Trump Conveniently Lands On New Legal Theory That He Claims Could Deprive Feds Of Backpay

At a time when Republicans want to turn the screws on government-loving Democrats and their natural aversion to shutdowns, the Trump administration has conveniently stumbled upon a new statutory interpretation that, it threatens, might deprive federal workers of backpay after the shutdown.

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 guarantees that all federal workers are retroactively paid after a lapse in appropriations. The Trump administration, via a draft Office of Management and Budget memo, is leaking its plans to argue that that law only applied to the 2019 shutdown, and that Congress must appropriate money specifically to reimburse furloughed feds.

“The supposed ‘new legal analysis’ is, to use a technical legal term, horseshit,” former OMB General Counsel Sam Bagenstos posted on Bluesky. “What the law actually says is that when Congress enacts a law ending a lapse, furloughed employees get paid at the earliest date possible. Period.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who represents a disproportionate number of federal employees, is threatening legal action.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is doing some aw shucksing, shrugging that this newfound information has just reached his desk, but oh boy wouldn’t he like it if the federal workers got paid.

President Trump, as always, is voicing the barely veiled strategic maneuvering underneath this novel legal interpretation.

“I can tell you this: The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you’re talking about,” he told reporters. “But for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought have already muddied their easy messaging — we, the adults in the room, wish we could reopen the government and get to work for the American people, but Democrats are recalcitrant hooligans — with their bloodlust for weaponizing the shutdown. Vought has been publicly posting about withholding federal funds from blue state projects, and the administration keeps professing that it’s about to start mass layoffs (which have yet to materialize — at least one agency is busy reinstating previously fired employees).

It makes their about-face as the party opposing the shutdown more fraught when they keep using it (or threatening to use it) to indulge in one of their favorite hobbies: brutalizing civil servants.

— Kate Riga

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Bondi: Oppo Over Everything

Attorney General Pam Bondi attended a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, the focus of much attention in Washington, D.C. Epstein, political prosecutions, Tom Homan’s cash in a bag — there was a lot Democrats aimed to press her on. Republicans came prepared with a tale of political woe, having announced on Monday that several lawmakers had their phone records scrutinized by the FBI as part of the investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In the end, Bondi barely did any testifying, either refusing to answer or dodging the Democrats’ questions.

The attorney general spent a good chunk of the almost five-hour long hearing personally attacking Democratic senators — including Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) — instead of answering their oversight questions. Any time she was confronted with questions she did not like or did not want to answer, Bondi pulled a line from a heap of campaign-style oppo research she came ready with to deflect and attack, playing to her audience of one in the White House.

“I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi told Durbin when Durbin tried to question her about the National Guard being deployed to Chicago.

(She used that same line with a different city name swapped in to dodge questions from other Democratic senators.)

“I’ve been on this committee for more than 20 years. That’s the kind of testimony you expect from this administration,” Durbin said in response. “A simple question as to whether or not they had a legal rationale for deploying National Guard troops becomes grounds for personal attack. I think it’s a legitimate question. It’s my responsibility.”

Bondi also repeatedly tried to blame Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown, saying they were the reason law enforcement and her employees at the Justice Department were working without pay. Despite Bondi’s claims Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House and have been refusing to negotiate with Democrats.

— Emine Yücel

RINO Marjorie Taylor Greene

Unusual is the day that both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) approvingly cite the words of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Greene had tweeted Monday night in support of extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies, writing that while she doesn’t like the health care law, she supports an extension to keep premiums from skyrocketing.

“Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!” she wrote.

“I think this is the first time I said this, but, on this issue, Representative Greene said it perfectly,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “Representative Greene is absolutely right.”

Jeffries, during his Tuesday press conference, propped up a posterboard of a Greene tweet: “Hi this is your daily reminder that insurance has become UNAFFORDABLE for most Americans. Health, Auto, and Home. I wish my party would make this a priority.”

— Kate Riga

VP Summit

On Monday night, former Vice President Kamala Harris held a public conversation with Napheesa Collier, a star WNBA player on the Minnesota Lynx and vice president of the players’ union.

The league is currently consumed by a labor struggle, as players negotiate for higher salaries and a fairer revenue-sharing deal in their collective bargaining agreement (WNBA players get a 9.3 percent share of the league’s income, while NBA players get 49-51 percent). The stalled negotiations caught fire last week, when Collier used her exit interview to call out WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who had dismissed concerns about ludicrously low salary floors (Caitlin Clark makes about $78,000 a year) and allegedly stated that the players, including Clark, should be “grateful” for the platform the league gives them.

“For so long, we tried to have these conversations and move the needle in those meetings that we would have with the league and with our leadership,” Collier said during her event with Harris. “I saw nothing was changing. Coaches and players, winning and losing alike, were complaining about the same things over and over again.”

“Whether I was going to get annihilated for this, or people were going to support me, I felt what I was doing was right,” she added. “I felt like it needed to be said.”

Harris called Collier a “living example of courage.”

The players’ union and the league have until October 31 to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement; a lockout may follow if an agreement isn’t reached.

— Kate Riga