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The IRS said it was furloughing nearly half of its workforce and shuttering most operations Wednesday, but will continue work to implement President Donald Trump’s signature tax cuts.

Work on preparing for next year’s tax-filing season will also continue, but numerous operations will be halted, including taxpayer services like call site operations.

The agency will also suspend non-automated tax collections and “most headquarters and administrative functions not related to the safety of life and protection of property” during non-filing season, according to the agency’s latest contingency plan.

The plan will idle tens of thousands of employees. While 39,870 — 53.6% of the total workforce — will remain at work, 34,429 will be furloughed.

The union that represents IRS workers condemned the move.

“Today, due to the government shutdown the American people lost access to many vital services provided by the IRS,” said Doreen Greenwald, the national president of the National Treasury Employees Union. “Expect increased wait times, backlogs and delays implementing tax law changes as the shutdown continues. Taxpayers around the country will now have a much harder time getting the assistance they need, just as they get ready to file their extension returns due next week.”

When the government shut down last week, the agency exempted all of its employees from furlough for at least five business days, saying it would stay open by using special funding it was given by Congress in 2020.

But Wednesday morning, the agency announced that, “An IRS-wide furlough began on October 8, 2025, for everyone except already-identified excepted and exempt employees,” according to a statement on the IRS’s website. “Employee[s] who are not exempt or excepted are furloughed and placed in a non-pay and non-duty status until further notice.”

The IRS’s furlough decision letter — which came a day after a White House memo suggested furloughed federal employees might not receive backpay — includes a reminder that “employees must be compensated on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates,” per a law President Donald Trump passed in 2019.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agency originally dodged the furloughs in part because it bore responsibility for implementing the administration’s marquee tax cuts, including no tax on tips, overtime and Social Security, which Republicans are counting on for a boost in next year’s midterm elections.

“We suspect people will be getting notified all day,” said Daniel Scharpenburg, a union leader at the IRS.

The Senate rejected dueling government funding bills for the sixth time Wednesday amid growing frustration over the shutdown stalemate.

The back-to-back votes come as there’s no sign of a quick offramp, with congressional leaders only becoming further entrenched the longer the funding lapse drags on.

Pouring new fuel into the standoff — and catching top Republicans off guard — was a recent suggestion from White House officials that furloughed federal workers might not get back pay. Yet more than a week since lawmakers blew past the deadline to fund government operations, party leaders continue to talk past each other in press conferences, television interviews and social media posts.

“We are in Day Eight of the government shutdown, which is unfortunate and unnecessary and totally at the behest of left-wing Democrats’ special interest groups who have pressured the Democrat leadership into a position that makes absolutely no sense to any thinking person,” Majority Leader John Thune said ahead of the vote.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated that Democrats are ready to discuss both government funding and health care.

“This is not an either-or-thing, which Republicans are making it,” Schumer said.

Democrats believe the first step to breaking the impasse involves Republicans at least talking to colleagues across the aisle. Top Republicans, however, are solidified in their stance that there is nothing to negotiate on soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies before reopening the government.

“The only way they’ve communicated is through these AI meme videos, which is a ridiculous way to run a country,” Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said in a brief interview. “You get to an outcome by actually talking to each other, not by press conferences, not by silly meme videos.”

The House has been out of session since last month, with Speaker Mike Johnson vowing he won’t bring the chamber back until the Senate passes the GOP-led stopgap bill, which funds the government through Nov. 21.

“When the House agrees on something that’s not offensive … you ought to take it with a bow, thank them for it and pass the damn thing,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who served in the House for six years, said in a brief interview. “If we send something more complicated back to the House, I just think we run the risk of it collapsing.”

Thune plans to make the chamber vote as soon as Thursday for the seventh time on both the Republican stopgap and the Democratic alternative, which would run through Oct. 31 and force Republicans’ hands with health care concessions and guardrails around spending. The same, failed outcome for each bill is all but guaranteed.

“Youv’e got to ask our Democratic colleagues,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) when asked if he expected a different result.

A bipartisan group of senators are having conversations about what could happen once the government reopens as far as the fate of the ACA credits and the appropriations process, but so far those talks have not garnered enough Democratic support.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday had a heated, face-to-face exchange with two Democratic senators over the government shutdown and the swearing-in of Arizona’s Democratic Rep-elect Adelita Grijalva, who will be the 218th signature on an effort to end-run Johnson and force a vote on releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents.

Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly were talking to reporters outside Johnson’s office about what they said was the speaker’s failure to swear-in Grijalva. House GOP leadership has said they will swear in Grijalva when the House returns for votes.

But Gallego accused Johnson of wanting to “cover up for pedophiles on the Epstein list, and number two, put his members in a really rough position when it comes to voting and extending these ACA tax credits.”

