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DENVER — Twelve people were taken to hospitals after an American Airlines plane landed at Denver International Airport on Thursday and caught fire, prompting slides to be deployed so passengers could evacuate quickly.

All of the people transported to hospitals had minor injuries, according to a post on the social platform X by Denver International Airport.

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Flight 1006, which was headed from the Colorado Springs Airport to Dallas Fort Worth, diverted to Denver and landed safely around 5:15 p.m. after the crew reported engine vibrations, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

While taxiing to the gate, an engine on the Boeing 737-800 caught fire, the FAA added.

Photos and videos posted by news outlets showed passengers standing on a plane’s wing as smoke surrounded the aircraft. The FAA said passengers exited using the slides.

Read More: What the FAA Layoffs Mean for Air Safety

American said in a statement that the flight experienced an engine-related issue after taxiing to the gate. There was no immediate clarification on exactly when the plane caught fire.

The 172 passengers and six crew members were taken to the terminal, airline officials said.

“We thank our crew members, DEN team and first responders for their quick and decisive action with the safety of everyone on board and on the ground as the priority,” American said.

Firefighters put out the blaze by the evening, an airport spokesperson told media outlets.

The FAA said it will investigate.

The country has seen a recent spate of aviation disasters and close calls stoking fears about air travel, though flying remains a very safe mode of transport.

NATO Secretary-General mark Rutte visits U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House. A look at the diplomacy as well as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine. Trade tariffs appear imminent on many popular goods and a tropical cyclone ravages southeastern Africa.

The Russian leader says his forces have trapped the remaining Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk

NEW YORK — Columbia University has expelled or suspended some students who took over a campus building during pro-Palestinian protests last spring and temporarily revoked the diplomas of others who have since graduated, officials said Thursday.

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The university said in a campus-wide email that a judicial board brought a range of sanctions against students who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring to protest the war in Gaza.

Read More: ‘Gaza Calls, Columbia Falls’: Campus Protesters Defy Suspension Threats and Occupy Hall

Columbia did not provide a breakdown of how many students were expelled, were suspended or had their degrees revoked, but it said the outcomes were based on an “evaluation of the severity of behaviors.”

The culmination of the monthslong investigative process comes as the university is reeling from the arrest of a well-known Palestinian campus activist, Mahmoud Khalil, by federal immigration authorities last Saturday. President Donald Trump has said the arrest would be the “first of many” such detentions.

Read More: What To Know About Mahmoud Khalil, and Why His Green Card Was Revoked

At the same time, the Trump Administration has stripped the university of more than $400 million in federal funds over what it calls a failure to combat campus antisemitism. Congressional Republicans have pointed specifically to a failure to discipline students involved in the Hamilton Hall seizure as proof of inaction by the university.

The building occupation followed a tent encampment that inspired a wave of similar demonstrations at college campuses across the country.

On April 30, 2024, a smaller group of students and their allies barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall with furniture and padlocks in a major escalation of campus protests.

At the request of university leaders, hundreds of New York police stormed onto campus the following night, arresting dozens of people involved in both the occupation and the encampment.

At a court hearing in June, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said it would not pursue criminal charges for 31 of the 46 people initially arrested on trespassing charges inside the administration building.

But the students still faced disciplinary hearings and possible expulsion from the university.

The final sanctions announced Thursday followed a lengthy process that involved hearings for each student led by the long-running University Judicial Board.

Some students who joined the encampment but did not participate in the building takeover learned that they would not face further discipline beyond their previous suspensions.

“With respect to other events taking place last spring, the UJB’s determinations recognized previously imposed disciplinary action,” the university said in a statement.

The disciplinary process drew scrutiny from House Republicans, who demanded university administrators turn over disciplinary records of students involved in campus protests or risk billions of dollars in federal funding.

On Thursday, Khalil and seven students identified by pseudonyms filed a lawsuit seeking to block a Congressional committee from obtaining such records for students at Columbia and Barnard College, a women’s institution affiliated with Columbia.

Filed in federal court in Manhattan against the two schools; the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce; and its chairman, Republican Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan; the lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction barring Congress from forcing the schools to provide the records and the universities from complying.

