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▪ Hostages released as Trump addresses Knesset
▪ Mass shutdown layoffs begin
▪ Virginia Dems back up Spanberger
▪ New Orleans picks new leader
All 20 living hostages still held by Hamas have officially been released after more than two years of captivity, a monumental step in the push to bring an end to the war in Gaza.
It came as President Trump traveled to the Middle East and was set to address the Israeli Knesset. He signed the guestbook ahead of his speech while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.
“This is my great honor — a great and beautiful day. A new beginning,” Trump wrote in large marker in the book.
The president left the U.S. late Sunday afternoon and arrived in Israel Monday morning. He was greeted by Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the runway.
Video showed Trump meeting with and hearing from the families of the hostages ahead of his Knesset address.
Parlimentary staff reportedly handed out red caps with the phrase “Trump the peace president” ahead of the speech.
After leaving Israel, Trump is set to travel to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for a peace summit featuring a wide range of European and Arab leaders and foreign ministers, including from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he will chair the summit with Trump.
The Israeli government and Hamas, the militant group that has controlled Gaza since 2007, agreed to the first phase of Trump’s peace plan last week, setting up the hostage release.
The Israeli military has withdrawn from most of Gaza as part of the first step of implementing the plan. The first phase also included the freeing of the hostages who were taken captive during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that launched the conflict and the release of about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Hamas is also set to return the bodies of 26 deceased hostages for burial. Aid, including food, water, medicine and other supplies, has started to flow into Gaza in significant quantities as part of the agreement’s first phase, addressing widespread starvation that has dominated the territory for months.
Trump’s 20-point plan calls for much broader steps to set a path forward for Gaza, including Hamas agreeing to disarm and to have no role in a new government to rule the area. A “board of peace,” chaired by Trump, would temporarily oversee the day-to-day operations of Gaza in transition until the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, has made reforms and can take control.
But Hamas hasn’t fully agreed to disarm and step aside, while Netanyahu has affirmed that he won’t allow for the establishment of a full Palestinian state, leaving uncertainty about the next steps of implementing Trump’s proposal.
Still, the ceasefire and hostage release agreement seems to be the best chance yet at bringing an end to the war after more than two years of fighting. Two previous ceasefires, one soon after the start of the war in November 2023 and another during the first few months of 2025, both ended in renewed fighting.
At the same time, the peace agreement has given Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky optimism that Trump will be able to also help end the war with Russia, which has lasted more than three and a half years. Trump indicated openness on Sunday to sending Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles if the Kremlin doesn’t end the war soon.
The peace agreement has also cast a fresh spotlight on Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who served as a senior White House adviser during his first term but has stepped back during the second term. Kushner has been a key player in negotiations for the deal alongside Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East.
The Hill’s Laura Kelly and Brett Samuels report that Kushner hasn’t had a formal role in the second Trump administration, but Witkoff has kept him in the loop about Middle East efforts and Kushner’s involvement increased as a deal got closer. Kushner was a key negotiator in the 2020 Abraham Accords, which resulted in several Arab countries recognizing and normalizing relations with Israel.
“I put Jared there because he’s a very smart person and he knows the region, knows the people, knows a lot of the players,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Thursday.
Trump administration officials on Monday hailed the release of hostages as the peace plan progresses.
Witkoff said in a statement posted on the social platform X that he didn’t think he would see the day when the hostages were released. He credited Trump with securing the deal, saying it wouldn’t have been possible without him.
“It’s deeply gratifying to know that so many families will finally have their loved ones home. Today, twenty families are spared the unbearable pain of not knowing if they will ever see their loved ones again,” Witkoff said. “But even in this moment of relief and happiness, my heart aches for those whose loved ones will not return alive. Bringing their bodies home is a must and an act of dignity and honors their memory forever.”
▪ The Hill: Biden national security adviser says Trump should get credit on Gaza deal.
▪ The New York Times: Qatari prime minister says Israel, Hamas weren’t ready for comprehensive deal.
3 Things to Know Today
1. Trump has chosen longtime aide Dan Scavino as the new head of the White House Presidential Personnel Office. Scavino will replace Sergio Gor, whom Trump nominated as ambassador to India.
2. Knives are coming out for California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter after multiple videos of her have yielded considerable backlash. In one video, she tried to end an interview while voicing frustration over the reporter’s follow-up questions, while in another she berates a staffer for entering her live shot while recording a video.
