Trump calls for Senate to scrap filibuster in order to force end to month-long government shutdown – US politics live | US politics
Key events
UN human rights official says US strikes on alleged drug boats are ‘unacceptable’
The UN high commissioner for human rights said on Friday that US military strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean allegedly carrying illegal drugs from South America are “unacceptable” and must stop.
Volker Türk called for an investigation into the strikes, in what appeared to mark the first such condemnation of its kind from a United Nations organization, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for Türk’s office, relayed his message on Friday at a regular UN briefing:
These attacks and their mounting human cost are unacceptable. The US must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats.
She said Türk believed “airstrikes by the United States of America on boats in the Caribbean and in the Pacific violate international human rights law”.
President Donald Trump has Justified the attacks on the boats as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US, but the campaign against drug cartels has been divisive among countries in the region.
US defense secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced the latest US military strike in the campaign, against a boat he said was carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean. All four people aboard were killed. It was the 14th strike since the campaign began in early September, while the death toll has grown to at least 61, reports the AP.
Shamdasani noted the US explanations of the efforts as an anti-drug and counter-terrorism campaign, but said countries have long agreed that the fight against illicit drug trafficking is a law-enforcement matter governed by “careful limits” placed on the use of lethal force.
Intentional use of lethal force is allowed only as a last resort against someone representing “an imminent threat to life,” she said. Shamdasani added:
Otherwise, it would amount to a violation of the right of life and constitute extrajudicial killings.
The strikes are taking place “outside the context” of armed conflict or active hostilities, Shamdasani said.
US Senate votes to reject Trump’s global tariffs on more than 100 countries
Rachel Leingang
The US Senate took a stand against Donald Trump’s global tariffs affecting more than 100 countries on Thursday, voting to nullify the so-called “reciprocal” tariffs.
Four Republicans joined with all Democrats to vote 51-47 on a resolution to end the base-level tariffs that the president put into place via executive order.
It was the third time the Republicans have voted alongside Democrats on a tariff resolution this week, previously rallying to end tariffs targeting Brazil and Canada.
Going against Trump is rare for Republicans in his second term. But Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined the opposition party.
The vote came as Trump is wrapping up a week in Asia, where he struck a deal with China to lower tariffs on Chinese goods into the country and get China to buy up US soya beans, a pain point of the trade wars that had farmers on edge, among other concessions.
Despite the opposition in the Senate, the House is unlikely to take any similar action. House Republicans created a rule earlier this year that will block resolutions on the tariffs from getting a floor vote.
The tariff resolutions are a rebuke to the tariffs themselves and to Trump overstepping his authority and bypassing Congress. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, told reporters that the symbolic opposition should catch the president’s attention.
Kaine said:
I did learn in the first Trump term that the president is responsive to things like this. When he sees Republicans starting to vote against his policies, even in small numbers, that makes an impression on him and can often cause him to alter his behavior.
Trump says Senate should scrap the filibuster to end the government shutdown
President Donald Trump is calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster, so that the Republican majority can bypass Democrats and reopen the federal government.
Trump posted Thursday night on his social media site, Truth Social:
THE CHOICE IS CLEAR – INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER.
The filibuster is a longstanding tactic in the Senate to delay or block votes on legislation by keeping the debate running. It requires 60 votes in a full Senate to overcome a filibuster, giving Democrats a check on the 53-seat Republican majority that led to the start of the 1 October shutdown when the new fiscal year began.
Trump’s call to terminate the filibuster could alter the ways the Senate and congressional deal-making operate, with the president saying in his post that he gave a “great deal” of thought to the choice on his flight back from Asia on Thursday.
Trump spent the past week with foreign leaders in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, finishing his tour by meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
In a separate post on Truth Social, Trump wrote about his meetings and said it “was a great honor” to “see that America is respected again”. He also claimed that “money is pouring into our Country because of Tariffs and, frankly, the Landslide Results of the 2024 Presidential Election”.
Switching back to the filibuster issue, Trump wrote:
It is now time for the Republicans to play their “TRUMP CARD,” and go for what is called the Nuclear Option – Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!
More on this in a moment. First here are some other key developments:
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A (small) handful of US Senate Republicans issued a legislative rebuke to president Donald Trump’s world-rattling trade tariffs in a rare alignment with their Democratic counterparts. Four Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – joined the opposition party, voting 51-47 on a resolution to end the base-level tariffs on more than 100 nations that the president put into place via executive order.
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The Trump administration is going to restrict the number of refugees it admits into the United States next year to the token level of just 7,500 – and those spots will mostly be filled by white South Africans. The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.
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New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, on Thursday declared a state of emergency to free up funds so that she could issue $65m in assistance to food banks because federal funding for the national food stamp program is set to lapse on 1 November. Oregon and Virginia have also issued emergency declarations to release state cash to go towards emergency food assistance as the federal government shutdown imperils Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits for nearly 42 million Americans.
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More than half of Americans disapprove of Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing and the construction of a new ballroom, according to a new poll from the Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos. The survey was conducted between 24 and 28 October and indicates 56% of the respondents disagree with Trump’s recent move while 28% are in favor of it. Most of the survey’s respondents were white, one-third of them voted for Donald Trump and another third for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
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JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, has urged the Trump administration to suspend its immigration crackdown in his state from Friday to Sunday, to allow children to “spend Halloween weekend without fear”.
