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In today’s issue:
▪ Trump hails ‘truly great’ Xi meeting
▪ Signs of life on ending shutdown
▪ MTG irks Republican colleagues
▪ Far-right gets setback in Dutch elections
President Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on a wide range of subjects during their much-anticipated meeting Thursday, including the key issues of tariffs and access to rare earth materials.
It was their first face-to-face meeting in six years, going back to Trump’s first term. Their relationship has been rocky at times as they’ve been critical of one another, only to later cool tensions as leaders of the world’s two biggest superpowers.
The conference in South Korea came at the end of Trump’s Asia tour, in which he also traveled to Malaysia and Japan.
Here’s what to know from the meeting:
Trump hails ‘truly great’ Xi meeting
The president said in a post on Truth Social following the meeting that the “enormous respect” the two countries have for each other will only be enhanced based on what happened during his meeting.
He said Xi authorized China to purchase “massive amounts of Soybeans, Sorghum, and other Farm products” that will support U.S. farmers. China had been boycotting these products in protest of the tariffs Trump had placed on the country.
Trump said Beijing agreed to a one-year pause on new restrictions it enacted earlier this month on the export of rare earth materials and critical minerals, which has been the source of significant tension between Trump and China.
The pause is another win for Trump on this issue as he has prioritized it since China put the restrictions in place. He signed several deals earlier in the trip with Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Japan to gain U.S. access to these materials in response to China’s earlier action.
Trump said on Truth Social that Xi also agreed for China to help stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
The president said he would accordingly cut in half the 20 percent tariffs he had imposed to pressure China to take more action to address fentanyl trafficking. That will bring overall tariffs on Chinese goods down from 57 percent to about 47 percent.
Trump said China would also start “the process of purchasing American Energy,” and a “large scale transaction” may happen on the purchase of oil and gas from Alaska. He said the countries’ energy teams would be meeting to try to reach a deal.
The meeting with Xi concluded after less than two hours, with the two leaders having a cordial exchange before Xi got into a car and Trump made his way to Air Force One to return to the U.S.
The leaders seem likely to meet again, as a Chinese readout of the meeting stated that Trump would travel to China next year and Trump invited Xi to visit the U.S.
Shadow of Trump’s nuclear announcement
The meeting began shortly after Trump made news by directing the Pentagon to resume testing nuclear weapons on an equal basis to Russia and China.
“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately,” he said on Truth Social.
The renewal of nuclear weapons testing would end a more than three-decade hiatus on tests that started in 1992, just one year after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
Trump ignored a question from a reporter about the move while meeting with Xi.
A recent Russian test of a nuclear-capable cruise missile received international condemnation, including from Trump, who called it “inappropriate” as he’s trying to reach a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump touted the “complete update and renovation” of existing nuclear weapons that he conducted during his first term. He said he “hated” to do it but had no choice.
China has built up its nuclear arsenal in recent years, reaching about 600 warheads this year, but it conducted its last nuclear test in 1996. Russia’s test of a nuclear-capable missile didn’t include a detonation.
But the announcement could signal a return to an arms race and heightened tensions around nuclear weapons that hasn’t been seen in years.
Other issues left alone
Trump and Xi did not announce any major breakthroughs on other issues that received heightened attention heading into the meeting.
That includes the finalization of the sale of TikTok, which Trump has prioritized and suggested was close. The status of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as Chinese territory but the U.S. considers to be ambiguous, was also viewed as a key topic potentially for the agenda.
Trump also didn’t make any announcement regarding the issue of Americans being unjustly detained in China. As many as 200 U.S. citizens are thought to be unjustly held.
Ahead of the meeting, Republicans hawkish on China urged Trump to press Xi on releasing Americans unjustly detained and ending religious persecution of civil society activists, The Hill’s Laura Kelly reported.
Trump also left for Washington without meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the trip, as had been speculated. Trump expressed openness to meeting with Kim while in Asia, but nothing was ultimately scheduled.
The president commented on the conflict between North and South Korea, telling the South Korean prime minister that ending the standoff is “common sense.” But he said his and Kim’s schedules didn’t line up.
Despite the lack of developments on these issues, Trump declared the multi-country trip a success.
He also took a shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for calling Trump’s Asia trip a “total dud.” The president called Schumer’s comments “almost treasonous” on Truth Social.
“Worked really hard, 24/7, took in Trillions of Dollars, and Chuck Schumer said trip was ‘a total dud,’ even though he knows it was a spectacular success,” Trump wrote.
