A.M. Edition for Mar. 14. Democrats clear the way for the Republican funding bill, ending the threat of a government shut down. Plus, the Trump administration makes an emergency plea to the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship. And, with America’s commitment to NATO suddenly in doubt, the WSJ’s Dan Michaels explains how Europe’s military would stack up against Russian aggression. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the key political developments affecting the US government shutdown?
Democrats clear the way for the GOP funding bill, ending the threat of a government shutdown. Plus, with America's commitment to NATO suddenly in doubt, European leaders grapple with the unthinkable, facing Russia alone.
Europe relies on the US for the backbone of fighting, communications, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, things that it's still possible to fight without them, but it's kind of like fighting blind.
And the price of gold reaches a record high. It's Friday, March 14th. I'm Kate Bullivant for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.
Senate Democrats are planning to help advance a Republican measure to fund the government in a vote this afternoon ending the threat of a shutdown Democrats had struggled for days on how to approach the GOP bill which gives the Trump administration more flexibility to downsize and dismantle federal agencies
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said there was no good option, adding he would back the GOP measure because the prospect of a shutdown was worse. Siobhan Hughes covers Congress for the Journal.
Schumer's decision is a politically risky one. He is set to lose more than half of the Democratic caucus as he votes in favor of the Republican bill. to keep the government open. A shutdown, Schumer argued, would give President Trump even greater power to lay off federal workers beyond those in agencies he has already targeted.
Senate Republican leaders have scheduled a procedural vote for this afternoon. Without action, the government will shut down at one minute past midnight on Saturday, furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers and stopping non-essential services.
At the same time, two judges have now ordered the Trump administration to reinstate thousands of probationary workers who were fired at a number of federal agencies. As we mentioned on our PM show, a US district judge in California yesterday ruled that probationary workers from six federal departments
including agriculture and veterans affairs, should be offered their jobs back immediately, describing their firing as a sham. Later in the day, a US district judge in Maryland issued a similar ruling in a case brought by 20 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia, saying employees at 18 agencies should get their jobs back.
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Chapter 2: Why is the Trump administration appealing to the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship?
The Trump administration has brought its plan to restrict birthright citizenship to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to scale back lower court orders, blocking the president's decree of denying citizenship to children born in the US to parents without legal residency.
Although the case is in preliminary stages, the emergency request will force the justices to weigh in on one of the most aggressive moves made by the new administration. The 14th Amendment provides, quote, all persons born or naturalised in the US and subject of the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.
In an Inauguration Day order, Trump asserted that children born to people lacking permanent residency aren't subject to US jurisdiction and therefore don't hold citizenship, essentially arguing that the longstanding interpretation of the 14th Amendment is mistaken. Turning to markets now, and gold rallied overnight to reach a record high of $3,000 a troy ounce for the first time ever.
Chapter 3: What is causing the price of gold to reach record highs?
Prices for gold have been rising sharply over the past year, with the yellow metal having already surpassed the 2025 price target set by many Wall Street forecasters. Journal Europe finance editor Alex Frangos says there's a few things driving gold higher.
One is there's a lot of uncertainty in the world and gold is, you know, a millennia old safe haven for investors. There's concern about the economy going into a recession, interest rates falling. And when interest rates are going down, that makes gold more attractive. The last thing is gold is a speculative asset.
It is used for certain things like jewelry and microchips, but most demand for gold is people thinking that gold is going to be worth more tomorrow than it is today. And when that frenzy starts, it takes on a life of its own.
And the flight to safety could have further to run amid stock market volatility. Yesterday, the S&P 500 fell into correction territory, having declined more than 10% from its record high on February 19th. In the fashion industry, few people are as synonymous with a brand as Donatella Versace.
But now, Versace's long-time creative director has stepped down, following tensions between the Italian designer and the US corporate chief. John Idol's ideas to pump up sales by appealing to a wider audience often clashed with those of Donatella, who as creative director has defined the brand's looks, featuring bright colours and bold prints, since her brother's murder in 1997.
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Chapter 4: What led to Donatella Versace stepping down as creative director?
The change comes amid a decline in Versace's sales, and as people familiar with the situation tell us, Idol is exploring a potential sale to Italian rival Prada. Coming up, with America's commitment to NATO falling on shaky ground, does Europe's military have what it takes to fight Russian forces without US support? That story after the break.
With America's commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization suddenly in doubt, Europe is having to consider the once unthinkable. Could its armies fight Moscow's forces without US support? Journal Brussels Bureau Chief Dan Michaels has been speaking to top American military brass and officials who've served across the Atlantic, and they say Europe would pack a strong punch.
Dan, you've been looking at Europe's military capabilities. How do they stack up against Russia's at the moment?
Chapter 5: Can Europe defend itself against Russian aggression without US support?
Europe together is a formidable fighting force. Individually, the countries are not so strong and they do lack certain capabilities that the U.S. has, but they constitute a really powerful quite large army, air force, and navy.
And the verdict of the Americans and Europeans who I've spoken to about this is that in a fight directly with Russia, the Europeans are formidable and would give the Russians a pretty serious black eye. Hold them off. Europe, for example, has an enormous air force combined and are buying more new advanced, especially American F-35 fighter planes. Europe together has more than 2,000 combat planes.
Russia has slightly more than 1,000. So Europe is almost double the size and the performance of the Europeans preemptively. probably is much better. By some estimates, one in five fighter planes that the Russians have sent into Ukraine has been lost, shot down, had some kind of accident. And that's against a much less well-prepared military, the Ukrainians. than the Europeans.
The Europeans, even though they've provided a lot of equipment to Ukraine, still have quite vast armories of even more advanced equipment waiting precisely because of fear of Russia.
So if these numbers are looking in Europe's favour, why is the absence of the US such a concern to European leaders?
Two reasons. One is Europe for decades has assumed it would always fight against Russia with the U.S. So going back to the start of the Cold War, there's been the alliance of NATO. And so the thought that it might not be there is upsetting and prompting Europeans to retreat. reassess their fundamental understanding of the alliance. The more perhaps tangible element is the U.S.
has military capabilities and equipment that Europe simply doesn't have. The US has the world's largest and most advanced military, also the most experienced at the moment because the US has been fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan for years. And so if there were a fight between Europe and Russia, the Europeans would not have
air defenses, for example, against long-range Russian rockets, missiles, and some kinds of artillery, which would put, for example, European cities at risk. Europe relies on the U.S. for sort of the backbone of fighting communications, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, things that it's still possible to fight without them, but it's kind of like fighting blind.
So given all that, what are European leaders doing to fill this gap?
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