanyl labs are “hard to find,” he said. “But it’s easy to hit the wrong apartment and kill a bunch of innocents next door, kids, families.”

As an example of what could happen, the military officer pointed to January gunbattles in the city of Culiacan between cartel gunmen and Mexican soldiers during the arrest of a son of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. At least 10 troops and 19 gunmen died.

Jason Blazakis, a former State Department official who worked on counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues, said cartels could respond to U.S. special forces raids by having their operatives attack civilians in the United States. He is running in the 2024 congressional election for a New Jersey-based seat as a Democrat.

In practice, a significant amount of fentanyl is smuggled by Americans via legal border crossings – making the use of deadly force against smugglers politically unpalatable and almost certainly illegal.

A U.S. military spokesman declined to comment on the proposals, saying: “This is a hypothetical, and it is against our policy to speculate about hypotheticals.”

IDEA GAINS TRACTION

Trump raised the idea of launching military strikes into Mexico in the final year of his presidency.

According to a memoir by Mark Esper, Trump’s second defense secretary, Trump asked at least twice in 2020 if the military could “shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs.”

    Esper wrote that he replied that it would be illegal and an act of war.

But Republican strategists say the calls for military action have intensified during the Republican presidential primary campaign as the fentanyl epidemic worsens.

“We’re not going to wait. We’re not going to let any more Americans die,” Haley told Reuters in an interview earlier this month.

“Either (Mexico) does it, or we do it. But one of us is doing it.”

In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 52% of respondents supported “sending U.S. military personnel to Mexico to fight against drug cartels,” while 26% were opposed. Republicans were supportive by a 64% to 28% margin.

Still, most Americans – including most Republicans – said they would oppose such actions if the Mexican government did not approve, the poll found.

“It’s Hollywood. It looks great. We could do it. It would be easy to send them in, a couple of (special forces) teams that could go and extract in extraordinary renditions,” said the military officer. “But the question is why? There’s no real purpose to it.”

The odds of any Republican ordering unilateral military action once in office probably are slim due to the negative collateral effects such an action would have, strategists told Reuters.

“That said, I think if Trump was able to kill a major drug dealer the political benefits would be real,” said Alex Conant, an adviser to Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Sergio Alcocer, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister responsible for North America, said such a move would hamper intelligence-sharing on organized crime and immigration and damage economic relations.

“It’s unacceptable for Mexico,” Alcocer said, “just as it would be on the other side if we were to do it.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Idrees Ali and Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Dave Graham in Mexico City; Editing by Ross Colvin and Rosalba O’Brien)

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(Reuters) -Many U.S. government services would be disrupted and hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed without pay if Congress fails to provide funding for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. Workers deemed “essential” would remain on the job, but without pay.

Here is a guide to what happens during a government shutdown, and who would be affected:

MILITARY

The two million U.S. military personnel would remain at their posts, but roughly half of the Pentagon’s 800,000 civilian employees would be furloughed.

Contracts awarded prior to the shutdown would continue, and the Pentagon could place new orders for supplies or services needed to protect national security. Other new contracts, including renewals or extensions, would not be awarded. Payments to defense contractors such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, could be delayed.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration would continue maintaining nuclear weapons.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Agents at the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service and other federal law enforcement agencies would remain on the job. Prison staffers likewise would continue to work.

Criminal prosecutions, including the two federal cases against former President Donald Trump, would continue. Most civil litigation would be postponed.

Aid to local police departments and other grants could be delayed.

Border Patrol and immigration enforcement agents would continue to work, as would customs officers. The Coast Guard would continue operations.

Most of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer-protection workers would be furloughed, as would half of its antitrust employees.

TRANSPORTATION

Airport security screeners and air-traffic control workers would be required to work, though absenteeism could be a problem. Some airports had to suspend operations during a shutdown in 2019 when traffic controllers called in sick.

Training for new air traffic controllers would stop, which Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has warned could worsen a shortage of qualified workers.

