October 15, 2025

Good Wednesday evening. In this edition: Judge temporarily blocks shutdown firings; and Supreme Court appears poised to weaken Voting Rights Act.

• Plus, China, CR vote, Pentagon press, San Francisco and Russia.

Government Shutdown

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing thousands of federal employees during the shutdown, saying the cuts appeared to be politically motivated.

• The ruling, which came as the government shutdown entered its third week, sets up another legal test of President Trump's power.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee, said the White House had "taken advantage" of the shutdown to carry out an "illegal" reduction-in-force campaign.

• "I believe that the plaintiffs will demonstrate, ultimately, that what's being done here is both illegal and is in excess of authority, and is arbitrary and capricious," she said.

The Trump administration sent layoff notices to more than 4,000 federal workers on Friday, with the CDC and IRS being among the hardest-hit agencies.

• Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said this morning that more than 10,000 federal workers could be fired during the course of the shutdown.

Unions representing federal employees had filed a lawsuit on Sept. 30, before the shutdown, in response to the administration's threats to fire workers.

• They asked for an injunction to block the firings, arguing OMB had violated the law by making firing threats — and the judge determined they were likely to win, granting them the temporary injunction.

Before the ruling, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said the moves to fire workers — rather than furlough them as has been done in past shutdowns — was illegal and would eventually be reversed.

• "We believe that these firings are illegal, violate the law, and will be reversed, either congressionally or by the courts," he told reporters on Capitol Hill.
  
  
• "It's disturbing that they're using hardworking federal civil servants as political pawns to continue their toxic approach to undermining the ability of the federal government to deliver services effectively and efficiently to the American people."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said he wasn't "comfortable" with the cuts to federal programs and workers, but that every administration needs to make tough choices during a shutdown.

• "I'm not comfortable with any of this being done because, as I've said, I don't like government shutdowns. Nobody wins in a shutdown," he told reporters.
  
  
• "Any administration makes decisions in a shutdown," he added. "They are going to prioritize the things that are important to them."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the administration was firing people because they wanted to — not because they were forced to.

• "No one is forcing Trump to fire scientists or doctors in the middle of the season. They're doing it because they want to," he told reporters.

He also ridiculed the administration for having to later reverse more than half of the 1,300 layoff notices sent to staff members at the CDC, primarily personnel who were leading the response to measles and Ebola.

• "They quote 'accidentally' fired twice as many public health workers as intended," Sen. Schumer said. "It's vicious, it's mean and it's incompetence, all wrapped up in one."

Watch the remarks from Rep. Jeffries and Sens. Thune and Schumer.

 Supreme Court

The Supreme Court appeared inclined to pare back or even invalidate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in a case that has major implications for the control of Congress.

• If justices prohibit states from using race as a factor in drawing their voting maps, it could allow southern states to redraw maps in Republicans' favor, potentially netting them about a dozen seats.

Throughout the argument, several of the conservative justices questioned whether some efforts to increase the voting power of Black people and other minority groups were unconstitutional.

• "This court's cases, in a variety of contexts, have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time — sometimes for a long period of time, decades, in some cases — but that they should not be indefinite and should have an end point," said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a key swing vote.
  
  
• "What exactly do you think the end point should be?" he asked an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which wants to uphold the Voting Rights Act.

The case before the court was whether Louisiana lawmakers violated the Constitution when they adopted new electoral maps in 2024 that created a second majority-Black district after its 2022 map, which had one such district, was found to have violated the Voting Rights Act.

• Shortly after the map was created, a group of a dozen white voters sued, arguing the new map was an illegal racial gerrymander — and a different federal court agreed.
  
  
• Louisiana appealed to the Supreme Court, which froze the lower court's ruling, allowing the map to be used in the 2024 election, which saw Rep. Cleo Fields (D-LA) elected to the new seat.

The Supreme Court originally heard arguments in the case in the spring, but instead of issuing a decision, the justices, in a rare move, ordered new arguments to take place during its next term.

• Justices offered no explanation for punting on the case but said they would hear arguments on a broader question this time: whether the state's "intentional creation" of a second majority-minority district violated the 14th or 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

It's unclear how quickly the court will rule and whether it could impact the 2026 midterms if states are forced to redraw their maps.

• Justices usually issue their decisions by late June or early July, meaning a ruling could come shortly before the elections.

Listen to the arguments.

In other news…

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China "can't be trusted" after the country slapped harsh export controls on rare earth minerals, which are critical for manufacturing all kinds of modern gadgets. President Trump responded by threatening to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese goods as well as export controls on "any and all critical software." The moves risk reigniting the trade war between the world's two largest economies that had largely gone dormant after a series of bilateral meetings over the summer. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet in South Korea at the end of the month.
  
  

• The Senate rejected the House-passed CR in a 51–44 vote that fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), John Fetterman (D-PA) and Angus King (I-ME) again voted in favor while Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted against and four Republicans and one Democrat missed the vote. It was the ninth time the bill had failed on the floor.
  
  

• Dozens of journalists decided to turn in their Pentagon press passes rather than agree to new government-imposed restrictions on their work. Virtually every media organization refused to sign Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's new policy barring journalists from obtaining or using unauthorized material, even if the information is unclassified. The Pentagon Press Association said the policy "gags Pentagon employees and threatens retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been pre-approved for release."
  
  

• President Trump said he was considering sending National Guard troops to San Francisco, making it the latest American city to be targeted in his administration's crime crackdown. The comments came at a press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel, during which the two touted the results of the other federal deployments that they said resulted in the arrest of more than 23,000 violent criminals.
  
  

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. will "impose costs" on Russia if it doesn't move to end the war in Ukraine. "If there is no path to peace in the short term, then the United States, along with our allies, will take the steps necessary to impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression," he said at the NATO defense meeting in Brussels. "If we must take this step, the U.S. War Department stands ready to do our part in ways that only the United States can do."

For your radar…

• Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), holds a press briefing Thursday during the IMF and World Bank annual meeting in Washington, DC. Watch LIVE on C-SPAN2 at 8am ET.

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