▪ Bloomberg: “Chinese markets under pressure as Xi-Trump meeting lacks surprise.”
▪ Reuters: Trump-Xi meeting cools tensions.
Follow The Hill’s live coverage of the day here.
NEW THIS A.M.: Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) and Republican Jack Ciattarelli are essentially tied in the latest poll of the New Jersey gubernatorial race released this morning.
The survey from Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill showed Sherrill leading by 1 point, 49 percent support to 48 percent, with 2 percent of respondents undecided. The 3-point margin of error means statistically the candidates are even.
Sherrill’s lead grows to 2 points when undecided respondents are asked which candidate they’re leaning toward, still within the margin of error.
The margin is closer than Sherrill’s lead of roughly 5 points in the Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) polling average, but it points to the increasingly competitive nature of the race as it comes down to the wire.
Ciattarelli is trying to pull off an upset in the Garden State, building off his narrow 3-point loss in the governor’s race to Gov. Phil Murphy (D) four years ago. Ciattarelli outperformed polls that year to make it a much closer race than anticipated.
The polls for this year’s race are closer than at this point in 2021, but Ciattarelli will still need to outperform again to pull off a win.
Meanwhile, in the Big Apple, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani holds a comfortable 25-point lead over Andrew Cuomo, who’s running as an independent, in New York City’s mayoral race. Mamdani draws 50 percent support to Cuomo’s 25 percent while Republican Curtis Sliwa gets 21 percent and 4 percent say they’re undecided.
The poll, also from Emerson, PIX11 and The Hill, is an improvement for Mamdani from the survey last month, which had him leading by 15 points. It further demonstrates the likelihood that Mamdani is on his way to being elected mayor of the country’s largest city next week.
The Hill’s Niall Stanage reports how the race has become a microcosm of the internal struggles within the Democratic Party, including between the progressive and moderate wings and between the establishment and outsiders.
Wednesday also marked the last weekly snapshot from DDHQ of the year’s key races ahead of Election Day on Tuesday.
Other than the New Jersey and New York City races, the DDHQ tracker shows former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) in a strong position to win the Virginia gubernatorial race next week over Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R). Spanberger leads by almost 8 points on average.
At the same time, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) leads Democratic candidate Jay Jones by 3 points in the competitive race, which for the past month has been dominated by the texts that Jones sent in 2022 wishing for violence against a political opponent.
In California, Democrats are feeling optimistic about a ballot measure being voted on next week on whether the state Legislature should be able to redraw its congressional map. The measure, proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in response to Republican efforts to redraw congressional lines, could add up to five additional Democratic seats in the House in next year’s midterms.
A new tracker for the proposal, known as Proposition 50, shows almost a 20-point advantage for those in favor of the measure compared with those opposed.
▪ The New York Times: Mamdani wouldn’t be New York City’s first immigrant mayor.
▪ Philadelphia Inquirer: “New Jersey gubernatorial hopefuls rely on a small slice of the state for cash.”
3 Things to Know Today
1. The Supreme Court requested additional information before it decides whether Trump can deploy the National Guard in Chicago. This suggests a ruling may still be weeks away.
2. Nvidia became the first company in the world to reach a $5 trillion valuation, just months after it became the first to reach $4 trillion. The chipmaker has seen a meteoric rise with the rapid growth of AI.
3. A jury has convicted an Illinois sheriff’s deputy of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 for help last year.
Leading the Day
SOME SHUTDOWN MOVEMENT: After weeks of almost no movement on any issue related to the government shutdown, lawmakers are starting to get serious about bringing it to an end.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he expects to engage “pretty soon” with a group of rank-and-file Senate Democrats about ending the shutdown. Meanwhile, Democrats are showing some signs of willingness to support measures to reduce the hurt while the shutdown is ongoing.
Democrats have said they’re open to a proposal from Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) to pay all federal workers, including those furloughed and deemed essential, during the shutdown. One caveat is that it wouldn’t restrict Trump’s ability to continue layoffs during the shutdown.
Democrats have said they need time to review it.
Schumer also said Democrats would support a bill proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to continue to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) amid the shutdown. Timing is particularly key for that bill as those receiving benefits through the program are due to receive them for November on Saturday, but funding hasn’t been provided for the program.
Still, Democrats also introduced their own competing bill to fund SNAP, leading Thune to rail against his Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor.
“This isn’t a political game,” Thune said. “These are real people’s lives that we’re talking about. And you all just figured out 29 days in that, ‘Oh, there might be some consequences. There are people who’ll run out of money?’”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said it won’t use reserve funds to continue providing benefits for the 40 million Americans who use SNAP, as the funds should only be used in cases of natural disasters and not government shutdowns.