Last month the committee sent a letter demanding that Columbia and Barnard provide the records or risk federal funding. The plaintiffs argue in the complaint that the committee is abusing its power in an attempt “to chill and suppress speech and association based on the viewpoint expressed” and the investigation “threatens to significantly infringe on First Amendment rights.”

In a statement emailed by a committee spokesperson, Walberg said, “This lawsuit changes nothing.”

The information requested “is critical to its consideration of legislation on this issue” and necessary to “hold schools accountable for their failures to address rampant antisemitism on our college campuses,” he added.

Barnard spokespeople did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment, and Columbia declined to discuss the pending litigation.

Separately, a newly-created disciplinary board has brought a flurry of new cases against students—including Khalil—who have expressed criticism of Israel, triggering alarm among free speech advocates. Khalil was not among the protesters accused of seizing Hamilton Hall.

The expulsion announcement drew praise from some faculty members, including Gil Zussman, chair of the electrical engineering department and member of Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism.

“Finally demonstrating that breaking university rules has consequences is an important first step towards going back to the core missions of research and teaching,” he said in a post on the social platform X.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, a champion of environmental protections and progressive ideals who took on principled but often futile causes during a two-decade career in Congress, died Thursday.

Grijalva, who was 77, had risen to chair the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee during his 12 terms representing southern Arizona, a powerful perch he used to shape the nation’s environmental policies. He was known for reliably going to bat for immigrants and Native American tribes, and for the bolo tie he wore at home in Tucson and in the Capitol in Washington.

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Grijalva died of complications from cancer treatment, his office said in a statement. The treatments had sidelined him from Congress in recent months.

“From permanently protecting the Grand Canyon for future generations to strengthening the Affordable Care Act, his proudest moments in Congress have always been guided by community voices,” Grijalva’s office said.

Another Democratic House member, Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas, died last week from health issues.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement that Congress and the country had “lost a giant” with Grijalva’s death.

“Congressman Grijalva represented his community fiercely, keeping his constituents and the climate at the center of everything he did,” Jeffries added.

Dedicated to environmental causes

Grijalva, the son of a Mexican immigrant, was first elected to the House in 2002. Known as a liberal leader, he led the Congressional Progressive Caucus for a decade and dedicated much of his career to working on environmental causes.

He stepped down as the top Democrat on the Natural Resources committee earlier this year, after announcing that he planned to retire rather than run for reelection in 2026.

Grijalva announced nearly a year ago that he had been diagnosed with cancer, but would be able to continue his work. Despite missing hundreds of House votes, he sought reelection in 2024 and won easily in one of the most solidly Democratic districts in Arizona.

The seat, which represents a district spanning southern Arizona from Tucson to the border with Mexico, will remain vacant until a replacement is selected in a special election later this year.

The Democratic primary in the mostly Hispanic district is likely to be a fierce battle between allies of Grijalva, a longtime Southern Arizona power broker who led an influential bloc of progressive elected officials, and a more moderate faction. Possible contenders include his daughter, Adelita Grijalva, a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, and Tucson Major Regina Romero, one of Grijalva’s longtime allies.

Adelita Grijalva remembered her father Thursday as “the smartest person I’ll ever know—a fighter until the end.”

“He loved his family, especially those grandbabies, and this community,” she said on social media. “He as not a perfect person, but had perfect intentions and wanted to do good. It’s been my honor to be Raúl Grijalva’s daughter—a badge I wear with immense pride.”

Viewed as a role model

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who served in the House until last year, said in a statement that “Congressman Grijalva was not just my colleague, but my friend.”

“As another Latino working in public service, I can say from experience that he served as a role model to many young people across the Grand Canyon State. He spent his life as a voice for equality,” Gallego added.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, praised Grijalva as “one of the most progressive members” in the House.

“Raúl was a fighter for working families throughout his entire life. He will be sorely missed,” Sanders said in a statement.

Grijalva started out as a community organizer in Tucson and served on the local school board for years before being elected to the Pima County Board of Supervisors. He resigned from that post in 2002 to seek office in what was then Arizona’s newly created 7th Congressional District.

Grijalva prided himself on representing what he considered the underdogs, those without a voice.

Grijalva’s “kind and humble nature was known to many. He was approachable by all because he believed people should be treated as equals. He loved to give gifts, blare music in his office, and get to know people for who they are,” his office said in a statement.

