Journalists leave Pentagon rather than agree to Trump administration’s new reporting rules

Sanders opened a CNN town hall Wednesday by disputing Speaker Mike Johnson’s prediction that the shutdown could be one of the longest in U.S. history.

“Republicans are catching on. They’re playing a losing hand. They are going to come to the table finally,” Sanders said.

The independent senator from Vermont appeared alongside Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to take audience questions. Ocasio-Cortez echoed Sanders’ comments, saying she also expects Republicans to come to the negotiating table soon — a sharp contrast from what Republicans have said since the shutdown began.

The U.S. president gathered more than 100 guests to the East Room on Wednesday for a dinner to mark their contributions to the coming ballroom.

Trump opened a curtain behind him to give a view of the construction site.

Trump has yet to receive approvals on the project from the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, which is tasked with vetting construction of federal buildings. The Trump-appointed head of the planning commission says no approvals are needed.

Trump told the crowd that there are no zoning requirements for him because he’s the president of the United States and can do whatever he wants.

Without directly addressing Trump’s comments about authorizing the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday lashed out at the record of the U.S. spy agency in various conflicts around the world.

He said calls for regime change harkened back to “the failed eternal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on,” as well as the people who disappeared during the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s and ‘80s.

“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups? Latin America doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them and repudiates them,” Maduro said.

The objective is “to say no to war in the Caribbean, no to war in South America, yes to peace,” he said.

Speaking in English, Maduro said: “Not war, yes peace, not war. Is that how you would say it? Who speaks English? Not war, yes peace, the people of the United States, please. Please, please, please.”

Trump confirmed on Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela and said he was weighing carrying out land operations on the country.

The acknowledgement comes after the U.S. military in recent weeks has carried out a series of deadly strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. U.S. forces have destroyed at least five boats since early September, killing 27 people, and four of those vessels originated from Venezuela.

Asked during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday why he had authorized the CIA to take action in Venezuela, Trump affirmed he had made the move.

“I authorized for two reasons, really,” Trump replied. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”

Trump made the unusual acknowledgement of a CIA operation shortly after The New York Times published that the CIA had been authorized to carry out covert action in Venezuela.

Trump’s new immigration tactics follow years of the military recruiting from immigrant communities to fill out its ranks and touting the immigration benefits for enlistees’ families.

Along with possible protection from deportation, enlisting in the military often meant deference in your family’s immigration cases and a better shot at a green card. Those benefits were used by the armed forces to recruit more people, and, as of last year, an estimated 40,000 people were serving in the military without citizenship.

Under President Joe Biden, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement considered you and your immediate family’s military service as a “significant mitigating factor” when making immigration decisions, such as removal from the country. The idea was to boost recruitment and maintain morale, fearing that it could take a hit if a service member’s family was deported.

The Trump administration issued a memo in February doing away with the older approach.

It said that immigration authorities “will no longer exempt” categories of people that had been afforded more grace in the past. That included families of service members or veterans, said Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert.

The deportation of a U.S. Marine’s father in California is bringing new attention to Trump’s changes to the longstanding policy seeking to protect military families from deportation.

The lawyers made the request on behalf of more than 100 immigrants deported from the United States to El Salvador under the 18th Century wartime law. Those men were later sent from El Salvador to their home country of Venezuela.

The Trump administration accused the men of being members of a Venezuelan gang, but a judge in Washington in June ruled they had the right to challenge that designation, even from El Salvador.

The immigration lawyers argue that right remains even while the immigrants are back in Venezuela, where they say their clients have become targets for persecution due to the gang allegation.

Rep. Dave Taylor, R-Ohio, says he condemns an image found in his Washington office that appears to depict a “vile and deeply inappropriate symbol near an employee.”

He did not elaborate on that symbol. But a Politico story on the matter included a picture it obtained of an American flag altered to include a swastika. The flag was attached to a bulletin board.

“The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms,” Taylor said. “Upon learning of this matter, I immediately directed a thorough investigation alongside Capitol Police, which remains ongoing. No further comment will be provided until it has been completed.”

Taylor made the statement on his congressional website with a headline that referred to the matter as “office vandalism.”

“The administration’s move to fire thousands of federal employees who are already going without pay during the government shutdown is not only cruel but unlawful. These are dedicated public servants who keep our nation running — protecting public health, supporting education, ensuring fair housing, and driving economic growth,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley.

“We are pleased with the court’s ruling halting these unlawful terminations and preventing the administration from further targeting hardworking civil servants during the shutdown,” he continued.

