Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act as Bondi faces Senate – US politics live

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President Donald Trump’s administration is mulling options to sell off parts of the federal government’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to the private market, Politico reported on Tuesday, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

The White House, the Treasury and the Department of Education did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

The discussions are said to have taken place among senior Department of Education and Treasury officials, and have focused on selling high-performing portions of the government’s massive portfolio of student debt owed by about 45 million Americans, the report added.

The discussions also involved industry executives, including potential buyers of the debt, the report said.

The US government shutdown entered its second week as the Senate again rejected rival bills to restart funding and Donald Trump suggested he might be open to negotiating with Democrats over the healthcare subsidies they have put at the heart of the stalemate.

A fifth Senate vote to advance a Republican-written bill that would reopen the government failed on a 52-42 tally – well below the 60-vote threshold needed for advancement. The Democrats’ proposal was defeated in a 50-45 party-line vote. No lawmakers changed their votes from recent days, though there were a handful of absences.

Many agencies and departments closed their doors and told employees to stay home last Wednesday, after Congress failed to approve legislation to continue the government’s authority to spend money. The Trump administration warned it was prepared to move forward with plans to slash the federal workforce.

“After five failed votes, Republicans should understand that they cannot go forward unless we come to a bipartisan agreement to address the healthcare crisis,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said in a statement after the afternoon votes.

Democrats have refused to back any bill that does not include an array of healthcare-centered concessions, among them, an extension of premium tax credits for people covered by Affordable Care Act health insurance. So far, Congress’s Republican leaders have refused to negotiate over their demands until government funding is restored.

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics as Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy more troops into Democrat-led cities.

“We have an insurrection act for a reason. If I had to enact it I would do that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, adding, “if people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I would do that.”

It came after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily halted a National Guard deployment in Portland although troops from Texas could be deployed in Chicago as soon as today despite a lawsuit from Illinois against the move.

Meanwhile, Pam Bondi is likely to grilled over troop deployments as she faces the Senate judiciary committee. The attorney general is also likely to face questions over the indictment last month of the former FBI director James Comey, deadly strikes on boats believed to be carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, as well as the brewing controversy over the release of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump is also due to welcome the Canadian PM, Mark Carney, to the White House with trade talks expected to be the main focus of discussions.

Later, he will meet American-Israeli former hostage Edan Alexander as the world marks the two-year anniversary of the 7 October attacks. In Egypt, indirect talks are taking place between Israel and Hamas over Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.

And, of course, this all comes amid the backdrop of the ongoing government shutdown, now entering its second week. Stay with us for all the latest developments.

In other news:

• A career federal prosecutor in Virginia has told colleagues she does not believe there is probable cause to file criminal mortgage fraud charges against New York attorney general Letitia James, according to a person familiar with the matter. The prosecutor, Elizabeth Yusi, oversees major criminal cases in the Norfolk office for the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia and plans to soon present her conclusion to Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally, who was installed as the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia last month.

• The US supreme court has declined to hear an appeal from Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell of her sex trafficking conviction. Maxwell in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and related crimes.

• The Trump administration said that funds from a US government program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports are set to expire as soon as Sunday because of the government shutdown.

• Jimmy Kimmel emerged as more popular than Donald Trump after a spat with the president’s administration temporarily left the talkshow host off the air in September, according to a recent poll.

• Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country’s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a “friendly” video call.