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In today’s issue:
▪ Anxiety returns over military pay
▪ Canada trade talks called off
▪ SNAP benefits latest shutdown flash point
▪ Trump and Xi have a date
President Trump is facing a growing political problem in America’s agricultural heartland, as he looks to import Argentinian beef to help bring down prices for U.S. grocery shoppers.
The Trump administration is reportedly looking to quadruple low-tariff imports from Argentina, raising the quota to 80,000 metric tons per year. The news has enraged America’s beef farmers — and the Republican senators who represent them.
“This isn’t the way to do it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said of Trump’s efforts to drive down prices. “It’s created a lot of uncertainty in that market. So I’m hoping that the White House has gotten the message.”
Sen. Deb Fischer (Neb.), a Republican member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Tuesday she has “deep concerns” over the import plan.
“Bottom line: if the goal is addressing beef prices at the grocery store, this isn’t the way. Right now, government intervention in the beef market will hurt our cattle ranchers,” she said in a social media post.
▪ Semafor: Thune breaks with Trump on Argentine beef
▪ The Hill: What states export the most beef?
▪ Reuters: Trump to quadruple Argentine beef imports while US ranchers fume
As of July, the average price of ground beef was $6.25 per pound, up 71 cents since January, while steak prices hit an all-time high of $11.88 per pound, up almost a dollar since Trump’s return to office, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data.
Various factors are likely to blame: from years of drought and low cattle prices to Trump’s tariffs on Brazil, another major beef exporter, and a flesh-eating pest that has throttled Mexico’s beef exports.
Economists say the increased purchases from Argentina, which account for about 2 percent of beef imports, would not have a significant impact on prices. But that hasn’t stopped the cattle lobby from fuming.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF) are among the farming groups that have blasted the import plan.
“We love you and support you — but your suggestion to buy beef from Argentina to stabilize beef prices would be an absolute betrayal to the American cattle rancher,” Wyoming-based Meriwether Farms wrote on the social platform X, addressing Trump.
“Unfortunately we have an administration that thinks they have to lower the price of beef,” Mark McHargue, the president of the Nebraska Farm Bureau, posted on X. “Nebraska Farm Bureau is adamantly opposed to anything that would artificially lower the price of beef … quite frankly we need this bright spot in Nebraska.”
Trump on Tuesday hit back at criticism from cattle farmers.
“If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump has also said the import plan would help Argentina, as he seeks to brighten the political prospects of the country’s president, Javier Milei, who faces a crucial election next week.
“If we buy some beef now — I’m not talking about that much — from Argentina, it would help Argentina, which we consider a very good country, a very good ally,” Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One.
▪ The Washington Post: Frustration grows over Trump bailout of Argentina
▪ Scripps News: ‘It’s been really hard’: Tariffs, drought push US beef prices to record highs
3 Things to Know Today
1. President Trump is cutting off trade negotiations with Canada, he announced late Thursday, accusing Canada of using an ad campaign to “interfere” with a pending Supreme Court case to determine Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs. The ad features former President Reagan’s warnings about the long-term risks of tariffs.
2. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) signaled Thursday that she intends to challenge the appointment of a prosecutor handpicked by Trump to seek charges against his foes in a bid to throw out her mortgage fraud case.
3. Amazon, Apple, Google and other major companies are among those donating to help cover the cost of the president’s massive new ballroom being constructed near the now-demolished East Wing, according to a list confirmed by the the White House on Thursday.
Leading the Day
MILITARY PAY ANXIETY: The White House and Congress are once again under the gun on military pay after Democrats on Thursday sunk a Republican bill that would have ensured paychecks for service members and “essential” government employees.
There’s no obvious plan B.
Trump on Oct. 11 directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to pay service members’ midmonth paychecks by utilizing $8 billion in previously appropriated Pentagon funds meant for research, development, test and evaluation.
But that pay cycle cost roughly $6.5 billion, leaving only $1.5 billion for the looming Oct. 31 payday, expected to cost $6 billion to $7 billion, Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill. That means the administration will need to find roughly $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion to keep money in troops’ wallets at the end of the month.
Making matters more tricky, the Senate was set to leave town Thursday afternoon until Monday, and Trump will be embarking on a multiday trip to Asia beginning Friday.
Asked if Republicans have an alternative if the troops are not paid by Oct. 31, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Trump “only has so much latitude” in pulling funding from other areas as he did earlier this month.
“There’s only so many pots of money that he has the authority,” he told reporters. “He’s not a king, you know, he only has so much authority.”
▪ The Hill: Ossoff, Warnock break with Democrats on bill to pay essential workers during shutdown
▪ DW: Germany to pay US military base employees amid shutdown
SNAP STANDOFF: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is facing an imminent funding shortfall — and Republicans say Democrats will be to blame for refusing to reopen the government, The Hill’s Mike Lillis reports.
“Forty-two million people across America are going to suffer from [not getting] those SNAP benefits that they count on right before Thanksgiving, because Chuck Schumer and Democrats are so angry with President Trump that they just want to find a way to say no,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) told reporters this week. “This is having real impacts on real families.”
Democrats are accusing Republicans of hypocrisy, after the party made steep cuts to SNAP earlier this year as part of Trump’s reconciliation megabill.
“They are now trying to reimagine themselves as the champions of federal workers — as the champions of food programs and health care — when all they have done is take an axe to all of that since they came into office?” Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the House Democratic whip, said Wednesday.
Some 40 million low-income people rely on SNAP benefits. In the best-case shutdown scenario, those people are expected to receive smaller payments to help cover grocery bills. In the worst case, they will get nothing.
Advocates for low-income families are pressing the Agriculture Department to tap into the SNAP contingency fund, which they say contains between $5 billion and $6 billion, to help defray grocery costs through the shutdown.
▪ Politico: Senate Republicans considering bill to keep SNAP benefits flowing amid the shutdown
▪ The Hill: Shutdown set to impact SNAP funding in many states
TRUMP FACES PUSHBACK OVER DOJ PAYOFF: Trump is catching flak from members of both parties over his reported plan to seek some $230 million from the Department of Justice as a settlement for past probes and prosecutions over his conduct.
Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Robert Garcia (Calif.), the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees, respectively, announced an investigation into the potential payoff on Thursday.
“Your plan to have your obedient underlings at the Department of Justice (DOJ) instruct the U.S. Treasury to pay you, personally, hundreds of millions of dollars—especially at a time when most Americans are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and afford health care—is an outrageous and shocking attempt to shake down the American people,” the two wrote in a letter to Trump.
Some Republicans are uncomfortable with the idea, too, according to The Hill’s Alex Bolton.
“At the very least it’s horrible timing given that we’re in a shutdown,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters on Wednesday. “I got a lot of optics concerns and I just don’t know if there’s precedent for it. There doesn’t seem to be.”
“I don’t know a thing about it so I’m not going to comment, but it sounds very irregular to me,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Trump on Monday said he wasn’t aware of the dollar figure and that he would donate the money to charity, but he also acknowledged the unusual nature of being involved in a decision that stands to enrich him greatly.
“It’s interesting because I’m the one that makes the decision. And that decision would have to go across my desk,” Trump said Monday. “And it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I am paying myself. Did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you are paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged greatly, and any money I would get I would give to charity.”
When & Where
The president takes off for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 10:40 p.m. On Sunday, he’ll meet with the heads of Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand and have a working dinner with ASEAN leaders at the start of an Asia tour.
The House and Senate are out.
Zoom In
FBI NETS NBA TRIO: A basketball Hall-of-Famer was among three current and former players arrested on Thursday in what FBI Director Kash Patel called a “mind-boggling” fraud case linked to the mafia.
Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, former Cleveland Cavaliers guard Damon Jones and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, who was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a player last year, were charged in two cases dealing with insider sports betting and an illegal poker-rigging scheme.
▪ Fox News: ESPN star Stephen A. Smith makes Trump warning after FBI’s illegal gambling probe nets NBA figures
In the sports betting case, dubbed “Operation Nothing But Bet,” the indictment accuses six defendants of using access to inside information, including which players would be sitting out of games, to unlawfully place bets. Rozier and Jones are both charged in that scheme.
U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr., speaking alongside other law enforcement officials at a press conference in Brooklyn, called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
In the poker case, 32 defendants are accused of rigging poker games by using wireless cheating technology, luring “fish” to play in games alongside former athletes. Billups and Jones were allegedly among those to participate in the poker games as “face cards.”
“What the victims, the fish, didn’t know is that everybody else at the poker game, from the dealer to the players, including the face cards, were in on the scam. Once the game was underway, the defendants fleeced the victims out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game. The defendants used a variety of very sophisticated cheating technologies,” said Nocella.
The technology used included altered shuffling machines that could read the decks, X-ray machines that could read cards through the table when placed face down, and glasses with hidden cameras.
Patel said the arrests were part of an investigation that spanned years and was conducted across 11 states. He said the schemes funded La Cosa Nostra, a collection of various crime families.
“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the NBA said in a statement. “Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups are being placed on immediate leave from their teams, and we will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”
An attorney for Rozier, Jim Trusty, denied the player was part of any wrongdoing.
Elsewhere
TRUMP, XI SET A DATE: A date has been set for Trump’s much-anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping amid an escalating trade war.
The leaders of the world’s superpowers will meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in South Korea on Oct. 30, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.
It will come at the tail end of Trump’s tour through Asia, set to begin this weekend, with stops also planned in Malaysia and Japan.
Trump is setting sky-high expectations for the summit.
“We’ll make a deal on, I think, everything,” Trump told reporters at the White House during a meeting with NATO’s secretary-general on Wednesday.
“I think we’re going to make a deal on soybeans and the farmers. I think we’re going to make a deal on maybe even nuclear [weapons],” he said.
Trump said China’s move to impose export controls on rare earth minerals was “the least of it,” adding “tariffs are much more powerful than the rare earth.”
The meeting will be the first face-to-face for the leaders since Trump returned to the White House. They last met in person in 2019 but have had at least three phone calls this year.
“I think we’re going to come out very well and everyone’s going to be very happy,” Trump said Thursday regarding his sit-down with Xi.
A trade truce between the U.S. and China is set to expire on Nov. 10 unless it’s extended. Trump also announced steep new sanctions on China over its rare earth export controls, which are set to take effect on Nov. 1.
▪ Roll Call: Must-see summit: Global audience awaits Trump-Xi meeting
▪ Brookings: What’s at stake during Trump’s visit to Asia?
Opinion
Jasmine Crockett eyeing revenge with potential Senate bid, opinion article by Lindsey Granger, co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising.”
The Secretive Office Approving Trump’s Boat Strikes, guest essay by Jameel Jaffer in The New York Times
The Closer
And finally … New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is endorsing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as his replacement — and just in the Knick of time.
Following the final New York City mayoral debate on Wednesday night, Adams conspicuously sidled up to Cuomo courtside at a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden.
He made the planned endorsement official on Thursday, appearing with Cuomo on a sidewalk outside a New York City Housing Authority development in East Harlem.
“Brothers fight,” Adams said of Cuomo. “But when families are attacked, brothers come together.”
Just last month, Adams called the former governor a “snake and a liar.”
Zohran Mamdani, the State Assembly member who beat out Cuomo for the Democratic nomination, had a very brief response to Wednesday night’s joint appearance.
“Corruption goes courtside,” Mamdani posted to X, in response to Cuomo’s picture of him sitting with Adams.
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