MILITARY PAY ANXIETY: The White House and Congress are once again under the gun on military pay after Democrats on Thursday sunk a Republican bill that would have ensured paychecks for service members and "essential" government employees.
There's no obvious plan B.
Trump on Oct. 11 directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to pay service members' midmonth paychecks by utilizing $8 billion in previously appropriated Pentagon funds meant for research, development, test and evaluation.
But that pay cycle cost roughly $6.5 billion, leaving only $1.5 billion for the looming Oct. 31 payday, expected to cost $6 billion to $7 billion, Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill. That means the administration will need to find roughly $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion to keep money in troops' wallets at the end of the month.
Making matters more tricky, the Senate was set to leave town Thursday afternoon until Monday, and Trump will be embarking on a multiday trip to Asia beginning Friday.
Asked if Republicans have an alternative if the troops are not paid by Oct. 31, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Trump "only has so much latitude" in pulling funding from other areas as he did earlier this month.
"There's only so many pots of money that he has the authority," he told reporters. "He's not a king, you know, he only has so much authority."
▪ The Hill: Ossoff, Warnock break with Democrats on bill to pay essential workers during shutdown
▪ DW: Germany to pay US military base employees amid shutdown
SNAP STANDOFF: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is facing an imminent funding shortfall — and Republicans say Democrats will be to blame for refusing to reopen the government, The Hill's Mike Lillis reports.
"Forty-two million people across America are going to suffer from [not getting] those SNAP benefits that they count on right before Thanksgiving, because Chuck Schumer and Democrats are so angry with President Trump that they just want to find a way to say no," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) told reporters this week. "This is having real impacts on real families."
Democrats are accusing Republicans of hypocrisy, after the party made steep cuts to SNAP earlier this year as part of Trump's reconciliation megabill.
"They are now trying to reimagine themselves as the champions of federal workers — as the champions of food programs and health care — when all they have done is take an axe to all of that since they came into office?" Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the House Democratic whip, said Wednesday.
Some 40 million low-income people rely on SNAP benefits. In the best-case shutdown scenario, those people are expected to receive smaller payments to help cover grocery bills. In the worst case, they will get nothing.
Advocates for low-income families are pressing the Agriculture Department to tap into the SNAP contingency fund, which they say contains between $5 billion and $6 billion, to help defray grocery costs through the shutdown.
▪ Politico: Senate Republicans considering bill to keep SNAP benefits flowing amid the shutdown
▪ The Hill: Shutdown set to impact SNAP funding in many states
TRUMP FACES PUSHBACK OVER DOJ PAYOFF: Trump is catching flak from members of both parties over his reported plan to seek some $230 million from the Department of Justice as a settlement for past probes and prosecutions over his conduct.
Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Robert Garcia (Calif.), the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees, respectively, announced an investigation into the potential payoff on Thursday.
"Your plan to have your obedient underlings at the Department of Justice (DOJ) instruct the U.S. Treasury to pay you, personally, hundreds of millions of dollars—especially at a time when most Americans are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and afford health care—is an outrageous and shocking attempt to shake down the American people," the two wrote in a letter to Trump.
Some Republicans are uncomfortable with the idea, too, according to The Hill's Alex Bolton.
"At the very least it's horrible timing given that we're in a shutdown," Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters on Wednesday. "I got a lot of optics concerns and I just don't know if there's precedent for it. There doesn't seem to be."
"I don't know a thing about it so I'm not going to comment, but it sounds very irregular to me," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Trump on Monday said he wasn't aware of the dollar figure and that he would donate the money to charity, but he also acknowledged the unusual nature of being involved in a decision that stands to enrich him greatly.
"It's interesting because I'm the one that makes the decision. And that decision would have to go across my desk," Trump said Monday. "And it's awfully strange to make a decision where I am paying myself. Did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you are paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged greatly, and any money I would get I would give to charity."
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