He worked on issues that ranged from securing water supplies for drought-stricken parts of Arizona and the West to securing funding for the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which safeguards natural areas and provides recreation opportunities to the public.

He also played a key role in writing the National Landscape Conservation System Act and the Federal Lands Restoration Act, which were passed and signed by President Barack Obama.

In recent years, he also led advocacy in Congress for the creation of a new national monument near the Grand Canyon. It was part of an effort to protect the area from uranium mining and to acknowledge repeated calls by Native American tribes that sought to protect more of their ancestral homelands.

He also opposed plans to develop a major copper mine about 70 miles (112 kilometers) east of Phoenix.

Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican and fellow Arizonan, said on the social platform X that Grijalva “was always very kind to me—he had a great sense of humor. As a fellow animal lover, we often found ourselves working together on animal protection issues.”

Rep. Jesús G. “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois said Grijalva loved a line from the Spanish song “El Rey,” which translates to: “it’s not only about getting there first but about how you get there.”

“I think this phrase perfectly describes his tenacity in everything he did,” Garcia said.

—Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

Columbia University disciplined radical student activists nearly a year after they stormed a campus building, imposing multi-year suspensions, expulsions, and temporary degree revocations.

The Ivy League institution, mired in anti-Semitism scandals in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, announced Thursday evening that its University Judicial Board (UJB) issued the sanctions on the students involved in the April storming of Hamilton Hall.

“With respect to other events taking place last spring, the UJB’s determinations recognized previously imposed disciplinary action. The return of suspended students will be overseen by Columbia’s University Life Office,” read the statement. “Columbia is committed to enforcing the University’s Rules and Policies and improving our disciplinary processes.”

Dozens of students with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)—the university’s most anti-Semitic student group—and outside radicals stormed a campus building last April, hammering in glass windows, covering security cameras, dragging chairs and metal tables to barricade themselves inside, and holding one janitor captive. The extremists renamed the academic building “Hind’s Hall” and refused to leave until then-president Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD to forcibly remove them.

Even though 22 students were arrested, the school only disciplined 4, while the other 18 remained in “good standing with the university” and were able to begin the fall semester normally. Columbia didn’t disclose how many students were disciplined Thursday.

It’s unclear if radicals who participated in the illegal campus encampments last spring were included in the sanctions. Columbia initially suspended 31 students, but those were later reversed, with three facing campus bans and a fourth placed on probation. Two weeks before the fall semester began, no expulsions had been delivered.

The decision comes a week after the Trump administration’s multi-agency task force to combat anti-Semitism slashed approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia over its failure to curb anti-Semitism in the aftermath of Oct. 7. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump also began to deliver on his campaign pledge to crack down on Hamas supporters Saturday, arresting Mahmoud Khalil—a Columbia University graduate student and vocal pro-Hamas activist—after revoking his visa and green card.

Last April, Khalil, who remains in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention as his deportation case plays out in court, led negotiations with Columbia administrators during the illegal student encampments. He promised to stir further unrest in the weeks ahead of the fall semester, telling The Hill he would continue to push Columbia to divest from the Jewish state by “any available means necessary.”

“And we’ve been working all this summer on our plans, on what’s next to pressure Columbia to listen to the students and to decide to be on the right side of history,” Khalil said in August. “We’re considering a wide range of actions throughout the semester, encampments and protests and all of that. But for us, encampment is now our new base.”

Last week, Khalil again served as a negotiator for CUAD after a mob of radical Columbia activists stormed a Barnard library. Once inside the building, the agitators distributed Hamas propaganda meant to justify Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack. A week earlier, CUAD stormed a separate campus building at Barnard, resulting in the hospitalization of a security guard and $30,000 in damages.

One of Khalil’s attorneys, Ramzi Kassem, defended al Qaeda terrorists including Ahmed al-Darbi, an al Qaeda member convicted in 2017 for the bombing of a French oil tanker, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Kassem has also defended multiple Guantanamo Bay detainees, including a “close associate” of Osama bin Laden.

The arrest of Khalil sparked a nationwide walkout at colleges on Tuesday, culminating in Thursday’s attempted occupation of Trump Tower in New York City, where dozens of agitators left in zip tied cuffs.