Some major infrastructure projects could face delays as environmental reviews and permitting would be disrupted.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

U.S. embassies and consulates would remain open. Passport and visa processing would continue as long as there was sufficient fees to cover operations. Non-essential official travel, speeches and other events would be curtailed.

Some foreign aid programs could run out of money as well.

NATIONAL PARKS AND NATURAL RESOURCES

It’s not clear how the United States’ 63 national parks would be affected. They remained open during the 2018-2019 shutdown, through restrooms and information desks were closed and waste disposal was halted. They were closed during a 2013 shutdown.

Wildfire fighting efforts would continue, though timber sales on national forest lands would be curtailed and fewer recreation permits would be issued.

SCIENCE

Scientific research would be disrupted as agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration would furlough most of their workers.

NASA would continue to support the International Space Station and track satellites, but 17,000 of its 18,300 employees would be furloughed.

Weather forecasts and fisheries regulation would continue, as would patent and trademark reviews. Tests of new drugs and medical devices would continue.

HEALTH

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would continue to monitor disease outbreaks, though other public health activities could suffer as more than half of the agency’s workers would be furloughed.

The National Institutes of Health would furlough most of its staff and delay new clinical trials for medical treatments.

Health care services for veterans and Native Americans would continue.

Most inspections of hazardous waste sites and drinking water and chemical facilities would stop. Cleanup of polluted Superfund sites would slow or stop.

Food-safety inspections by the Food and Drug Administration could be delayed.

FINANCIAL REGULATION

The Securities and Exchange Commission would furlough roughly 90% of its 4,600 employees and suspend most activities, leaving only a skeleton staff to respond to emergencies.

Likewise, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission would furlough almost all of its employees and cease oversight, enforcement and regulation.

The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would continue as normal, as they are funded by industry fees rather than congressional appropriations.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE

The Social Security Administration would continue to issue retirement and disability benefits, and payments would continue under the Medicare and Medicaid health programs.

The Veterans Administration would continue to pay veterans’ benefits.

DISASTER RESPONSE

Most employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency would remain on the job, but the agency would risk running out of funds for disaster relief and long-term recovery projects.

AGRICULTURE

Crop subsidy programs would continue, as would meat, egg and fruit and vegetable inspections.

EDUCATION

Pell grants and student loans would continue to be paid, but could be disrupted as most Education Department employees would be furloughed.

A protracted shutdown could “severely curtail” aid to schools, universities and other educational institutions, the department says. It also could delay funds that are due to be awarded later in the year.

CHILD CARE

According to the White House, 10,000 children from low-income families would lose access to the Head Start preschool program.

SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT

The Small Business Administration would not be able to issue any new loans, though loans for businesses hurt by natural disasters would continue.

LABOR

Workplace safety inspections would be limited and investigations into unfair pay practices would be suspended.

The National Labor Relations Board’s ability to mediate labor disputes would be curtailed as almost all of its 1,200 employees would be furloughed.

WHITE HOUSE

In 2018-2019 shutdown, the White House furloughed 1,100 of 1,800 staff in the Executive Office of the President. Some offices, such as the National Security Council, continued at full strength, while others like the Office of Management and Budget were scaled back sharply.

MAIL DELIVERY

The U.S. Postal Service would be unaffected as it does not depend on Congress for funding.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, Pete Schroeder, Howard Schneider, Moira Warburton; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden is establishing a new office of gun violence prevention to implement existing safety laws and work with states on the issue, officials said on Thursday.

The new office will be overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris and run with the help of leading gun safety advocates, officials told reporters on a conference call.

“I’ll continue to urge Congress to take common sense actions that the majority of Americans support like enacting universal background checks and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden, a Democrat, said in a statement.

“But in the absence of that sorely-needed action, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention along with the rest of my Administration will continue to do everything it can to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities, and our country apart,” he said.

