A day after President Trump introduced his fiscal budget proposal, with plans to pull $7.2 billion from the Pentagon's coffers to fund the border wall, the U.S. Army Secretary says he supports the mission.
Sec. Ryan McCarthy, a former Army Ranger and Lockheed Martin executive, told Cheddar in an interview on Tuesday that "the border wall is a national security issue." McCarthy said the increased presence of soldiers on the border, along with the newly constructed parts of the wall, have already led to a drop in illegal crossings.
While crossings have dropped substantially since last spring, some critics claim it has more to do with the White House all but cutting off asylum applications in the U.S. So far, according to the CBP's own figures, the vast majority of the wall that has been constructed under the Trump administration was replacement of existing structures.
The administration's budget ー a document that will be dead on arrival in Congress but signals the president's priorities if he were to be reelectedー includes cuts to the Army's top line, though it does substantially increase R&D spending at the Pentagon that will presumably be used to help restructure and modernize the armed forces.
"The Army is in the midst of a major transformation over the last three years," McCarthy said. One of the goals of that modernization is to improve recruitment with a plan to aggressively increase talent drives in 22 major cities. "It's been a challenge," McCarthy conceded, acknowledging that the tight labor market has made the Army's job harder in getting top candidates to sign up.
One of the ways to encourage job-seekers to consider military service, he said, is to highlight the "variety of career paths" available and the Army's generous tuition assistance perks.
"We have to be ready to meet national objectives every moment of every day," he said.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
The White House budget office says mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