3. Columbus Day is on Monday in honor of the 15th century Italian explorer, suspending mail delivery in observance of the federal holiday. In proclaiming Columbus Day, Trump broke with former President Biden, who became the first U.S. president to declare Indigenous Peoples Day alongside the holiday for Columbus.
Leading the Day
MASS LAYOFFS: Thousands of federal employees have been laid off as the government shutdown approaches two full weeks, with the Trump administration following through on threats to reduce the federal workforce in an attempt to push Democrats to agree to the GOP’s funding demands.
A court filing from the Department of Justice shows more than 4,100 employees were laid off on Friday from various government departments and agencies.
The White House warned that mass layoffs would happen if Democrats didn’t vote for the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open at current spending levels until Nov. 21, but didn’t immediately move on that once funding ran out at the start of October.
Some of the most significant layoffs happened at the Treasury Department, with 1,446 employees receiving reduction in force (RIF) notices Friday. More than 1,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 400 each at the Department of Education and Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than 300 at the Commerce Department and more than 175 each at the Energy Department and Department of Homeland Security were also affected.
A court battle had already begun even before the layoffs started. The American Federation of Government Employees, the country’s largest federal employee union, sued just before the government shut down to prevent any mass layoffs.
That union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees argue that the federal government can only furlough workers during a shutdown and not permanently eliminate their roles.
A hearing is set to take place this week on the case.
It’s the latest way that the White House has tried to raise pressure on Democrats to fold and vote to reopen the government. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) both brushed off the threat after the administration’s warnings, saying they expected that courts would block any layoffs or they would be reversed, as has happened during earlier rounds of layoffs.
More than 1,000 employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were notified that they were laid off, but the administration reportedly moved to reverse some of those notices over the weekend.
At the same time, pressure has been rising on Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to act as members of the military are currently set to miss their first paycheck if the government doesn’t reopen by Wednesday. Trump directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use all “available funds” to pay military service members during the shutdown.
Still, a growing number of House Republicans are expressing frustration with Johnson for extending the House’s recess and not bringing the body back for a legislative fix to ensure servicemembers are paid, The Hill’s Mike Lillis reports.
Numerous House Republicans voiced their concerns on a conference-wide call Thursday with GOP leadership’s strategy of keeping the House out of session while the shutdown continues. Lillis reports that Johnson has sent mixed messages on the issue, showing at one point last week an openness to a standalone measure on military and air traffic controller pay and later signaling the onus is on Democrats.
“We have voted so many times to pay the troops. We have already done it. We did it in the House three weeks ago,” Johnson told reporters Friday. “The ball is in the court of Senate Democrats right now. That’s it.”
Republicans as a whole are on defense on the issue of health care, which Democrats have centered as their key sticking point in the standoff. Democrats insist the CR include an extension of expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel reports that Democrats are feeling increasingly emboldened about their position and don’t intend to back down as Republicans had hoped. Republicans have refused to consider Democrats’ proposal, repeatedly rejecting their alternative CR.
The other effects of the shutdown are also increasingly being felt. Hundreds of Transportation Security Administration workers, who are required to continue working during the shutdown without pay, have called in sick, resulting in worsening lines at airports.
The Smithsonian Institution closed its museums, research centers and the National Zoo on Sunday after running out of funding that had allowed it to remain open for a temporary window during the government shutdown.
▪ The Hill: Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) says Trump willing to ‘take the heat’ on layoffs.
▪ The Hill: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) says GOP commitment on subsidies vote not enough to reopen the government.
SOUND FAMILIAR? A prominent New Yorker is facing allegations of real estate fraud in a high-profile case that is raising accusations of a politically motivated prosecution.
That was the case with Trump two years ago when he faced a civil fraud trial against his business, the Trump Organization, leading to his being found liable for fraud and ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties. The penalty was voided on appeal, but the finding against Trump and his business was upheld in August.
Now, the roles are reversed as New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), who brought the case against Trump, is facing a criminal indictment on charges of bank fraud and false statements to a financial institution. The Justice Department has accused her of mortgage fraud, stemming from the purchase of a home in Norfolk, Va., under terms that required her to use the property as a secondary residence.
But she purportedly rented it out, allowing her to save thousands of dollars during the life of a loan.