Democrats largely favor stricter gun laws as a way to reduce deaths from gun violence at schools and in cities across the country. Republicans, with the support of the National Rifle Association, a gun rights group, largely oppose stricter laws, citing the right to bear arms established in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

In a rare show of bipartisanship on the issue, Republicans and Democrats passed a package of modest gun safety measures last year, known as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and Biden has taken executive action as well on the issue.

Establishing a new office of gun violence prevention has long been on the wish list of anti-violence advocacy groups that were happy with Biden’s record pushing for reforms but wanted the White House do more.

Putting it under Harris’ purview also gives the vice president, who has struggled to win over some Democrats in her role as Biden’s No. 2, a meaty policy area that is important and popular with their party’s base.

Harris said in a statement that the office would work to be “engaging and encouraging Congressional leaders, state and local leaders, and advocates to come together to build upon the meaningful progress that we have made.”

White House adviser Stefanie Feldman, Biden’s staff secretary, will serve as the director of the office, and gun safety advocates Greg Jackson and Rob Wilcox will join the White House as deputies.

“(Biden) believes that now is the moment to accelerate our work … which is why he is establishing this office,” Feldman told reporters.

She said the office would expedite implementation of the bipartisan federal gun reform law that Biden signed last year, “dig deeper” to find additional actions the administration can take, coordinate support for communities affected by gun violence, and expand partnerships with states and cities.

Gun safety groups welcomed the move.

“We are so pleased that the Biden administration has officially created an Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady, an advocacy group.

“Just as FEMA responds to hurricanes and earthquakes, we have desperately needed a federal agency dedicated to responding to this growing public health crisis,” she said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Leslie Adler and Deepa Babington)

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By Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The looming U.S. government shutdown that some hardline Republicans, including Donald Trump, are cheering for could slow one of their other priorities: The recently launched impeachment inquiry of Democratic President Joe Biden.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched the inquiry on Sept. 12, an escalation after months of probes into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, with the first hearing set for Sept. 28 — just two days before the shutdown deadline.

Most congressional staffers are expected to remain at work if the government partially shuts down after Sept. 30, when funding runs out — that’s in part because only Congress has the authority to pass legislation to fund and re-open the government.

But the White House plays by different rules and will likely send home as many employees as possible in a bid to heighten pressure on Congress to act — and that could include staff who would respond to requests for information, lawmakers said.

That’s a possibility McCarthy had warned about in August, when he was still trying to persuade his caucus not to move ahead with an immediate impeachment inquiry.

“If we shut down, all of government shuts it down, investigation and everything else,” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News. A spokesperson for the speaker did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. In 2018-2019 shutdown, the White House furloughed 1,100 of 1,800 staff in the Executive Office of the President.

The impeachment inquiry is focused on Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. House Republicans alleged that the elder Biden benefited from his son’s work but have produced no evidence of that. The White House says President Biden has done nothing wrong and that Republicans have no basis for the inquiry.

House Republicans say they plan to seek personal and business records for Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, and to seek testimony from certain officials.

“Whether the government gets shut down or not, we’re going to continue to do our work, whether it’s individually or as a committee as a whole,” said Troy Nehls, a Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, one of the three panels at the center of the inquiry.

Multiple Republican lawmakers said they thought a shutdown could slow the probe.

“There’s no question at all that the administration will not answer any questions and use a shutdown as an excuse to say they sent home the people who would answer,” said Darrell Issa, a member of the House Judiciary committee and a former chairman of the Oversight panel. “So can we ask the questions? Yes. Are they going to deliver witnesses that they have control over, or answers? Probably not.”

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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By Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s lawyers on Friday will try to persuade a New York judge to throw out, just 10 days before a scheduled trial, most or all of state Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuit accusing the former U.S. president of “staggering” fraud.

Lawyers for James, in contrast, will ask the same Manhattan judge to find Trump and other defendants, including his adult sons and his Trump Organization family business, liable for fraud even before a jury starts hearing evidence.

The looming trial comes as Trump enjoys a dominating lead in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, despite facing a slew of litigation including four criminal indictments where he has pleaded not guilty.