The post Columbia Disciplines Student Radicals Nearly a Year After They Stormed Campus Building appeared first on .

U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds Apple products and Juniper Junos OS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the following vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog:

• CVE-2025-21590 Juniper Junos OS Improper Isolation or Compartmentalization Vulnerability
• CVE-2025-24201 Apple Multiple Products WebKit Out-of-Bounds Write Vulnerability

The vulnerability CVE-2025-21590 is an Improper Isolation or Compartmentalization issue in the kernel of Juniper Networks Junos OS that allows a local attacker with high privileges to compromise the integrity of the device. A local attacker with access to the shell is able to inject arbitrary code which can compromise an affected device. The vendor states that the flaw is not exploitable from the Junos CLI.

This week, Mandiant researchers warned that China-linked APT group UNC3886 is deploying custom backdoors on Juniper Networks Junos OS MX routers.

The group’s latest operation on Juniper Networks’ Junos OS routers demonstrates a deep knowledge of system internals. UNC3886 prioritizes stealth by using passive backdoors and tampering with logs and forensic artifacts to ensure long-term persistence while evading detection.

Mandiant observed UNC3886 using compromised credentials to access Junos OS CLI from terminal servers managing network devices, escalating to FreeBSD shell mode. Junos OS includes a Verified Exec (veriexec) subsystem, adapted from NetBSD Veriexec, to ensure file integrity by preventing unauthorized code execution, including binaries, libraries, and scripts. To deploy malware, the threat actor had to first bypass this security mechanism. UNC3886 bypassed it by injecting malicious code into trusted processes. This allowed them to install six TinyShell-based backdoors named appid, to, irad, jdosd, oemd, and lmpad. Each backdoor was designed for remote access, persistence, and stealth, enabling attackers to evade detection and maintain long-term control.

“Veriexec protection prevents unauthorized binaries from executing. This poses a challenge for threat actors, as disabling veriexec can trigger alerts. However, execution of untrusted code is still possible if it occurs within the context of a trusted process. Mandiant’s investigation revealed that UNC3886 was able to circumvent this protection by injecting malicious code into the memory of a legitimate process.” reads the report published by Mandiant “This specific technique is now tracked as CVE-2025-21590, as detailed in Juniper Network’s security bulletin JSA93446.”

The second flaw added to the KeV catalog is CVE-2025-24201. This week Apple released emergency security updates to address a zero-day vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-24201, in the WebKit cross-platform web browser engine.

The vulnerability is an out-of-bounds write issue that was exploited in “extremely sophisticated” attacks.

An attacker can exploit the vulnerability using maliciously crafted web content to escape the Web Content sandbox. Apple released this fix as an additional measure after blocking a similar attack in iOS 17.2.

“Maliciously crafted web content may be able to break out of Web Content sandbox. This is a supplementary fix for an attack that was blocked in iOS 17.2. (Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 17.2.)” reads the advisory published by the company.

The company addressed this vulnerability with improved checks. Apple released iOS 18.3.2, iPadOS 18.3.2, macOS Sequoia 15.3.2, visionOS 2.3.2, and Safari 18.3.1 to address the zero-day.

The flaw impacts iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 7th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later, Macs running macOS Sequoia, and Apple Vision Pro.

Apple did not disclose details about the attacks or attribute them to any threat actor.

According to Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities, FCEB agencies have to address the identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect their networks against attacks exploiting the flaws in the catalog.

Experts also recommend private organizations review the Catalog and address the vulnerabilities in their infrastructure.

CISA orders federal agencies to fix this vulnerability by April 3, 2025.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, CISA)

(NewsNation) — A former political prisoner jailed in Russia has bad news for anyone who thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious about peace with Ukraine.

Journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza says there will be no lasting peace in Ukraine or throughout Europe so long as the authoritarian leader remains in power.

“The only way to have lasting peace, stability and security on the European continent is a democratic Russia,” Kara-Murza told “CUOMO” on Thursday.

His comments come in the wake of Putin’s assertion that he’s interested in a ceasefire with Ukraine, although Putin hedged his comments to say any peace plan must address “root causes” of the conflict.

Kara-Murza said the “root cause” is Putin himself. He described the Russian leader as “this old, deranged Soviet KGB officer sitting in the Kremlin.”