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Luis Martinez with ABC News cleans the broadcast booth in the press area of the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

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Pentagon credentialed media in the press area, prepare to leave the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Konstantin Torpid)

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Washington Post reporter Tara Copp saves the name plaques from various news organizations as she and members of the media pack up their belongings in the press area in the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

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CBS crew members carry out the backdrop from their broadcast booth in the press area in the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

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Fox News staff pack up the contents of their broadcast booth in the press area of the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

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Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power.

Trump says it’s “one of the most important cases in U.S. history” because losing means the country “will be a weakened, troubled financial mess for many, many years to come.”

But a win will turn the U.S. into the “most powerful economic country in the world.”

“That’s why I think I’m going to go to the Supreme Court to watch it. I’ve not done that,” the president said.

States and small businesses have challenged Trump’s sweeping tariffs, a centerpiece of his economic agenda. The court has agreed to hear the case in November.

Trump is lashing out anew over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2022 and the subsequent prosecutions of him by special counsel Jack Smith.

Trump is calling the two criminal cases against him — one accusing him of retaining classified documents, the other of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election — the “worst weaponization” of the criminal justice system against a political opponent “in the history of the world.”

Trump says there’s never been anyone treated worse in the history of politics.

He also repeated his frequent verbal attacks on Smith, who was appointed by the Biden administration Justice Department to investigate Trump.

Smith has recently spoken out publicly and defended the legitimacy of the investigations.

The Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island is the latest to turn down the Trump administration proposal, which offered favorable access to funding in exchange for a wide range of commitments.

Brown President Christina Paxson said in a letter Wednesday to administration officials the deal would curtail academic freedom and undermine the university’s independence.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology backed away from the proposal last week after its president said it would restrict free speech and campus autonomy.

Brown and MIT were among nine universities invited this month to become “initial signatories” to the proposal.

Midway through his first interview on Fox News, Mamdani, the democratic mayoral nominee, said he wanted to “speak directly” to Trump.

He then turned toward the camera and offered to build “partnership” with the White House.

“I will not be a mayor like Mayor Adams who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won’t be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo who will call you to ask how to win this election,” the 33-year-old Democratic socialist continued.

“I can do those things on my own. I will however be a mayor who’s ready to speak at any time to lower the cost of living.”

A spokesperson for Trump said the president was not watching the interview when it aired Wednesday.

Trump has accused Mamdani of being a “communist” and a “total nut job” and threatened to have him arrested if Mamdani wins election.

The two 15-year-olds who pleaded guilty to assaulting former DOGE staffer Edward Coristine in August were sentenced to probation by a federal judge on Tuesday.

The attack is widely considered a key factor in Trump’s decision to flood the streets of Washington with National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officers in an attempt to crack down on crime.

Asked about the judge’s decision not to incarcerate the 15-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl, Trump said, “wow” and called it a “terrible” decision.

“I think the judge should be ashamed of himself,” Trump said in response to a question during an Oval Office appearance with Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, to discuss the administration’s crime-fighting initiatives.

DOGE is the Department of Government Efficiency, once led by Elon Musk at Trump’s direction, to cut the size of government.

Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. The U.S. government has called the new rules “common sense.”

News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.

Many of the reporters waited to leave together at a 4 p.m. deadline set by the Defense Department to get out of the building. As the hour approached, boxes of documents lined a Pentagon corridor and reporters carried chairs, a copying machine, books and old photos to the parking lot from suddenly abandoned workspaces. Shortly after 4, about 40 to 50 journalists left together after handing in badges.

▶ Read more about Pentagon journalists

The president and his FBI director said Wednesday that key personnel at the bureau will get paid as the government shutdown continues.

“Special agents at the FBI are going to receive their paychecks,” Patel added.

The U.S. president said he received assurances directly from Prime Minister Modi in a conversation on Wednesday.

“There will be no oil. He’s not buying oil,” Trump said. The change won’t take immediately, but “within a short period of time.”

The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has been pushing India to stop buying Russian oil to escalate pressure on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine."If India doesn’t buy oil, it makes it much easier,” he said.

Patel is trumpeting the FBI’s arrest in the early days of the Trump administration of a suspect in the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers and roughly 170 Afghan civilians in 2021.

Mohammad Sharifullah was brought to the U.S. earlier this year to face prosecution in federal court in Virginia.

Patel praised the capture during a news conference at the White House on Wednesday focused on violent crime. What he did not mention was that a key prosecutor in the case, Michael Ben’Ary, was fired earlier this month by the Justice Department.

Ben’Ary, who was chief of the national security section in the Eastern District of Virginia, was fired just hours after Julie Kelly, a conservative writer and activist, shared online that he previously worked as senior counsel to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco during the Biden administration.

The president said of U.S. strikes against boats off of Venezuela, “We are certainly looking at land now.”

