US government shutdown: Trump's plan to end closure fails as Senate considers interim deal

The number of people seeking jobless benefits dropped last week to the lowest level since November 1969, a sign the job market remains strong despite the partial government shutdown, now in its fifth week.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for unemployment aid declined 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 199,000. The four-week average, a less volatile figure, dropped 5,500 to 215,000.

The tally of furloughed federal employees requesting unemployment aid jumped to 25,419, more than double the previous week. Those figures are tracked in a separate category and aren’t included in the overall figures.

AP

As the border wall battle keeps the federal government temporarily shutdown, another fight is being waged on Capitol Hill over the State of the Union address the president was expected to make at the end of the month. 

Here's Donald Trump yesterday describing Nancy Pelosi's decision to revoke her invitation for him to address the nation from the House as a "disgrace." 

If you want to stick it top of the LB, the code is: 5993053978001

and Pelosi for you too: 5993052614001

'Government is still shutdown' Nancy Pelosi postpones Trump's State of the Union

The president has seemingly stopped any effort to negotiate on his demands for border wall funding which have triggered the longest government shutdown in American history. 

NBC reports Donald Trump has not had any scheduled meeting with Democratic leadership this week and hasn’t pushed for Democrats to support his compromise calling for the wall funding in exchange for extensions to protections for certain undocumented immigrants. 

Democrats have also said they have not spoken with the president since a meeting in the Oval Office last week in which he reportedly angrily left after Nancy Pelosi said she would not support any money going towards his campaign promise of a wall sprawling the US-Mexico border. 

The National Transportation Safety Board has reported a spike in accidents being left uninvestigated due to the government shutdown.

Nancy Pelosi is conducting her weekly press conference, beginning with a statement on the government shutdown and the latest on the State of the Union address. Stay tuned for more...

Nancy Pelosi is slamming Donald Trump and his administration for the government shutdown after Wilbur Ross said he was not sure why federal employees needed to stand in food lines and seek additional aid during the closure.

“Is this the ‘let them eat cake’ kind of attitude,” the House Speaker said, “or ‘call your father for money?’”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the sole House Democrat to vote down a bill to reopen the government, telling the New York Post her decision was made after speaking to her constituents about the impact the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has had on the community. 

“We were having conversations with our community after we voted for DHS [Department of Homeland Security] funding the first time,” the progressive lawmaker told The Post after the vote. “We’re hearing back a lot from our local community and they’re uncomfortable with any vote on funding for ICE.”

Senator Joe Manchin has signalled his support for the two bills up for a vote today to possibly end the government shutdown. 

The senator wrote on Twitter, “Today I will vote for both gov funding bills b/c I believe we must end this harmful shutdown immediately & it’s our first opportunity in the Senate to do so. Even though they will probably fail, these votes are a start to finding a way to reopen the gov & get WVians back to work.”

Here’s more from commerce chief Wilbur Ross’ comments that sparked backlash on Thursday: 

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, one of the richest people in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, questioned Thursday why furloughed federal workers were using food banks instead of taking out loans to get through the monthlong partial government shutdown.

Mr Ross was asked on CNBC to comment on reports that some of the 800,000 workers currently not receiving paychecks are going to homeless shelters to get food.

“Well, I know they are and I don’t really quite understand why,” he said. “The obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union, are in effect federally guaranteed. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out ? there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.”

AP

Nancy Pelosi’s press conference is the talk of Capitol Hill at the moment, after the House Speaker said the president was effectively shut out from conducting a State of the Union address until the federal government has been officially reopened. 

“As you know last night, the president accepted the fact that a State of the Union should be a time … when government is not shut down,” the California Democrat said on Thursday.