Justice Arthur Engoron is reviewing James’ claims that Trump repeatedly lied in financial statements to obtain better terms on loans and insurance.

James has accused Trump of overstating the values of more than 20 properties from 2011 to 2021, including his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan, and inflating his own fortune by as much as $3.6 billion.

“Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the court to determine that defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values,” and used them to defraud banks and insurers, James has said.

Trump has called the lawsuit a “witch hunt.”

His lawyers have argued that James has no authority to sue over private transactions they say were not fraudulent, and that most of her claims fall outside statutes of limitations.

They cited a June decision by a state appeals court dismissing claims against Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, and various other claims predating July 2014 or February 2016.

The court left it to Engoron to determine which parts could proceed.

Last week, Trump accused James of ignoring the decision and Engoron of refusing to implement it, and said the trial should be delayed.

That prompted an appeals court judge on Sept. 14 to temporarily stay the trial. A five-judge panel is expected to decide next week whether the trial should proceed.

Engoron has chosen not to appear before the panel, and referred it to his prior orders.

On Thursday, James called Trump’s request for a delay a “brazen and meritless” attempt to undermine Engoron’s authority.

She said even a brief delay “would likely wreak havoc” on the trial and other trials that Trump faces.

James’ lawsuit seeks to bar Trump and his adult sons Donald Jr. And Eric from running businesses in New York. It also seeks at least $250 million of penalties.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought to bolster U.S. support for his country in Washington on Thursday, as he met with President Joe Biden amid skepticism among Republicans in Congress over a new round of military aid to defend against Russia.

After seeking international support at the United Nations Wednesday, Zelenskiy came to Washington on a crosstown blitz that included meetings with military leaders at the Pentagon and a visit to the U.S. Capitol ahead of an address in the evening at the National Archives museum.

Biden, who was set to announce a new $325 million military aid package for Ukraine, lauded the bravery of the Ukrainian people as he met Zelenskiy in the Oval Office.

“Together with our partners and allies, the American people are determined to see to it to that (we do) all we can to ensure that the world stands with you,” Biden said in comments at the start of their meeting.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine greatly appreciates U.S. assistance “to combat Russian terror” and said he would discuss Ukraine’s defense needs with Biden, with a special emphasis on air defense.

“Today I’m in Washington to strengthen our ability to defend Ukrainian children, our families, our homes, freedom and democracy in the world,” he added.

While Biden and most congressional leaders still support aid to Ukraine, and Biden’s Democrats control the Senate, Zelenskiy faced a tougher crowd than when he visited Washington nine months ago.

Dressed in military green to reflect his status as a wartime leader, Zelenskiy briefed the full U.S. Senate in the Capitol’s historic Old Senate Chamber, receiving several standing ovations, according to a post on the platform X by Senator Chris Murphy.

Zelenskiy told Senators that military aid was crucial to Ukraine’s war effort, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in the Senate chamber after the briefing, which took place behind closed doors.

“If we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war,” Schumer quoted Zelenskiy as saying.

Zelenskiy later described his meetings with lawmakers as frank and constructive.

Zelenskiy held discussions with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior Pentagon leaders. He visited the Pentagon’s 9/11 memorial where he and his wife each placed a bouquet of sunflowers, irises and other flowers.

NEW AID PACKAGE

As Ukraine’s military counteroffensive grinds on and Congress stages a bitter debate over spending ahead of a possible government shutdown, a growing chorus of Republicans have questioned the billions of dollars Washington has sent Kyiv for military, economic and humanitarian needs.

“What is the point of cutting off support now when we’re at a turning point in the war?” said Schumer, a Democrat, taking aim at Republican critics of the aid. “Now is not the time to take the foot off the gas when it comes to helping Ukraine.”

The U.S. has sent some $113 billion in security and humanitarian aid to help Zelenskiy’s government since Russia invaded in February 2022.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration was focused on making sure there was the necessary support and resources for Ukraine.

