The Latest: Congressional leaders meet with Trump in late effort to avoid a government shutdown

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are heading to the White House for a meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday in a late effort to avoid a government shutdown, but both sides have shown hardly any willingness to budge from their entrenched positions.

If government funding legislation isn’t passed by Congress and signed by Trump on Tuesday night, many government offices across the nation will be temporarily shuttered and nonexempt federal employees will be furloughed, adding to the strain on workers and the nation’s economy.

Republicans are daring Democrats to vote against legislation that would keep government funding mostly at current levels, but Democrats have held firm. They’re using one of their few points of leverage to demand Congress take up legislation to extend health care benefits.

Trump has shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands on health care.

The Latest:

Trump official blasts Security Council session ahead of Netanyahu meeting

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., criticized the U.N. Security Council for holding a meeting Monday on Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank, saying it was a mere distraction from U.S. efforts to end the Gaza war.

“Unfortunately colleagues, today’s meeting is yet another example of this council’s obsessive focus on Israel,” Waltz said, adding that the “constant drumbeat of meetings” only distracts from the work needed to address issues of international peace and security.

As the sole defender of Israel’s actions on the 15-member council, the U.S. stood alone once again Monday in failing to condemn the expansion of settlement and settler violence against Palestinians.

This comes as Trump is set to meet with Netanyahu after he vowed not to allow Israel to annex the occupied West Bank.

Trump wants 100% import tax on movies made outside of US

The president has little love for foreign cinema, saying the movie business “has been stolen” from Hollywood and the U.S.

“Therefore, in order to solve this long time, never ending problem, I will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

It was unclear how these tariffs would operate, since movies and TV shows can be transmitted digitally without going through ports.

Nor was it clear what this would mean for globetrotting U.S. movies that depend on foreign locations as part of the story, such as the James Bond franchise.

Nor was it clear what the legal basis would be for these import taxes. Trump has previously relied on national security grounds and an economic emergency in the form of trade deficits to justify his tariffs.

Trump’s team keeps posting AI portraits of him. We keep clicking

Here he is, depicted at six months in office, chiseled and brawny, as mighty as the very nation.

Here he is as a Star Wars Jedi wielding a patriot-red lightsaber, rescuing our galaxy from the forces of evil.

On Trump’s social media accounts and his second-term administration, a new official image of the president is emerging bit by bit: one generated artificially.

Artificial imagery isn’t new for Trump, an early target of AI-generated simulacra who later exploited the technology during his 2024 campaign for the presidency.

“It works both ways,” the Republican president said of AI-generated content at a news conference earlier this month. “If something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll have to just blame AI.”

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Read more about the Trump administration’s use of artificial intelligence

White House: Trump giving Dems ‘one last chance to be reasonable’

The White House is making its position ahead of Trump’s meeting with top congressional leaders clear.

“The president wants to keep the government open, he wants to keep the government funded,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Monday morning.

Trump, Leavitt said, “is giving Democrats one last chance to be reasonable today.”

Democrats are demanding health care provisions in exchange for supporting the short-term funding bill. Leavitt hinted that negotiations were possible independent of the shutdown fight, saying “there are, of course, important policy discussions that can be had.”

“But we are nearing a government shutdown,” she added.

White House: Church attack suspect “hated people of the Mormon faith”

Leavitt said federal authorities are still investigating Sunday’s deadly attack on the Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, house of worship that killed four and wounded eight.

But she said investigators are looking into possible animus by the suspect toward members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church.

“Well, from what I understand, based on my conversations with the FBI director, all they know right now is this was an individual who hated people of the Mormon faith,” Leavitt said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.”

Leavitt said she was briefed by FBI Director Kash Patel earlier Monday.

Trump threatens no federal funding for NYC if Mamdani wins

The president said Monday morning that New York City, his former home, “won’t be getting any” federal cash if frontrunner Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor.

“Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises,” Trump wrote on social media. “He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him?”

Still, the president sees a political upside in having a democratic socialist be one of the prominent figures in the Democratic Party.

Mamdani “will prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican Party,” Trump wrote.

White House urges Israel and Hamas to get to a ceasefire and hostage release deal

Netanyahu was set to meet Trump for talks, Leavitt was urging both sides to finalize an agreement to bring an end to the nearly two-year old war in Gaza.

“Nobody knows better than President Trump to reach a good deal, a reasonable deal for both sides, both sides have to give up a little bit and might leave the table a little bit unhappy,” Leavitt said in her appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

Pentagon confirms 200 National Guard troops called to duty in Portland

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement the troops have been called into service immediately and will serve for 60 days “to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel who are performing Federal functions.”

The deployment is being made over the objections of state leaders and is similar to one last summer in Los Angeles but is on a much smaller scale.

Trump had announced on Saturday that he would send troops to Portland. The state’s governor, Democrat Tina Kotek, said Sunday that she objected to the deployment in a conversation with the president.

Trump and Netanyahu to meet in Washington

Days after using a U.N. address to reject international demands for an end to the war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will sit down with President Donald Trump.

But Monday’s scheduled meeting in Washington comes at a tenuous moment.

Israel is increasingly isolated after losing support from many countries that were long its steadfast allies. At home, Netanyahu’s governing coalition appears more fragile than ever.

And the White House is showing signs of impatience. The question now is whether Trump will step up pressure on Israel to wind down the long conflict.

Deal for new Trump Plaza in Saudi Arabia

A London-listed luxury real estate developer says it plans to launch a Trump Plaza in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah in the second collaboration with the Trump Organization, following the success of Trump Tower Jeddah.

Monday’s announcement by Dar Global said the $1 billion landmark development is to rise along King Abdulaziz Road in the heart of the city.

The company said the project is its second collaboration in Jeddah with The Trump Organization and plans to launch Trump Plaza Jeddah that represents the second Trump-branded development in Saudi Arabia, following the launch of Trump Tower Jeddah in December last year.

Federal government shutdowns are nothing new

Congress often finds itself at the brink of one as the two major political parties’ differences grow more intractable with each passing year. Democrats are threatening to vote against keeping the government open on Oct. 1.

Democratic leaders in Congress say they won’t budge unless Republicans immediately extend health care subsidies that expire at the end of the year, among other demands.

Republicans say they don’t want to add any complicated policies to keep the government open for the next seven weeks.

Time and time again, lawmakers hold out until just before the deadline and negotiate a last-minute compromise. But this time Democrats see some potential political advantages to a shutdown with their base voters spoiling for a fight.

History shows the tactic almost never works, and federal employees are caught in the middle. The White House has already laid out a plan to potentially lay off hundreds, if not thousands, of federal employees.