Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.
On today's podcast:
1) Republican opposition to President Trump’s deal with Democrats to end the partial US government shutdown began to crumble late Monday despite the ongoing a standoff over the administration’s immigration crackdown. Trump implored House Republicans in a social media post to pass the spending measure immediately and with no changes. Soon after, two conservative holdouts — Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Tim Burchett of Tennessee — said they agreed after a talk with the White House to end their threatened blockade, clearing the way to a Tuesday vote on the bipartisan agreement. House Speaker Mike Johnson had faced a tricky path to clear a Senate-passed spending package — the product of a negotiation between Trump and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. That measure would fund most agencies through Sept. 30, and the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13, preserving funding for immigration raids while both parties negotiate changes to enforcement policies.
2) President Trump said he’s seeking $1 billion in “damages” from Harvard University after the New York Times reported that his administration had backed off demands for $200 million to satisfy accusations of wrongdoing by the Ivy League institution. Trump didn’t specify under what authority he would seek the $1 billion. Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In an article earlier Monday, the Times reported that administration officials had dropped their demands for the $200 million “amid sagging approval ratings for Mr. Trump, and as he faces outrage over immigration enforcement tactics and the shooting deaths of two Americans by federal agents in Minnesota.”
3) Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will appear before a congressional committee investigating the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, their lawyers said Monday. A full House vote had been planned this week to hold the Clintons in criminal contempt if they continued to defy subpoenas in its inquiry into Epstein and his activities. Bill Clinton has previously said that he parted ways with Epstein many years before his death in a New York jail cell in 2019, and that he had no knowledge of his crimes.
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