A series of recent U.S. strikes have sunk vessels the White House says were carrying drugs from Venezuela. Asked if such attacks may eventually target mainland Venezuela, Trump said, “I don’t want to tell you, exactly.”

But he suggested that land attacks were an option “because we’ve got the sea well under control.”

The president also said he’d authorized the CIA to operate in Venezuela.

Asked if the agency could “take out” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Trump was noncommittal, saying it was “a ridiculous question” for him to answer.

Patel joined Trump in the Oval Office to tout federal law enforcement’s efforts to combat crime across the U.S. He cited the arrests of 8,700 people accused of violent crimes and more than 2,200 guns seized as part of “Operation Summer Heat,” a three-month FBI initiative.

Current and former FBI officials say the bureau’s heightened focus on immigration and violent crime, areas typically worked by other local and federal agencies, risks drawing attention and resources from the sophisticated threats for which the FBI is uniquely responsible for confronting.

(AP/Sagar Meghani)

Some of the people with Trump for his event on crime were expected — the FBI director, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Stephen Miller, a top White House official who oversees homeland security.

Unexpected? Newt and Callista Gingrich.

The former GOP House speaker and presidential candidate, along with his wife, were spotted along the edges of the Oval Office. Callista Gingrich, in particular, was seen nodding along as Patel rattled off crime statistics.

Callista Gingrich served as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See in Trump’s first administration and is now his ambassador to Switzerland.

The president and the FBI director kicked off the event to announce the results of a law enforcement effort called “Operation Summer Heat.”

The event began about 40 minutes behind schedule. Operation Summer Heat was a three-month initiative to crack down on violent crime across the country between June and September.

“Just as we’re forging peace and stability abroad, we’re also restoring peace and safety and stability at home,” Trump said.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in an interview Wednesday on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that many more workforce cuts, known was RIFS or reductions-in-force plans, are planned as long as the shutdown continues.

He said court filings last week that showed at least 4,000 people were being fired are “just a snapshot and I think it will get much higher. We’re going to keep those RIFS rolling throughout this shutdown because we think it’s important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer and the American people.”

Vought also said: “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy. Not just the funding, but the bureaucracy, that we now have an opportunity to do that.”

Trump is set to appear at the White House with FBI Director Kash Patel for a news conference.

The topic of the Wednesday gathering has not been disclosed but it’s historically unusual for the president and the FBI to appear together at a White House news conference.

Typically, FBI directors like to keep a degree of separation from the White House as a way to stress their independence in investigations and decision-making from the president and his administration. That separation was certainly the case with the two FBI directors who served during Trump’s first administration, James Comey and Christopher Wray, both of whom oversaw criminal investigations that touched Trump and his allies.

But Patel is a proud Trump loyalist who has not been shy about his desire to carry out Trump’s agenda or promoting his personal friendship with him. The FBI under his watch this year has also investigated several of Trump’s political enemies, including Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“Isn’t it the prize to create or generate more peace?” Fetterman, a Democratic senator, said. “The vast majority of people in Israel believes that he deserves that.”

Fetterman’s comments came after Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the prize last week. Trump had also sought the honor.

While some Republicans and world leaders have pushed for Trump to receive the prize, Fetterman was a rare voice of support from across the aisle — something the Pennsylvania senator has done more than once this year.

“This isn’t controversial. Well, now, it’s controversial for a Democrat. You’re not allowed to say this,” Fetterman added.

President Donald Trump’s administration for now must stop firing workers during the government shutdown, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the emergency order after federal agencies on Friday started issuing layoff notices aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. The layoff notices are part of an effort by Trump’s Republican administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.

Illston said the administration was acting without thinking through its decisions.

“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” she said. It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

▶ Read more about government shutdown firings

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the federal shutdown offers evidence that her agency is “unnecessary.”

In a social media post on Wednesday, McMahon said the shutdown has forced agencies to evaluate what work is really needed. She made the comment days after her department started firing hundreds of workers amid mass layoffs across the government.

“Two weeks in, millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon said.

McMahon said no federal education funding was affected by the layoffs.

Advocates say the firings threaten to disrupt the flow of federal money to America’s schools. The cuts eliminated teams that disburse federal money and answer questions on federal education laws.

More than 150 congressional Democrats, along with Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, are sending a letter to White House budget director Russell Vought to push back on his argument that furloughed federal employees may not receive backpay once the government reopens.

The lawmakers quote a 2019 law — signed by President Donald Trump during his first term — that states furloughed employees “shall be paid” once the lapse in funding ends.

“The law is clear: all impacted government employees, regardless of excepted or furloughed status, are entitled to back pay after a government shutdown ends,” the lawmakers write.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is calling on an office focused on political corruption to investigate whether the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is violating federal law by airing a video in airports blaming Democrats for a government shutdown.