Johnson came out of his office at one point to argue he hasn’t scheduled Grijalva’s swearing in because she was elected after the House was out of session, unlike some previous examples. The speaker also made clear he wouldn’t bring the House back, and therefore swear in Grijalva, until Senate Democrats vote to reopen the government and pass the clean, short-term stopgap through Nov. 21.

“So I am anxious to administer the oath to her, as soon as you guys vote to open up the government,” Johnson said to Kelly and Gallego at one point.

Kelly and Gallego argued to Johnson that he swore in two Florida Republicans during a previous pro forma session.

But Gallego shot back: “You don’t want to be on the Epstein discharge.” Johnson quickly responded: “That’s totally absurd. You guys are experts in red herrings…It has nothing to do with Epstein.”

Longtime Washington congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton raised just $3,200 for her reelection campaign last quarter, according to a campaign finance report filed Wednesday, as she faces serious primary challengers and questions about her ability to serve in Congress.

Norton, 88, has repeatedly said she will seek reelection next year. But the capital city’s delegate in the House has faced questions about her age amid a broader Democratic reckoning with generational change and doubts from longtime allies as to whether she is fit to serve another term.

She also faces several primary challengers, including two D.C. Council members, Robert White and Brooke Pinto. White previously served as a staffer to Norton. Both campaigns launched recently and have not yet filed reports with the Federal Election Commission, although Pinto’s campaign said she raised more than $300,000 in her first day.

That stands in sharp contrast to Norton. The incumbent’s campaign reported just over $700 raised from individual donors in the third quarter, along with $2,500 from the American Trucking Association. The campaign spent just over $26,000 in the period, primarily on staff salary and fundraising consulting. It also reported $90,000 in debt, all owed to Norton, who previously loaned money to the campaign, and just shy of $6,500 cash on hand.

While Norton has never needed to be a prolific fundraiser, she raised $19,200 from donors over the same period in 2023.

A spokesperson for Norton’s office directed questions about her fundraising to the campaign. A campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions Wednesday afternoon.

Speaker Mike Johnson continued to hit Senate Democrats on Wednesday for blocking a government funding stopgap — this time by highlighting the shutdown fallout in their states.

During a press conference Wednesday, Johnson showcased a series of headlines from across the country.

“Remember Georgia’s two Democrat senators, [Raphael] Warnock and [Jon] Ossoff, have now voted five times to keep the government closed down,” Johnson said, telling the story of families in the Peach State worried about access to food banks. “I suspect they may continue, and they’re hurting real people in the state of Georgia.”

He moved on to New Hampshire Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.

“Let me point out that both senators … have repeatedly voted to keep to keep government closed and New Hampshire’s national park sites closed by extension,” Johnson said.

Johnson also noted the fallout to air traffic controllers and flights safety across the country as aviation sector employees continue to toil in high-pressure jobs without certainty of when they’ll receive their next paychecks.

Later Wednesday morning, the Senate will hold a sixth vote on dueling stopgap funding bills that are both expected to fail as both parties remain dug in and formal negotiations to end the stalemate remain nonexistent. Privately, Republicans admit they were perhaps too confident that Democrats would quickly fold and now the shutdown continues with no end in sight.

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed called a fundraising email that went out on the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel a mistake in a statement provided first to POLITICO.

“That email mistakenly went out yesterday. Abdul has been clear and consistent: he holds equally valuable the lives of all innocent people and condemns violence against them,” said spokesperson Roxie Richner.

The fundraising email from El-Sayed’s campaign started by marking that “Two years ago this month, Netanyahu’s military launched a ground invasion of Gaza. Since then, the world has watched tragedy unfold in real time.”

It drew condemnation from many on the right and some Democrats, who criticized it for omitting any mention of Hamas’ attack on Israel at the outset of the war.

The Israel-Hamas war could become a major flashpointin the Michigan Senate race, with Democrats believing the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee could intervene in the contest.

El-Sayed had been a backer of Michigan’s “uncommitted” movement during the 2024 election, though he’d said he would still support Democrats over Donald Trump.

One week into the shutdown, Republicans are trying to stay on message — but President Donald Trump is making that difficult.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune want to show Democrats there’s no daylight inside the GOP: Republicans will negotiate a deal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies only once the government is back open.

But Trump is causing major headaches by going off-script. On Monday, Trump pointed to health care negotiations with Democrats that didn’t appear to exist, but would have contradicted Johnson and Thune’s red line about no ACA talks until the shutdown ends.

On Tuesday, the White House further complicated matters by sending a memo stating some federal workers might not receive backpay after the shutdown’s over. Republicans scrambled to refute that message. After all, Trump himself signed legislation in 2019 guaranteeing all federal workers would be paid following a shutdown — and many Republicans voted for it.

