Letters from an American - October 14, 2025

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

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October 14th, 2025. The government shutdown, which started on October 1st, is entering its third week. As Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, explained this morning, the Senate is in session and it keeps voting on two bills to reopen the government. Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, keeps having the Senate vote on the measure passed by Republicans in the House. That measure funds the government until November 21st. It has failed repeatedly to get past the 60 votes necessary to avoid a filibuster.

The Democrats have offered an alternative measure, which extends the health care premium tax credit, without which health insurance costs on the Affordable Care Act market will skyrocket and restores nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. That measure, too, has repeatedly failed to pass. Murphy notes that normally the two sides would negotiate, but he says President Donald J. Trump is telling Republican senators to boycott negotiating, and they are following orders.

The House of Representatives is even more dysfunctional. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, pushed the continuing resolution through the chamber on September 19th, the Friday before leaving town for a week. Then Johnson canceled the House sessions on Monday and Tuesday, September 29th and 30th, both to jam the Senate into having to accept the House measure and to avoid swearing in Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat of Arizona, who was elected on September 23rd. Garhalva will provide the 218th signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on the release of the files collected during the federal investigation into the crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump and his officials promised to release those files, but have tried to avoid doing so since news broke that Trump, who was a close friend of Epstein, is named in them.

Emily Brooks of the Hill notes that jamming the Senate, as Johnson tried to do, was a tactic employed by the far-right Freedom Caucus, and they are cheering him on. But Democratic senators refuse to vote in favor of the House measure, standing firm on extending the premium tax credits before their loss decimates the health care markets. Now, although Democrats are in Washington, D.C., ready to negotiate, Johnson says he will not call House members back to work until the Senate passes the House measure. Brooks notes that not all Republicans are keen on the optics of staying out of session during a shutdown. Mike Lillis of the Hill reported on Sunday that the cancellation of all House votes since late September has some Republicans warning that the

tactic will backfire. In addition to the question of health care premiums, there is the issue of military pay stalled by the shutdown, and the fact that by law Congress was supposed to deliver its 2026 budget by September 30th. Over the weekend, the administration tried to ratchet up the pressure on Democratic senators to cave when it announced it would fire about 4,200 federal employees. Josh Marshall, at Talking Points memo, notes that the threat seemed at least in part to be designed to follow through on a threat, Office of Management and Budget Director, Russell vote had made to pressure Democrats before the shutdown. When those layoffs didn't happen, the administration then suggested it would not pay furloughed workers after the shutdown ends.

After backlash, they walked that threat back. The new announcement seemed in part an attempt to prove they would do something. On Friday night, hundreds of workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, received notices that they were being fired, only. to receive a follow-up letter less than a day later saying they were not fired after all. As Tom Bartlett of the Atlantic put it, no explanation, no apology. Marshall points out that other cuts seem to have come from agencies Trump especially dislikes, including the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency or CISA, which Trump has hated since its then-director Chris Krebs said the 2020 presidential election was not hacked.

The administration also gutted the office responsible for special education in the U.S. Department of Education, serving about 7.4 million students with special needs. Today, Trump tried to pressure Democrats by telling reporters the slashing of government programs will hurt only Democrats. We're not closing up Republican programs because we think they work, he said. So the Democrats are getting killed, but they're not telling the people about that. so we're closing up Democrat programs that we think that we disagree with, and they're never going to open up again. The administration continues to try to demonstrate its power.

Today, it announced its fifth known attack on a boat just off the coast of Venezuela in international waters. Once again, Trump asserted that the boat was trafficking narcotics. The U.S. has now killed 27 people in this and similar attacks. making the argument that drug smugglers are enemy combatants. This is problematic, not just because the administration has never produced any evidence that those killed have been smuggling drugs, but also because lawyers say these killings are illegal. Charlie Savage of the New York Times points out that the administration has not produced any legal analysis that defends its position.

Conservative lawyer George Conway posted, that's 27 flat-out murders, that's 27 lives taken without even a semblance of a legal justification under domestic or international law. The administration's attempt to portray itself as powerful is running not just into the law, but into popular perception. The administration insists it needs extraordinary powers to fight back against South American gang members illegally in the United States. U.S. The attack on the boats serves the idea that drug cartels are invading the U.S. to kill Americans.

A theme the administration hits when it insists that those it is rounding up in the U.S. are the worst of the worst. But as Jacob Soberoff and Kay Guerrero of MSNBC reported today, the Department of Homeland Security announced on October 3rd that more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants had been arrested in and around Chicago since September when their operation began. It said those arrested included the worst of the worst pedophiles, child abusers, kidnappers, gang members, and armed robbers. But it has produced little evidence for that claim, and federal data shows that more than 70% of immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE, detainees, as of last month had no criminal convictions. So the administration is upping its claims. Today the Fox News

channel reported on a Department of Homeland Security or DHS allegation that narco-terrorists in Mexico are reportedly working in coordination with domestic extremist groups to place bounties worth thousands of dollars on the heads of federal immigration officers in Chicago. DHS called it an organized campaign of terror against agents just trying to do their jobs. The administration is attempting to paint immigrants as violent criminals and those opposed to their raids as terrorists. They're producing slick videos to make that point. But protesters have deprived them of photo opportunities by dressing in animal costumes. Ice agents staring down a giant frog and Mr. Potato Head don't look very dominant. Cracks are showing elsewhere in the

administration's picture of strength. Defense Secretary Pete Hegesith demanded that media outlets agree they would not publish any material about the Defense Department, even if it were unclassified, unless it was explicitly authorized by department officials. He set a deadline of five o'clock tonight for them to sign an agreement or hand over their press badges. Every major press outlet, including the Fox News Channel, refused, saying such a demand is an assault on the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Airports around the country are refusing to air the video Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome recorded to be shown at Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, checkpoints,

which blames the Democrats for the shutdown. Some have noted it violates the Hatch Act. that prohibits the use of government assets for partisan purposes. As the administration faces resistance, Republican lawmakers seem worried about the upcoming No King's rally scheduled for Saturday, October 18th. Joe Perticoan of the bulwark notes that Republican lawmakers are scrambling to get in front of a potentially large protest event with a pre-bottle. House Majority whipped Tom Emmer, a Republican of Minnesota, has alleged that those protesting are the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party,

playing to the most radical, small, and violent base in the country. They just do not love this country. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent of Vermont, retorted that the no-kings event is about loving America, not hating it. It's a rally of millions of people all over this country who believe in our Constitution, who believe in American freedom and are not going to let you and Donald Trump turn this country into an authoritarian society.

Today, Jason Biferman and Emily Know of Politico reported on 2,900 pages of messages exchanged on the messaging app telegram between leaders of the hardline pro-Trump factions of young Republican groups in New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont. In the edgy messages, the leaders used racist themes and epithets freely and cheered slavery, rape, gas chambers, and torturing their opponents. They expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler. One of them wrote to the others, if we ever had a leak of this chat, we would be

cooked, for real, for real. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.