Transcript of Shutdown Day 3, No Jobs Report, Trump Pressures Universities

The Senate votes for a fourth time on dueling bills to end the shutdown. Both are likely to fail. Republicans are sharing memes of Democrats in sombreros.

Do officials feel any urgency to reopen the government? So sorry. Do you feel any urgency to say the next line?

To do this show?

Take two, three.

I don't know what's happening, guys, but we're going to have a tough day.

It's all good. It's all good.

The Senate votes for a fourth time on dueling bills to end the shutdown. Both are likely to fail, and Republicans are sharing memes of Democrats in sombreros.

Do officials feel any urgency to reopen the government?

I'm Leila Fadel with Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. The people who compile the monthly jobs report were told not to finish the job.

I hope they can resolve this quickly and we can get back to our normal data releases.

Businesses and policy makers are flying blind, which other economic indicators are affected.

Also, what is the White House demanding from a handful of prominent universities? The administration asked them to sign a document supporting the President's priorities. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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People have real ethical and moral quandries about this. People are uncomfortable from the very beginning.

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Three days into a government shutdown, neither side is showing signs of giving ground.

The Trump administration has said it will take the opportunity to increase the pain on their fellow Americans by firing federal workers. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not warning them off.

Anytime you're in this situation, you have to manage a shutdown. Decisions have to be made about what to prioritize, where you're going to spend money. I expect there are going to be some decisions coming out about that. That wouldn't surprise me at all.

The Republican-led Senate will vote for the fourth time today on partisan stop-gap bills that are expected to fail.

Npr Congressional Correspondent Claudia Grisales has been reporting on all this and joins us now. Hi, Claudia. Good morning, Leila. Good morning. Why go through the motion of voting on these dueling bills when they don't have the votes?

Right. Leader Thun says this is a tactic to pressure Democrats to fold, let Republicans overcome a filibuster holding up government funding. They need Democrats to reach this required 60 vote threshold today, but we're not expecting them to help. So far, only three have defected to vote with Republicans. And as we know, the GOP only controls 53 Senate seats, so they need at least seven Democrats, probably more, as one Republican, Kentucky Senator, Rampal, is expected to vote no. The rest of the Democratic caucus has said they will not help unless Republicans address expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act or ACA program.

This is also a big issue for Americans. 20 million people could see their insurance premium spike, in some cases, double. If these expire, are Senate Republicans willing to talk at this point?

Not really. Not right now. A bipartisan group was in talks this week. I followed up with one member, Senator Mike Round of South Dakota. He said Republicans were simply trying to convince Democrats. First vote on this stop gap, known as a Continuing Resolution or CR. If they don't pass a short-term CR, there is no way of getting anything done in time to do the things that they want to with regard to ACA subsidies. He says these subsidies have to go through a separate bill that stuck behind this showdown. But for Democrats, there's a chance this is a bait and switch, so most are not budging for now.

Now, Vice President Vance was publicly insisting there's no rush to renew the subsidies since they don't take effect until next year. Is there plenty of time on this?

Well, Democrats would argue, no. These subsidies don't expire until the end of the year, but they say with open enrollment coming up next month, they say that needs to be handled now. You could say Democrats are fighting as well for a popular issue. Perhaps there's a political calculation here, too. Npr has reported that 24 million people are enrolled. They include influential voters, active voters, like small business owners, farmers, and ranchers.

So lawmakers went into this shutdown feeling it was inevitable. At this point, do they show any urgency about ending it?

Well, we didn't see much this week. We just saw a lot of posturing, for example, President Trump threatened mass layoffs, cutting, quote, Democratic agencies, and met with the head of management and budget, Russell, vote on the next steps there. But when I asked Republicans about these cuts, like you heard Thune there at the top, they say it's the administration's prerogative. What's partly fueling the stalemate as a lot of government agencies are still running. Federal paychecks haven't been missed yet, so the American public hasn't noticed much. But as this stretches on, the pressure will only build on Congress and the President.

And PR is Claudia Grisales. Thank you, Claudia.

Thank you.

For economists who follow the job market, the first Friday of each month is like Christmas morning.

That's when the Labor Department mutually delivers its closest Lastly watched report on jobs and unemployment. This morning brings nothing but a lump of coal, however. The jobs report has been postponed, not by the Grinch, but by the government shutdown.

Npr, Scott Horsley joins us now. Scott, good morning. Good morning, Steve. Okay, so I was thinking about this Friday coming up because you join us month after month after month, and now you have nothing to tell us. What does it mean not to have the jobs report?

Yeah, well, it means that labor economists can sleep in a little bit, especially those on the West Coast. They typically have to be at their computers at 5: 30 AM Pacific Time to digest this potentially market moving information about how many jobs were added or subtracted in each industry and what happened to the workforce, and whether the unemployment rate moved up or down. The monthly jobs report is one of the government's most closely watched economic releases. The fact that it's not coming out on schedule this morning leaves people like Allison Trivostiv, who's an economist with Indeed, feeling a little bit unsettled.

It's going to be very odd to not be refreshing, refreshing, refreshing.

