There are several essential government services that will continue during the shutdown.

The Antideficiency Act includes explicit exceptions for "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.”

Hence, when the government 'shuts down', federal law enforcers will keep up their investigations and border agents will stay on patrol. The CIA and NSA will continue their snooping.

The National Weather Service will keep its eyes on the skies, albeit with a skeleton crew, as will air traffic controllers. The TSA will also continue to scan your body parts and require you to remove your shoes.

Programs that are self-funding or funded by means other than annual appropriations usually continue. That includes the USPS, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Benjamin Civiletti's memo back in the 1980s also ruled that the president's constitutional duties were unaffected by shutdowns. That argument has since been extended to court employees, members of Congress, and aides who support them in their essential activities. So those will keep running.

Fortunately for Congress and the President, their salaries will continue to be paid, as mandated by the Constitution.

Read more from Io Dodds about how the government shutdown will impact most Americans:

House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries called Donald Trump “an unserious individual” in a Tuesday night CNN interview after the president mocked him with an AI video depicting the Democrat leader with a sombrero and a handlebar mustache for the second time in two days.

President Donald Trump posted deepfake video Tuesday night mocking House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries hours before the government shut down.

In response to the video, Jeffries called Trump “an unserious individual” in a CNN interview.

Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney under the Obama administration, has contradicted President Donald Trump, saying “no one loses their job” during a government shutdown.

Recent Polls have shown Americans are divided over who to blame for the government shutdown.

A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted between September 22 and 27 showed 26 percent of respondents believe President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress would be more to blame if the government shut down while 19 percent would put more fault on Congressional Democrats.

A YouGov poll conducted on September 25 found 25 percent of respondents would blame Democrats in Congress more if a federal spending deal was not reached while 23 percent would put more fault on Trump and 14 percent would blame Congressional Republicans more.

Senate Democrats held firm and chose to block a Republican spending bill Tuesday evening, all but guaranteeing a government shutdown — even as President Donald Trump threatened “irreversible” layoffs if the bureaucracy is ground to a halt.

The Republican-controlled Senate put forth a stopgap spending bill called a continuing resolution to keep the government open until Thanksgiving. But Democrats voted against the continuing resolution, also called a CR, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer leading the charge to a shutdown.

Only Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Angus King (I-Maine) and John Fetterman (D-Penn) joined the Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was the only Republican to oppose it.

The vote sets up a full-blown government shutdown, the third during Trump’s two presidencies and the first since 2018-2019, from 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, October 1.

Read more from Eric Garcia:

President Donald Trump has posted another vulgar and racist AI-modified video mocking House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, hours ahead of a government shutdown.

On Monday, Trump posted a deepfake clip of Jeffries wearing a sombrero and handlebar mustache as he stood alongside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Mariachi music played in the background as a deepfake Schumer said, “nobody likes Democrats anymore” because of “all of our woke trans bulls***,” before falsely claiming his party supports giving undocumented immigrants free healthcare because the party needs “new voters.”

Trump then fanned the flames with another AI-modified video of Jeffries on Truth Social Tuesday night. It starts with a real interview clip, in which Jeffries calls the first deepfake “disgusting.”

“Bigotry will get you nowhere,” Jeffries told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, before a sombrero and handlebar mustache were again edited onto the Democrat leader. An AI-generated mariachi band, whose members all had Trump’s face and signature blue suit and red tie, was added into the background.

Jeffries condemned the first video, and in response to the second clip, the House Democratic leader told CNN Trump was “an unserious individual.”

Read on...

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, has insisted on voting against a Republican spending bill without bipartisan negotiations.

“ What the Republicans have said, ‘Sorry. We're not gonna deal with the opposition. We are going to do it alone. Here it is. You take it or you leave it.’ I will not take it,” Sanders told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Tuesday night.

When Collins asked Sanders if he was willing to vote ‘no’ every time, Sanders said, “Damn right.”

“ I will not let tens of thousands of fellow Americans die because they're thrown off of healthcare,” he added.

Democrats have demanded the reversal of cuts to Medicaid, set out earlier this year in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful, Bill,” and an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies in exchange for support of a spending plan.

Federal agencies are blaming Democrats for the looming government shutdown.

The Department of Housing and Urban Affairs states on its website, “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands.

“The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs sent an email to reporters Tuesday saying, per CNN, ”Radical liberals in Congress are trying to shut down the government to achieve their crazy fantasy of open borders, ‘transgender’ for everybody and men competing in women’s sports.

“If they succeed, they will stop critical Veterans care and assistance programs.”

President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth held their big military meeting on Tuesday that saw top brass from across the world flown in to a meeting in Virginia, all to be told to lose weight and prepare for possible deployment against the American public.

“We flew every general from across the world for this?” Democratic Senator Reuben Gallego, an Iraq war veteran, said in a post on X. “This meeting could have been an email.”

Predictions for the purpose of the surprise meeting ranged from Trump demanding a loyalty oath from generals to Hegseth publicly firing "woke" generals.

But the actual meeting was more of a spectacle than anything else. Trump and Hegseth again insisted they would end "woke" and "politically correct" policies in the military.

Read more from Graig Graziosi: