Government shutdown reside updates: Biden indicators funding invoice after chaotic scramble in Congress

Peter Mandelson’s nomination as Britain’s new ambassador to the United States has provoked fury within Donald Trump’s team, with one insider decribing it as a “horrible, arrogant” choice and his campaign coordinator publicly calling the Labour peer a “moron.”

The choice of the former EU commissioner and Blair-era minister, who previously attacked Mr Trump as “little short of a white nationalist and racist”, prompted a warning that Britain will be “locked out of the most important discussions” with the president-elect’s team because of a lack of trust.

Lord Mandelson’s appointment to Washington means the three people charged with building relations with the incoming administration have all insulted Mr Trump: foreign secretary David Lammy once tweeted that Mr Trump is a “tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”, while foreign minister Stephen Doughty organised a 2017 petition to stop Mr Trump addressing a joint sitting of parliament.

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After announcing a 25 percent tariff on the U.S. largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, and threatening to increase tariffs on China, Trump has now targeted the E.U.

“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social around 1 a.m. Friday.

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Lord Peter Mandelson has made a career of comebacks – from spin doctor to returning to cabinet after quitting twice – and is back again as Britain’s ambassador to the US.

It marks the first political appointment to the UK’s top diplomatic post in Washington in decades.

Peter Mandelson started out as a Labour communications director in 1985 and was first elected as an MP in 1992. He served in the cabinets of Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Donald Trump – who returns to the White House in January, four years after being ousted – may relate to his comeback story.

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Tech podcaster Kara Swisher told Axios this week that she is attempting to round up a group of wealthy investors to put together a bid to purchase The Washington Post amid its ongoing turmoil under Jeff Bezos’ ownership.

Even though Bezos has not expressed any willingness or interest in selling the paper, Swisher believes that the ultra-rich Amazon founder will look to unload the Post due to the compounding headaches swirling around the outlet – many of which lie at the mega-billionaire’s feet.

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The pen may not be mightier than the sword, but it still has the power to wound. How else to explain the extraordinary remarks of the former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, this week in which he revealed how stung he’d been by an editorial in The Times?

You’d think Russia’s elite had enough problems on their hands at the moment. Roaring inflation and interest rates. Sanctions. Labour shortages. The spiralling cost of war. The mounting casualties in Ukraine. But, no, it was an editorial penned by an unknown hand in London that really got under the skin of Putin’s close ally, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s security council.

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Congress did not act on Trump’s demand to raise the debt ceiling, a politically difficult task, before he takes office on 20 January.

The late-night vote in the Senate capped a frantic week that saw president-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk defeat an initial bipartisan deal, throwing Congress into disarray.

The final version stripped out some provisions championed by Democrats, who accused Republicans of caving in to pressure from an unelected billionaire who has no experience in government.

The package had earlier cleared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives with bipartisan support.

The US Congress has just passed a spending legislation in a down-to-the wire burst of activity that will avert a destabilising government shutdown ahead of the busy holiday travel season.

Democratic-controlled Senate in an 85-11 vote passed the bill to continue government funding 38 minutes after it expired at midnight (5am GMT Saturday). The government did not invoke shutdown procedures in the interim.

The bill will now be sent it to White House, where President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law.

Chuck Schumer said that the Senate would vote and pass the continuing resolution by the deadline of 12.01am ET.

“Democrats and Republicans have reached — just reached an agreement that will allow us to pass the CR tonight before the midnight deadline,” he said.