“He’s the reason for all this, he’s the aggressor,” Kara-Murza said.

Putin will talk, and fight: Clark

Putin’s suggestion he supports a ceasefire comes with many caveats that could scuttle a peace deal, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Wesley Clark says.

Ukrainian leaders have already agreed to a 30-day halt in fighting, and now, U.S. representatives are seeking Russia’s acceptance so that talks for lasting peace can begin in earnest.

“What’s the root cause? The root cause is Ukraine wants to be aligned with the West. It wants protection from Russian interference,” Clark told “NewsNation Now.”

Putin would like to roll back NATO and absorb additional close neighbors such as the Baltic states and Bulgaria, the retired U.S. Army general said.

He predicted Putin may take part in negotiations while trying to maintain the upper hand militarily.

“It’s talk, talk, fight, fight,” Clark said.

Putin has limits: Ex-ambassador

Putin is a former KGB official who knows how to manipulate people, says John Herbst, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under President George W. Bush. Herbst told “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that Putin will try to manipulate President Trump if Ukraine peace talks move forward.

“Of course he can’t be trusted,” Herbst said of Putin. “And he’s demonstrated that over the past 20 years, breaking multiple treaties, breaking multiple commitments.”

And yet, Putin realizes he cannot be seen as double-crossing Trump, the former ambassador said.

“I would not dismiss the idea that Putin has a certain wariness with Trump,” Herbst said. “He believes he’s able to persuade him, but he also understands, I think, that if he crosses Trump and Trump understands that, that can be very bad for Putin and for Russia.”

No accountability for Putin: Breedlove

Retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, another former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, said Russia has consistently avoided consequences for its actions. This week, a cargo ship captained by a Russian national collided with an American tanker hauling jet fuel in the North Sea.

It’s “absolutely not a coincidence,” Breedlove told “On Balance” on Thursday.

“This is all a part of that ‘grey zone’ war, war below the lines, or what NATO likes to call hybrid war,” he said. “Mr. Putin has been getting away with these actions, and until he’s held accountable, why would he stop?”

When government agents surrounded Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and his pregnant wife outside their New York City apartment over the weekend, it marked a chilling escalation in the battle over free speech in America. Those agents weren’t enforcing immigration policy; they were sending a message about the consequences of political expression. 

After serving as a negotiator during campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, Khalil became the target of what his attorney called “a profound doxing campaign for two months related to his First Amendment protected activities” — harassment so severe he had desperately sought help from university leadership.

Despite being a lawful permanent resident entitled to constitutional protections, Khalil was transported to a detention facility thousands of miles away, effectively “disappeared” for over 24 hours. The political motivation became explicit when President Donald Trump celebrated the arrest on social media, calling it “the first arrest of many to come.” 

On this week’s episode of The Intercept Briefing, we discuss the profound implications Khalil’s case raises for free speech and due process with Edward Ahmed Mitchell, civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Columbia Journalism Review reporter Meghnad Bose.

“It’s very clear the administration is waging a war on free speech — free speech for Palestine. They said they were going to do it when they took office. And that is what they are doing. Their issue with him is that he is a Muslim who is a lawful, permanent resident of America and he exercised his right to speak up for Palestinian human rights,” says Mitchell. 

Bose adds, “ It’s this sort of thinking that if you are somehow critical of a certain position of the United States government, except this isn’t even a position of the United States government. You’re basically saying, if you’re critical of the position of a foreign government — in this case, the Israeli government — that you can be penalized in the United States, even if you’ve not broken any law.” 

Mitchell warns even U.S. citizens face risk: “American citizens should be safe in all this, but Stephen Miller and others have said they want to review the naturalization of citizens to see whether or not there are grounds to remove their citizenship. So in the worst-case scenario, you can imagine them trying to find or manufacture some way to target even the citizenship status of people who were lawful permanent residents and then attained citizenship. So they’re going all out to silence speech for Palestine.”

Bose says it’s not just about immigration status; the government has other draconian tools at its disposal as well. “They can jail U.S. citizens too. They don’t have to deport you or take away your citizenship, he says. “They can incarcerate U.S. citizens too.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

The post The Disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil appeared first on The Intercept.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday evening that he would help advance a House GOP spending bill that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year—a strong indication that enough Senate Democrats will ultimately join Republicans to avert a government shutdown ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline.