In the video, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says Democrats in Congress are refusing to fund the government, “and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”

Cantwell said the video violates a law known as the Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities by federal employees.

The video, Cantwell says is “intended to misleadingly malign the Trump Administration’s political opponents, convince Americans to blame “Democrats in Congress” for the ongoing government shutdown, and influence their future votes — all while omitting the fact that Republicans currently control the White House, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives.”

Several airports around the country have refused to air the video.

The vice president instead said people should focus on the messages that Virginia Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones wrote in 2022 suggesting that a prominent Republican get “two bullets to the head.”

Vance said Jones’ comments are “1000 times worse than what a bunch of young people, a bunch of kids say in a group chat, however offensive it might be” and that anyone ”distracted” by the Politico story should, “Grow up.”

“Focus on the real issues. Don’t focus on what kids say,” he said.

Politico reported that in a trove of messages, leaders of Young Republican groups around the country reportedly said, ‘I love Hitler’ and talked about raping enemies, along with other racist or offensive comments.

“The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” Vance said. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do. And I really don’t want to us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive, stupid joke is cause to ruin their lives.”

Vance appeared as a guest Wednesday on The Charlie Kirk Show, where he discussed his friendship with the assassinated activist who encouraged young voters to embrace conservatism.

Vance said he will join Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi on Oct. 29.

Trump’s son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump will make an appearance at a Turning Point event at Auburn University in Alabama on Nov. 5.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that Vance would also appear at the event at Auburn University.

To make their case that Congress must address health care as part of funding the government, House Democrats turned Wednesday to a nurse, a Medicaid recipient and a recipient of health insurance coverage provided through the Affordable Care Act.

The trio joined House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democrats on the Capitol steps as the shutdown extended to its 15th day.

Heather Brauth, a nurse from Connecticut and the first of the three guest speakers, said a health care crisis is just around the corner because of looming cuts to Medicaid and the expiration of enhanced tax credits for those who get coverage through ACA exchanges. She said up to 15 million people could lose coverage and millions more see higher premiums.

“It’s clear that the cuts coming down the pike have the capacity to dismantle and destabilize our currently understaffed and struggling health care system,” Brauth said.

Gov. JB Pritzker suggested federal agents may have violated a ruling by a federal judge last week that said they could not use tear gas, pepper spray and other weapons on journalists and peaceful protesters after a coalition of news outlets and protesters sued over the actions of federal agents during protests outside a Chicago-area ICE facility.

Pritzker said he expected attorneys involved to “go back to court to make sure that is enforced against ICE.

“ICE is causing this mayhem,” he said Wednesday. “They’re the ones throwing tear gas when people are peacefully protesting.”

Pritzker previously denounced Border Patrol agents for using tear gas on protesters who gathered Tuesday after a high-speed chase on a residential street on Chicago’s South Side.

Pritkzer acknowledged that while he tried to “Trump-proof the state as best we could, there are limits to what a state can do” about the federal immigration crackdown. He called conflicts over the crackdown and National Guard deployment “constitutionally difficult to overcome.”

Cook County’s top judge signed an order barring ICE from arresting people at court. Cook County includes Chicago, which has seen a federal immigration crackdown in recent months.

This has been a common tactic for federal agents, who have been stationed outside the county courthouse for weeks, making arrests and drawing crowds of protesters. Local immigration and legal advocates, including the county’s public defender’s office have called for an order like this, saying clients were avoiding court out of fear of being detained.

The order, which takes effect Wednesday, bars the civil arrest of any “party, witness, or potential witness” while going to court proceedings.

Cook County Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Evans said justice “depends on every individual’s ability to appear in court without fear or obstruction.”

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., says the Pentagon was able to find funds to make Wednesday’s payday, but it’s “not an enduring solution.”

“We will run out of the funds,” the speaker said at the Capitol.

Johnson said he was with Trump late Tuesday in the Oval Office, and also spoke with budget chief Russ Vought, and he said they are prioritizing pay for troops and law enforcement.

3 p.m. ET: Trump will hold an Oval Office press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel
7:30 p.m.: Trump will host a dinner related to his plans to build White House ballroom

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said President Donald Trump still expects to speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea during APEC week.

Resurgent trade tensions have threatened ongoing negotiations over tariffs between the U.S. and China.

Bessent made the comments at a press conference, Wednesday.

China last week expanded export controls on key rare earth minerals, and Trump then announced a 100% tariff on Chinese goods set to take effect on November 1.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made the comment at the CNBC Invest in America Forum on Wednesday morning.

“The only thing slowing us down here is the shutdown,” he said.

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