James has denied the allegations, and she and others have accused the Trump administration of political interference in the justice system. The acting U.S. attorney who brought the case against James, Lindsey Halligan, was picked by Trump after the previous prosecutor resigned amid reported pressure to bring the case against the New York Democrat.
The Trump and James cases have several key differences, including that Trump’s was a civil case with a lower burden of proof required to find him liable. Trump has also been found liable in a court of law, while James’s case is just beginning as an initial hearing hasn’t happened yet.
But The Hill’s Ella Lee reports that the parallels between the cases could both bolster Trump’s efforts to discredit James and emphasize critics’ accusations of the justice system being weaponized against Trump’s foes.
James is the second high-profile opponent of the president’s to face charges, following former FBI Director James Comey, who has pleaded not guilty to charges brought by the administration.
▪ CBS 6 Albany: Officials rally in Albany to support James.
▪ ABC News: Attorney General Pam Bondi, Justice Department officials caught off-guard by James indictment.
GUARD ON PAUSE: A federal appeals court has paused Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago as he expands his use of the military in major U.S. cities.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit restored Trump’s control of the guard in Illinois but prevented him from being able to deploy troops. The lawsuit came from Gov. JB Pritzker (D) and Chicago leaders.
Pritzker pointed to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s (R) opposition to Texas sending National Guard troops to Illinois in tandem with Trump federalizing Illinois’s troops. Stitt questioned Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) decision to send about 200 troops to Chicago, raising concerns about states’ rights.
“We’ve got to all stand together because there [are] truly unconstitutional actions that are coming out of this administration, coming at the states and the people of the United States and all of us, Democrats and Republicans, need to speak out about it,” Pritzker said in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week.”
The move from the appeals court mirrors one from another appeals court that blocked Trump’s ability to deploy troops in Portland, Ore., but reinstated his federalization of the guard.
▪ The Hill: Vice President Vance says Pritzker should ‘suffer some consequences’ for handling of Chicago crime.
▪ The Hill: Most states planning to withdraw troops from Washington, D.C., this fall.
▪ The Hill: National Guard troops seen patrolling Memphis streets for first time.
MTG’S ISOLATION: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has split with her party on several high-profile issues in recent months, puzzling and exasperating her fellow Republicans, The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports.
Greene told Brooks that she hasn’t changed since her first run for Congress in 2020.
“I am 100 percent the same person today as I was when I ran for Congress,” Greene said.
But several of the congresswoman’s Republican colleagues and GOP sources told Brooks they’ve been thrown off by Greene’s positions. She’s one of just four House Republicans to sign a discharge petition that would force a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files despite Republican leadership’s opposition to it.
She’s the only congressional Republican who declared Israel’s conduct in Gaza to be a “genocide” And she’s broken with her party in expressing concern about the ObamaCare subsidies set to expire and how that would affect health care costs.
Greene also criticized the Trump administration’s handling of deportations, saying on a podcast over the weekend that a “smarter” plan “than just rounding up every single person and deporting them” is needed.
Through all of this, Greene has maintained that she’s a strong supporter of Trump, though she told NBC News that she’s not a “blind slave.”
“I’m sick and tired of Republicans in Congress not passing the agenda, not doing what they say they’re going to do, not governing the way they campaign,” Greene said.
Where and When
The president is scheduled to participate in a Middle East peace ceremony in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday before returning to the U.S. later in the day.
The House and Senate will not convene today.
Zoom In
VIRGINIA DEMS CIRCLE THE WAGON: Virginia Democrats are standing behind gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger’s response to the Jay Jones texting scandal that has shaken up the commonwealth’s elections with less than a month before votes are counted.
The texts from Jones, the Democratic nominee for state attorney general, in which he called for violence against then-state House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R) in 2022, have rocked Virginia. Spanberger has repeatedly denounced Jones’s texts but stopped short of calling on him to drop out, including at her debate last week with Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP nominee for governor.
Earle-Sears and other Republicans have put pressure on Spanberger to call for Jones to drop out of his race against incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R).
But Democrats told The Hill’s Julia Manchester that they believe Spanberger’s approach has been the right one.
“She basically said, ‘I’m accountable for my own words.’ She was very clear on that,” state House Speaker Don Scott (D) told Manchester after the debate. “She has vehemently denounced anything that he has said but she said she has to run her own race.”
Jones has apologized for the texts and said he wishes he could take his words back, but he hasn’t indicated he’s considered leaving the race.