“I believe, based on my consultations on the Hill with both Republicans and Democrats, that there will be,” Sullivan on Thursday said at a White House news briefing.

Biden will announce a new military aid package for Ukraine including air defense systems and other weaponry to help Kyiv ahead of a tough winter, Sullivan said.

The package will also include the second tranche of cluster munitions fired by a 155 millimeter Howitzer cannon, according to a U.S. official.

Russia carried out its biggest missile attack in weeks across Ukraine on Thursday, pounding energy facilities in what officials said appeared to be the first salvo in a new air campaign against the Ukrainian power grid.

‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’

Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.

Biden administration officials held a classified briefing for Congress on Wednesday evening to push for an additional $24 billion, saying if Russian President Vladimir Putin was allowed to take control of Ukraine and pushed through to the border of NATO, the cost to the United States would be much higher.

But some Republicans were not convinced.

Republican Senator J.D. Vance said the United States “is being asked to fund an indefinite conflict with unlimited resources.”

“Enough is enough,” he said in a post on X, which included a letter dated Thursday to the director of the Office of Management and Budget questioning the aid and signed by Republicans from both houses of Congress.

Congress approved Ukraine assistance easily when both the Senate and House were controlled by Democrats. Zelenskiy, who has become a powerful advocate for his country, was greeted as a hero when he addressed a joint meeting of Congress in December.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Makini Brice, Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; writing by Patricia Zengerle and Simon Lewis; editing by Don Durfee, Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden is establishing a new office of gun violence prevention, to be overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris, and is bringing in leading advocates to help run it, officials said on Thursday.

The new office will help implement existing gun safety laws while working with states on the issue, the officials told reporters on a conference call.

“I’ll continue to urge Congress to take common sense actions that the majority of Americans support like enacting universal background checks and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden said in a statement.

“But in the absence of that sorely-needed action, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention along with the rest of my Administration will continue to do everything it can to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities, and our country apart.”

Establishing the office is a win for gun violence protection groups that were happy with Biden’s record pushing for reforms but wanted to see the White House do more.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Leslie Adler and Deepa Babington)

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By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s attempt to restart his stalled spending agenda failed on Thursday when Republicans for a third time blocked a procedural vote on defense spending, raising the risk of a government shutdown in just 10 days.

The House of Representatives voted 216-212 against beginning debate on an $886 billion defense appropriations bill, with five hardline conservative Republicans joining Democrats to oppose the measure.

It represented a setback for McCarthy the morning after his fractious 221-212 majority met for 2-1/2 hours seeking common ground on legislation to avert the fourth government shutdown in a decade beginning Oct. 1.

As the vote failed, McCarthy told reporters that he will pursue the “same strategy I had from January: just keep working; never give up.”

Federal agencies will begin to shut down on Oct. 1 unless Congress passes either a short-term continuing resolution, known as a CR, or a full-year funding bill. So far House Republicans have failed to unify around either possibility, and the ideas they have considered have only Republican support, making them unlikely to win support in the Democratic-majority Senate or be signed into law by President Joe Biden.

“Instead of decreasing the chance of a shutdown, Speaker McCarthy is actually increasing it by wasting time on extremist proposals that cannot become law in the Senate,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said.

The defense bill had been scheduled for a five-minute vote that Republicans kept open for over a half hour in a vain hope of winning additional votes. The defense bill also failed in a similar vote on Tuesday and had to be pulled from consideration earlier this month, all due to hardline opposition.

Representative Dan Bishop, one of Thursday’s five Republican holdouts, cited a lack of trust in McCarthy’s leadership.

“Let’s be honest with each other. How about a little candor, not what you think the people would like to hear,” Bishop told reporters without referring to McCarthy by name.

“Just tell them squarely what you’re going to do. Do that!” the North Carolina Republicans said.

TRUMP WADES IN

Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, added to McCarthy’s distractions with a call to shut the government, as occurred three times during his four years in the White House.

“Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government that refuses to close the Border, and treats half the Country as Enemies of the State,” the former president said on his Truth Social platform.

Trump is awaiting four criminal trials, including two brought by federal prosecutors, over charges including his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He has claimed without evidence that all four prosecutions are politically motivated.

Political brinkmanship has begun to attract the attention of Wall Street, with rating agency Fitch citing repeated down-to-the-wire negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills when it downgraded U.S. debt rating to AA+ from its top-notch AAA designation earlier this year.

“The unpredictability is sad for the country,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro, top Democrat on the House appropriations panel. “They have stopped our ability to respond to the needs of the American people.”

The Republican spending agenda has run afoul of a small group of Republican hardline conservatives, who want assurances that fiscal 2024 appropriations will not exceed a 2022 top line of $1.47 trillion, $120 billion less than McCarthy and Biden agreed to in May.

Bishop criticized a McCarthy proposal to set a 30-day CR at the 2022 level but a top line for fiscal 2024 appropriations at nearly $1.53 trillion. “The only way that’s possible is if something isn’t genuine,” Bishop said.

A bipartisan group of 64 lawmakers known as the “Problem Solvers Caucus” proposed a measure that would fund the government through Jan. 11, though without McCarthy’s support it is unclear how the measure would advance.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Richard Cowan, additional reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone, Leslie Adler, Mark Porter and Timothy Gardner)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives struggle to agree on funding bills, Senate Democrats on Thursday signaled they may try to act on their own to offset a partial federal government shutdown beginning on Oct. 1.

Here are a few ways Congress might avoid a shutdown:

SENATE JAMS THE HOUSE

If the House of Representatives appeared unable to produce any sort of government-funding bill by Sept. 30, the Senate could take matters into its own hands.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer began this process by scheduling the first procedural vote on such a bill for Tuesday evening. But there are many steps ahead, which can be time-consuming unless all 100 senators agree to shortcuts, which they rarely do.

Schumer plans to take an already-passed House bill reauthorizing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) programs and replace its language with a new temporary funding bill, which is known as a continuing resolution, or CR.

That would get around a constitutional requirement that revenue-related bills originate in the House.

The Senate in this scenario would likely aim to pass the retooled measure close – but not too close – to the midnight Sept. 30 deadline so that it can send a CR to the House with little time to spare. It is a move known as “jamming” the other chamber.

THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could find the sweet spot for a one-month funding deal that his Republicans would embrace.

Passage by the Republican-controlled House, where appropriations bills normally originate, would send the stopgap measure to the Democratic-led Senate. It likely would arrive with a tough border-control measure attached, which Democrats oppose.

President Joe Biden wants his own temporary border security plan enacted instead. So, once the bill arrives in the Senate, Schumer would be likely to replace the House border security language with Biden’s.

Once the Senate passed its temporary spending bill, the House could vote to accept the Senate changes – possibly hours or minutes before the midnight Sept. 30 deadline. Or the House could reject the proposal, triggering a shutdown.

MCCARTHY ROLLS THE DICE

Unable to get enough far-right conservative Republicans on board, McCarthy could take a big political gamble and send a bill to the House floor that would need Democratic votes to pass. This would anger some House Republicans and possibly prompt them to launch an effort to strip him of his speakership, potentially plunging the Congress into an even deeper crisis.

COALITION OF CENTRISTS

Various moderate-to-centrist lawmakers have been huddling privately to see if they can come up with plans to break the House deadlock.

For example, the “Problem Solvers Caucus” has produced a framework that would extend current government funding until Jan. 11, 2024, and attach disaster aid, Ukraine aid and some sort of border security measure.

THE LONG-SHOT

Members of the House can circulate a “discharge petition” to dislodge legislation from a committee and send it to the full House for a prompt vote.

There are difficult and often time-consuming procedural hurdles that would have to be cleared and the majority party in the House – Republicans currently – is often loathe to buck their leadership by joining the minority party in a revolt.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Marguerita Choy)

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