“You can’t not pay them for work they’ve done,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told POLITICO. “I don’t think [Trump] seriously would. I think he’s playing hardball the way he sometimes does: Negotiating on the one hand, flexing leverage on the other.”

Johnson and Thune have also found themselves occasionally out of sync. During a joint news conference Tuesday, the speaker said he was “certainly open” to having the House vote on emergency legislation to pay essential personnel, like military or air traffic controllers, during the shutdown. “Honestly, you don’t need that,” Thune interjected, before reinforcing that Democrats could just vote to reopen the government.

House Republicans are also freelancing their shutdown messaging back in their districts. Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania is rolling out new legislation to bar federal income taxes from being collected during the shutdown, per a release shared first with Inside Congress. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona has introduced a bill that would repeal Obamacare completely. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called on the Senate to get rid of the 60-vote threshold to reopen the government — a nonstarter for Thune.

Some rank-and-file senators are taking matters into their own hands. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), leaving the Senate floor Tuesday, said she had just talked to New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, one of the lead Democrats facilitating bipartisan conversations. And a bipartisan group was scheduled to meet over Thai food last night, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).

Mullin has been tapped by the administration to serve as a conduit to Democrats amid government funding talks, according to one person close to the White House. Asked if he had been given an informal role, however, he shrugged: “I don’t have a badge.”

What else we’re watching:   

Shutdown action for the day: The Senate will vote for a sixth time on dueling stopgap funding bills at 11:20 a.m. Meanwhile, the House is out, and its leaders plan to hold press events. Speaker Mike Johnson, joined by other GOP leaders and Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), will hold a news conference in the Rayburn Room at 10 a.m. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined by other Democratic leaders and the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, will host a forum at noon on health care.

War powers vote: Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia will force a vote Wednesday on a resolution that would terminate the use of the U.S. Armed Forces for hostilities in the Caribbean Sea.

Government censorship hearing: The Senate Commerce committee, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), will hold a hearing Wednesday morning on how the Biden administration allegedly pressured Big Tech into censoring speech protected by the First Amendment.

Democrats on the panel plan to turn the tables on Republicans by drilling into “the censorship that happened the last few weeks” under the Trump administration, according to ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

Dasha Burns and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

One week into the government shutdown, top Republican leaders appear to have lost the plot.

President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are straining to project a united front against Democrats, just barely concealing tensions over strategy that have snowballed behind the scenes since agencies closed last week.

In one stark example, Trump scrambled the congressional leaders’ messaging Monday when he told reporters in the Oval Office he would “like to see a deal made for great health care” and that he was “talking to Democrats about it.”

Within hours, Trump walked it back: “I am happy to work with the Democrats on their Failed Healthcare Policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our Government to re-open,” he wrote on Truth Social hours after his initial comments.

Johnson said Tuesday he “spoke with the president at length yesterday” about the need to reopen agencies first, while Thune told reporters there have been “ongoing conversations” about strategy between the top Republicans.

A White House official granted anonymity to speak about the circumstances behind the president’s statements said the Truth post was “issued to make clear that the [administration] position has not changed” and was not done at the behest of the two leaders.

But tensions surfaced again Tuesday after a White House budget office memo raised questions about a federal law guaranteeing back pay for furloughed federal workers — one that Johnson and Thune both voted for in 2019.

These episodes are among many where the White House and Hill Republicans have been crosswise on strategy and seemingly not communicating in advance about their key moves. Many of those instances have concerned hardball tactics coming from White House budget director Russ Vought seemingly aimed at cornering Democrats by threatening blue-state spending and the federal workforce.

Not only have those moves so far failed to move Democrats off their positions, they have left Johnson and Thune flat-footed as they confront questions about the GOP strategy for ending the shutdown.

The two leaders, for instance, both struggled to square their own support for federal workers with the administration’s new position questioning back pay for furloughed employees. Thune sought to return focus to Democrats while also indicating frustration with the White House.

“All you have to do to prevent any federal employee from not getting paid is to open up the government,” Thune told reporters Tuesday. “I don’t know what statute they are using. My understanding is, yes, that they would get paid. I’ll find out. I haven’t heard this up until now. But again it’s a very straightforward proposition, and you guys keep chasing that narrative that they’ve got going down at the White House and up here with the Democrats.”

Johnson separately said he supported back pay and praised the “extraordinary Americans who serve the federal government.”

“They serve valiantly, and they work hard, and they serve in these various agencies, doing really important work,” he said. “I tell you, the president believes that as well.”

Barely two hours later, Trump sent a different message: “I would say it depends who we’re talking about,” he told reporters when asked about guaranteeing back pay. “For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people, but for some people they don’t deserve to be taken care of.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Trump and congressional Republicans “are all in complete lockstep and have been consistent” in saying the government must reopen before health care or any policy issues can be discussed.