A major event is set for Thursday when Jones and Miyares will face off on the debate stage, the only scheduled debate of the contest. It’ll come as polls have shown Jones’s lead over Miyares narrowing, particularly since the revelation of the texts.
Earle-Sears trails Spanberger by 6 points in the Decision Desk HQ polling average. The Hill’s Lexi Lonas Cochran reports on how Earle-Sears has struggled to gain traction on the issue of education, which was a rallying point and arguably the winning issue for outgoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) in his 2021 victory.
Experts said the political environment is much different from that of four years ago, causing parents’ rights in education and transgender issues to take more of a backseat in the contest to economic concerns.
▪ Bloomberg: GOP trying to beat the odds in two races without Trump on the ballot.
▪ WTOP: Did Virginia’s gubernatorial debate change voters’ minds?
Elsewhere
NEW MAYOR: New Orleans has chosen its next mayor as its current leader is under criminal indictment and as the city faces the prospect of a National Guard deployment.
Helena Moreno (D), a member of the New Orleans City Council who previously served as its president, easily won a crowded election to lead Louisiana’s largest city. She ran in a blanket primary in which the top two performers usually advance to face each other in the general election regardless of party, but she won a majority of the vote on Saturday, making a runoff unnecessary.
Moreno will become the second female mayor of New Orleans, following incumbent Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who is term limited. But Cantrell is facing her own legal challenges as she winds down her second term as mayor, having been indicted in August on charges of a criminal cover-up related to an affair she allegedly had with a local police officer.
She’s accused of using tens of thousands of dollars in city money for trips with the officer for “personal activities” and has been charged with making false statements and false declarations before a grand jury, conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Cantrell, who has pleaded not guilty, had been under investigation for years before the indictment was brought.
Moreno’s election also comes at a critical moment as Trump has floated sending troops into New Orleans, as he’s done with other major Democratic-led cities. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) has voiced support for the idea of Trump sending troops there.
▪ Fox 8 WVUE: New leadership in New Orleans.
TAKE TWO: French President Emmanuel Macron has reappointed Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to try to keep the government alive after Lecornu handed in his resignation as the governing coalition appeared set to collapse.
Lecornu had resigned last week amid fractures in the coalition made up of Macron’s centrists and the conservative Republicans. That made Lecornu’s tenure as prime minister, less than a month long, the shortest in the history of the French Fifth Republic.
He’ll now take another shot at holding the government together, but with the coalition not having a majority in the National Assembly, challenges are ahead for Macron through the rest of his term, set to end in 2027.
▪ The Associated Press: New French Cabinet faces uphill battle to end political crisis.
TRUMP TARIFFS: The president’s ongoing trade war with China took a new turn on Friday after he announced a 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods starting Nov. 1 or sooner.
Trump’s decision came in response to Beijing tightening its control over certain critical minerals and rare earth elements.
“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The Chinese government announced last week that foreign entities would need to obtain a license to export products containing more than 0.1 percent of rare earth elements that are sourced in China or manufactured using its extraction process. This is notable as China controls roughly 70 percent of the world’s rare metals and earths.
These materials are used in products like cars, semiconductors and electronics.
Trump slammed the move as “absolutely unheard of” in international trade. He also suggested he might not meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a planned summit in South Korea.
That could also have implications for Trump as he tries to finalize a deal on spinning off TikTok as a U.S. company.
Opinion
How to reopen the government: Rebrand ObamaCare as ‘TrumpCare,’ writes Blake Narendra, the former adviser to the Federal Trade Commission chair, in The Hill
Is it America’s fate to decline and fall? Here’s what history says, writes Washington Post opinion contributor Johan Norberg
The Closer
And finally … Former NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez has been released from the hospital and from jail after an altercation he allegedly engaged in that resulted in him being stabbed and arrested.
Sanchez, who played for several teams over a decade-long career and has been an analyst for Fox Sports, was booked into the Marion County Jail in Indiana after he was released from the hospital on Sunday. He’s facing a felony battery charge and multiple misdemeanors after he allegedly attacked a truck driver, Perry Tole, outside a hotel in Indianapolis earlier this month, ESPN reported.
After Sanchez entered the truck without permission and shoved Tole, the driver used pepper spray on Sanchez and later used a knife to defend himself, officials have said.
Sanchez told a local Indianapolis reporter upon leaving the jail that he’s focused on his recovery and thanked his surgeon, whom he said “saved my life.”