The bills under consideration show how Democrats are wobbling a bit in the face of increased pressure to end the shutdown after almost a month, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports. They show how Democrats are looking to ease the pain of the funding lapse, which is set to affect even more Americans starting in November, without a clear end.
The Hill’s Sudiksha Kochi reports on six ways the shutdown could get worse for Americans without government intervention.
But a continuing resolution to end the funding lapse still seems elusive, as even these proposals under consideration are just measures to reduce the pain of the shutdown but not end it.
Bolton reports how Republicans and Democrats are each looking for offramps to end the stalemate as soon as next week but are unsure of how to do it. But one thing that is certain is that fatigue with the shutdown is only growing by the day.
▪ The New York Times: “What can break the shutdown impasse?”
FED LOWERS INTEREST RATES: The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the second consecutive time Wednesday, despite a lack of data about the state of the jobs market amid the shutdown.
The Fed lowered rates by a quarter point, down to a range of 3.75 to 4 percent, marking its second interest rate cut this year. The agency had maintained steady rates for most of the year, despite pressure from the president, as inflation continued to be higher than the Fed’s target.
As inflation eased and the job market weakened, the Fed shifted last month to reduce interest rates for the first time in 2025. Officials suggested in projections at the time that they would cut rates at least one more time this year.
But this time is a bit different from September with the Bureau of Labor Statistics mostly shuttered because of the shutdown. That means the Fed had no federal jobs report for October to work off of, causing it to have a less clear view of where the economy currently stands.
But the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed panel responsible for monetary policy, relied on a patchwork of private sector data, a delayed consumer price index and the Fed’s regular surveys of businesses and nonprofits for insight.
The decision to cut rates still didn’t come as a surprise for Wall Street traders and analysts, despite the lack of a jobs report.
“Although some important federal government data have been delayed due to the shutdown, the public and private-sector data that have remained available suggests that the outlook for employment and inflation has not changed much since our meeting in September,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told reporters.
▪ CNBC: Powell raises doubts about cutting rates at next meeting.
FEDERAL PROSECUTORS SUSPENDED: Two federal prosecutors were suspended hours after filing a sentencing memo describing Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack defendents as a “mob of rioters.”
Multiple outlets reported that Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White were told Wednesday that they were suspended and were locked out of their government devices. It came after they filed a memo recommending a 27-month sentence for Taylor Taranto, who with other Jan. 6 defendents received a pardon earlier this year from Trump.
Taranto is set to be sentenced on Friday for unrelated crimes, including threatening the National Institute of Standards and Technology and driving through former President Obama’s neighborhood with a van containing firearms and munition.
The prosecutors only discussed the Jan. 6 attack in a few lines of their 14-page sentencing memo, saying that a “mob of rioters” attacked the Capitol and Taranto was accused of participating in the “riot” by entering the Capitol. The memo also included the signature of Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
“While we don’t comment on personnel decisions, we want to make very clear that we take violence and threats of violence against law enforcement, current or former government officials extremely seriously,” Pirro said in a statement reported by multiple media outlets.
The suspensions appear to mark the latest example of the administration reframing the events of the Jan. 6 attack. The president and other allies have repeatedly downplayed the violence of the day, with Trump having called it a “day of love” during the 2024 campaign.
The Justice Department has also conducted a purge of prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases.
MELISSA DEATH TOLL RISES: The death toll from Hurricane Melissa is rising as the storm continues to move through the Caribbean.
Dozens are dead in Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti amid widespread destruction. The storm hit Jamaica first as a rare Category 5 hurricane, causing life-threatening storm surge and dangerous flooding.
At least 25 people have been killed and 18 are missing in Haiti, according to the country’s Civil Protection Agency. Twenty of those killed lived in a southern coastal town where flooding caused homes to collapse.
At least eight people have been killed in Jamaica.
The storm moved through Cuba and the Bahamas and is now on track to reach Bermuda before going back out into the Atlantic Ocean. It has weakened but is still expected to bring strong winds, rain and storm surge.
Relief efforts have already started in Jamaica with the storm passed, but more than three-quarters of the island nation lost electricity. A mayor of a coastal town said “catastrophic is a mild term based on what we are observing.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on the social platform X that the U.S. would send rescue and response teams along with supplies to the affected areas. He said the U.S. is in close contact with the governments of Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
▪ The New York Times: “Scenes from the Caribbean, as Hurricane Melissa hits.”