“The Administration will not negotiate while the American people are being held hostage by Democrats,” she added.

As far as congressional Republicans are concerned, the politics of government shutdowns is straightforward: Isolate the Senate Democrats who are blocking a House-passed bill to reopen the government and make them own the consequences of having agencies shuttered.

“If you’re Republicans, you have to get Dems to blink first,” said a person close to the White House who was granted anonymity to describe strategic conversations.

But Trump and Vought have not followed that strategy, seemingly preoccupied with punishing their political enemies and executing an ideological agenda targeting the federal workforce and programs.

Most of the strategic tensions have pitted Johnson and Thune against the White House — but not all.

The two congressional leaders appeared together at a news conference Tuesday where they were pressed on the possibility of standalone legislation guaranteeing pay for military members or air traffic controllers.

“I’m certainly open to that,” Johnson said, before Thune — seemingly wary of taking pressure off Democrats — poured cold water on the idea.

“You don’t need that,” he interjected. “The simplest way to end it is not try to exempt this group or that group or that group. It’s to get the government open.”

In contrast to the GOP divisions, Democrats have been largely successful so far in their effort to focus attention on health care — in particular, on Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that expire at the end of the year. They are pushing Republicans to engage now while Johnson and Thune insist the problem can be dealt with later, after the government reopens.

And they have noticed the disarray on the other side of the aisle. “I think they are absolutely struggling to figure out how they are going to get out of this,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Tuesday.

The White House official said Republicans remain confident they will ultimately prevail, saying Democrats “have no viable alternative” to the House stopgap and that “it’s the party that is asking for stuff that is going to be blamed.”

But behind the scenes, the top Republican leaders agree that the subsidies have to be extended going into a midterm election year. The person close to the White House said “2026 can’t be about health care” for the GOP.

Johnson and Thune know the issue unites Democrats but divides their members and are trying to keep a lid on those internal tensions. They haven’t been especially successful. Many hard-line conservatives have staked out total opposition to any extension, while swing-district members have sketched out proposals to keep premiums from skyrocketing.

The split was underscored Monday night when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a Trump loyalist with a maverick streak, took direct aim at party leaders for not addressing the looming deadline.

“Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!” Greene wrote on X.

Johnson responded Tuesday by saying Greene simply wasn’t in the loop as other Republicans discuss a path forward.

“She’s probably not read that in on some of that, because it’s still been sort of in the silos of the people who specialize in those issues,” Johnson said.

But the open rebellion — and Trump’s public signals that he’s willing to deal — is only fueling Democrats’ willingness to hold out on government funding. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer quoted from Greene’s post on the Senate floor Tuesday.

“Hold on to your hats: I think this is the first time I’ve said this, but on this issue, Rep. Greene said it perfectly,” he said. “Rep. Greene is absolutely right.”

Some progress has been made behind the scenes toward at least establishing lines of bipartisan communication. Some rank-and-file senators are already discussing potential shutdown off-ramps involving the ACA subsidies and unfinished fiscal 2026 appropriations bills.

The person close to the White House said the administration has informally deputized Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma to serve as a conduit to Democrats. Asked about the arrangement, Mullin said, “I don’t have a badge,” and otherwise declined to discuss whether he was briefing the administration on bipartisan Senate talks.

As those discussions play out, the top leaders have been left to paper over their internal disputes with words of praise and harmony.

After Trump sent his clean-up Truth, Johnson praised the president for making “very clear that, yes, he’s happy to sit down and talk to Democrats about health care or anything as soon as they reopen the government.”

“We are 100 percent consistent and united on that,” he said. “The president is a dealmaker. He likes to figure these things out and work towards solutions, and that’s why he’s a bold, strong leader that America needs right now.”

Sophia Cai, Mia McCarthy, Jennifer Scholtes and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans confirmed more than 100 nominees Tuesday evening, largely clearing the backlog of President Donald Trump’s picks who have been awaiting a floor vote.

The party-line vote comes after Senate Republicans changed the rules last month to allow most executive branch nominees to be confirmed as a group, whereas lawmakers previously had to hold a vote on each one. The change does not include Cabinet picks or judges.

This latest bloc represents the biggest number of nominees Republicans have cleared at once since the rules change. It includes former GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker and Sergio Gor, ex-director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, to be ambassadors to the Bahamas and India, respectively.

Republicans ultimately deployed the “nuclear option” — meaning a party line rules change — amid growing frustration about the slow pace of confirming Trump nominees amid widespread Democratic opposition.

Republicans briefly debated allowing Donald Trump to make recess appointments, which would let the president bypass the Senate on nominees when the Senate is not in session. So far, Republicans have held back over concerns that it would come back to bite them the next time they are in the minority.