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“While the [continuing resolution] bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, hours after two dozen of his fellow Senate Democrats said they were firmly against it. The move marked a dramatic shift for Schumer, who just a day earlier had insisted that there were not enough Democratic votes to pass the bill.

Senate Republicans need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster under the chamber’s rules, but they only have a 53-47 majority, meaning they need seven Democrats to join them. After days of private meetings and heated debate within his caucus, Schumer ultimately concluded that Democrats had little choice but to relent and keep the government open, even as many in his party bristled at the idea of supporting legislation they had no role in crafting.

“Look, the bottom line is you have to make these decisions based on what is best for not only your party but your country,” Schumer told reporters after his speech. “I firmly believe and always have that I’ve made the right decision.”

His move was met with immediate backlash from progressive Democrats in both chambers, who had urged the Senate to hold firm against a bill they see as an unacceptable concession to Republican priorities. House Democrats, who had unanimously voted against the bill earlier this week, were particularly incensed. “Those games won’t fool anyone. It won’t trick voters, it won’t trick House members. People will not forget it,” warned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat from New York, in a post on X hours before Schumer’s move.

The internal Democratic turmoil highlighted the difficult position the party found itself in. On one side were the two dozen Senators arguing that Democrats should take a stand, even if it meant a temporary government shutdown. On the other were those who feared that a shutdown would only serve to consolidate power in the hands of Trump and his allies, particularly Elon Musk, the billionaire who has been working closely with the administration on government restructuring.

“A shutdown would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

The Republican bill, which largely maintains current government funding levels through Sept. 30, would allow Trump broad discretion over federal spending. Many Democrats worry that this could allow the administration to target government workers and programs they disfavor, slashing jobs and resources without congressional oversight. The bill also cuts non-defense spending by $13 billion and increases military spending by $6 billion, as well as scales back funding from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act by reversing new investments at the IRS for tax enforcement and reducing spending for social programs.

Schumer said that he finds the Republican spending bill “deeply partisan” but is more concerned about the prospect of “allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown.”

Additional Democrats could follow Schumer’s lead. Only Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania had publicly committed to supporting the bill before Schumer’s announcement, calling opposition to it “total theater.” More than two dozen Democrats remain skeptical or uncommitted as of Thursday night. Republicans would need just five more Senate Democrats to back the bill to avoid a shutdown—a task that seems probable following the Democratic leader’s move.

Earlier Thursday, Arizona Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, who were both considered possible “yes” votes, joined the growing list of Democrats opposing the GOP resolution. In recent days, incredible pressure has been put on the more than a dozen Senate Democrats, many from swing states, who have not ruled out voting for the GOP bill just to avoid a shutdown.

Some Democrats floated the idea of attaching a 30-day stopgap measure as an amendment, allowing them to symbolically oppose the Republican bill while ultimately letting it pass. Schumer told reporters Thursday night that no deal has been made on amendments, but that Senate Democrats are “going to try to get some amendments on the bill” that would give some party members cover in voting for the package.

Trump has preemptively sought to shift blame for a potential shutdown onto Democrats, despite his party controlling Congress. “If there’s a shutdown, it’s only going to be because of Democrats,” he told reporters Thursday. 

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found that 32% of registered voters would blame Democrats in Congress for a shutdown, while 31% would blame Republicans in Congress and 22% would blame Trump.

Even before Schumer’s decision, Senate Republicans were confident that Democrats would fold before the deadline. “They’ll cave,” predicted Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, on Thursday morning. “They have been railing against Elon Musk and the Trump Administration over reductions in force of the federal employees, and now they basically want to put all of them out of work by shutting down the government.”

The political consequences of a shutdown remain uncertain. The last government shutdown took place during Trump’s first term in office, and lasted about 35 days—the longest shutdown in the modern era. Another prolonged shutdown would halt federal services, furlough workers, and delay paychecks for government employees.

“I think what everyone is wrestling with is that this is like either outcome is terrible, right?” Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, who came out against the bill, told reporters Thursday afternoon. “This President has put us in a position where, in either direction, lots of people’s constituents are going to get hurt and hurt badly. So people are wrestling with what is the least worst outcome.”