▪ NBC News: Melissa shows troubling pattern for major hurricanes.
Zoom In
MTG A THORN IN GOP’S SIDE: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is increasingly frustrating some of her Republican colleagues as she’s been outspoken in criticizing her own party over its strategy during the shutdown and for other moves.
Greene has split from most of the House Republican Conference in being one of a few Republicans to sign a discharge petition to require a vote on the House floor to release the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, an issue that House GOP leadership has sought to tamp down.
She’s also been increasingly critical of Republicans as the shutdown has continued. Most recently, she criticized House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for not offering details of an alternative health care plan that he said Republicans are working on. She also slammed Johnson for his decision to keep the House out of session for weeks while the shutdown has dragged on.
“Johnson said he’s got ideas and pages of policy ideas and committees of jurisdiction are working on it, but he refused to give one policy proposal to our GOP conference on our own conference call,” Greene said on X.
“Apparently I have to go into a SCIF to find out the Republican healthcare plan!!!” she added, referring to a secure area used to review classified material.
Earlier on, she broke with Republicans in calling Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza a “genocide.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) brushed off Greene’s comments on Wednesday, telling CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that people shouldn’t listen to Greene. He also suggested that Greene has shifted leftward politically.
It came after Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno (R) called on Greene to stop her public criticism of Johnson. He said she should “present an option” rather than simply “criticize what other people are doing.”
And Johnson himself also voiced exasperation earlier this month after Greene accused him of “hypocrisy” for his handling of controversy surrounding Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.).
“I try not to react to what Marjorie Taylor Greene says every day,” Johnson said.
Greene has defended herself against the criticism, insisting that she hasn’t changed, even as several of her colleagues say they’ve been thrown off by her positions.
To be sure, Greene is still one of Trump’s most passionate supporters and still demonstrates herself as a true believer in his MAGA and America First agenda. But the split from other Republicans in Congress is still notable.
“I am 100 percent the same person today as I was when I ran for Congress,” Greene said.
▪ Politico: Republicans are growing tired of Greene’s shutdown attacks.
▪ CBS News: Greene calls for Senate Republicans to go nuclear to end shutdown.
Elsewhere
WILDERS’S SETBACK: Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders’s party sustained notable losses in the Netherlands’s general election, though the race to lead a governing coalition in the Dutch Parliament seems up in the air.
Wilders’s right-wing populist Party for Freedom and the centrist Democrats 66 (D66) party appear to have tied with each party winning 26 seats each in the Dutch House of Representatives. The party that wins the most seats generally has the first opportunity to form a governing coalition, but what happens from here is unclear as no Dutch election has previously ended with two parties tied for the lead.
Wilders said his party should play a role in forming a coalition if it is the largest in Parliament.
“As long as there’s no 100% clarity on this, no D66 scout can get started. We will do everything we can to prevent this,” he said.
A scout is an official that a winning party appoints to look into forming a governing coalition, The Associated Press reported.
Final results may not be clear for a few days. But regardless of where the final numbers end up, Wilders’s party had a disappointing performance, while the centrist D66 saw major gains.
If this holds, it would be a major blow to Wilders after his party pulled off an upset in the 2023 elections to become the largest party in the country’s House of Representatives.
That was the first time the Party for Freedom had won the most seats. While it was still well short of a majority in the House, the party’s victory helped shift the Dutch government considerably to the right.
Wilders had earlier on acknowledged the disappointing performance for his Party for Freedom.
“The voter has spoken. We had hoped for a different outcome but we kept our backs straight. We are more determined to fight than ever and still the second and perhaps even largest party of the Netherlands,” Wilders said in a post on X.
▪ BBC: Centrists head for shock victory in Dutch election.
The Closer
And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for our weekly Morning Report Quiz!
Halloween is almost upon us, so this week will test your knowledge with this spooky-themed quiz.
Be sure to email your responses to jgans@thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will receive deserved newsletter fame on Friday.
What is the name of the ancient Celtic festival that is considered the origin of Halloween?
1. Dia de los Muertos
2. Samhain
3. All Saints’ Day
4. Saturnalia
How many seeds does the average pumpkin have?
1. 100
2. 500
3. 1,000
4. 1,250
How many movies have there been in the “Halloween” film franchise?
1. 8
2. 10
3. 13
4. 16
What is the most popular Halloween candy in the U.S., according to both DoorDash and Instacart?
1. M&M’s
2. Hershey’s chocolate bar
3. KitKat
4. Reese’s peanut butter cup
