Plus, a D.O.J. dust-up over Mel Gibson. On Today’s Episode:House Republicans Unveil Spending Bill to Avert Shutdown at Week’s End, by Catie Edmondson and Carl HulseTrump, With More Honey Than Vinegar, Cements an Iron Grip on Republicans, by Annie Karni and Jonathan SwanTrump Promised Americans Booming Wealth. Now He’s Changing His Tune, by Tyler PagerJustice Dept. Official Says She Was Fired After Opposing Restoring Mel Gibson’s Gun Rights, by Devlin BarrettUkraine Bombards Russia, Forcing Moscow Airports to Close, by Marc Santora and Ivan NechepurenkoRodrigo Duterte, Philippine Ex-President, Is Arrested on I.C.C. Warrant, by Sui-Lee Wee and Camille Elemia15 Lessons Scientists Learned About Us When the World Stopped, by Claire Cain Miller and Irineo CabrerosTune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [email protected].
Full Episode
From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracey Mumford. Today's Tuesday, March 11th. Here's what we're covering. The House of Representatives may vote as soon as today on a stopgap funding measure to keep the government running. Without it, the government will shut down Friday at midnight.
The bill, which was drafted by Republicans, calls for a slight decrease in overall spending, but increases the military budget by $6 billion. It's also got a half-billion-dollar bump for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a half-billion more for WIC, the federal program that provides groceries to low-income women and children.
The GOP will need nearly every vote of their razor-thin majority to pass it. And previously, some conservative members have held out against this kind of spending bill. But now President Trump is stepping up the pressure on them to push it through and avoid what could be a potentially embarrassing shutdown.
I've been talking to current lawmakers, former lawmakers, people who have been around Trump, working for him, just to get a sense of how does he kind of control House Republicans? How does he go about getting them to vote the way he needs them to vote?
Annie Carney covers Congress for The Times. She says that where in his first term, Trump relied on a kind of bad cop approach, making political threats, there's been less of that this time around, more good cop.
So he is using, you know, the carrot more to appeal to them, the nice guy, the charm offensive. He knows these members really well. Like, a lot of them have his cell phone. He texts them when he sees them on TV. He invites them to dinner at Mar-a-Lago and encourages them to bring their families.
Then a lot of these members relate to him sort of like as fans of a big celebrity who come with paraphernalia that they want him to sign. And that makes them feel special, and it really works. A few people told me this anecdote that, you know, he'll take you on Air Force One or Marine One and not only will he give you a ride, but he will sit you next to him and say, you know whose seat that is?
That's Melania's seat. Only Melania sits there. Look how special you are. Only you have sat there. Like he says that to everybody, but it's sort of flattery and they know what's on the other side. They know there's two modes that like if it's not that mode, it's threatening to end your political career. So there's no in between and they prefer this mode.
And there is your closing bell on Wall Street. Yeah, it's a tough one. It was another ugly day for stocks on concerns over tariffs and a slowing economy. All major stock indices are now below the levels they were when Donald Trump was inaugurated.
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