I guess I'll just slowly sip my coffee.

I'm not sure.

Take the dog for an extra long walk.

Good news for the dog, but not so good for businesses and policymakers who are left guessing about which way the economy is going.

I've just been slowly sipping my coffee while listening to you. Where do forecasters think the economy is going?

Well, job growth has definitely slowed down in recent months. Forecasters thought today's report would show that employers added somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 jobs in September. That would be an improvement from the anemic job gains of the month before, but a big slowdown from September of last year. Now, University of Michigan Economist, Betsey Stevenson, says some slowdown in hiring is to be expected given the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

I think everybody agrees that it's not the job growth we had a year ago. We can't sustain job growth that's that quick and get rid of a lot of our foreign-born workers.

A key question for policymakers, though, including the ones at the Federal Reserve, is, are we adding enough jobs to keep pace with the growth of the labor force and keep the unemployment rate from creeping higher? It's just hard to know that without solid numbers from the government. This is not a great time to be missing a report like this. It's as though we're driving on a foggy road and we've just lost our headlights and our GPS.

Well, I wonder if some other headlights are about to go out. Are there other reports likely to be affected here?

Yeah. If this drags on, we could see the inflation report delayed as well. That's due out in a couple of weeks and ordinarily government price checkers would be gathering the information for that report right now. Even before the government shutdown, the labor department had been forced to scale back the number of price checks it conducts for the inflation report each month because of staffing cuts made by the Trump administration. So adding this shutdown on top of that doesn't help. Stevenson says she hopes lawmakers hurry up and work out their differences so the government number crunchers can get back to work.

I hope they can resolve this quickly and we can get back to our normal data releases.

By the way, the September Inflation Report is particularly important because it's one of three monthly inflation yardsticks that are used to calculate the annual cost of living increase that Social Security recipients will receive next year.

Scott, I heard some sounds in the background. Was that your dog wanting to go out for a walk?

He's ready, and he's looking for an extra long walk today.

Okay, go for it. You've got extra time. Npr Scott Horsley, thanks so much.

Good to be with you, Steve.

The Trump administration is continuing efforts to exert control over higher education.

This week, the White House sent a letter to several universities, urging them to sign a formal agreement, what it's calling a compact, pledging to support many of President Trump's policy priorities. It follows earlier attempts through canceling billions of dollars in research grants to force changes at top universities.

Npr's Alyssa Nadwarny is covering this story. Alyssa, good morning. Good morning. Okay, so what is in this letter or compact, as they're calling it?

Well, it was first reported in the Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by the White House. Here's Caroline Levet, the White House Press Secretary, speaking about it to reporters. This letter went out to multiple universities, as you know, and it's really a sign of encouragement for them to work alongside the administration to do what's right for their students in terms of ensuring free speech, in terms of preventing some of the anti-Semitic and illegal behavior that we saw ravaging our college campuses last year. Some of the demands include holding tuition flat for five years, providing data on international students to the government, requiring schools to accept the government's definition of gender and apply it to campus bathrooms, locker rooms, and women's sports teams. It's a wide range of some more controversial, some more partisan, and some bipartisan ideas of what to do in higher Ed.

Mainstream ideas, yeah, I understand, except some of them are more partisan, right?

Go on, go In return, schools are going to get a priority access to these federal grants. The nine colleges that they picked include private schools like Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT, and then also state schools like University of Texas. In response, there's been a range from colleges. The chairman of the UT system, Board of Regents, said in a statement that the system was honored that its flagship campus, UT Austin, was chosen and said, We welcome the new opportunity to working with the Trump administration on it. Other schools said they were reviewing it. Vanderbilt University said it was looking forward to providing meaningful feedback to the administration. But critics see this as a threat to free speech, to academic independence. The American Association of university professors is urging colleges not to sign the compact.

Yes, some of these things would be popular with people like freezing tuition. I understand that, but some of them are telling colleges what to say. I suppose it also sets a precedent that the administration gets to set these standards for universities to to get research grants and so forth. How does this align with other attempts to crack down on higher education?

Well, this follows a similar playbook, but the biggest difference is instead of threats, if you agree to these demands, it would provide a reward. Got it. Over the last eight months, the administration has canceled billions of dollars in federal research grants at many universities over a number of issues, including transgender policies, diversity, equity, inclusion programs, anti-Semitism on campus. They've also spent months going back and forth with Harvard University, the wealthiest college in America, with the administration opening investigations, withholding fundings, over similar demands. As recently as this week, the Department of Health and Human Services began a process that would essentially block Harvard from doing business with the government.

Isn't Harvard getting closer to a settlement with the administration?

Well, earlier this week, Trump told reporters that a deal was very close to being finalized. The two sides have been negotiating all summer. A settlement would restore research research funding and close open federal investigations. It would nullify ongoing lawsuits between the two sides. Trump said the deal would likely include Harvard paying $500 million to fund workforce training. Here he is talking about it.

It's a big investment in trade school done by very smart people. Then their sins are forgiven.

In recent months, Steve, Trump has really focused on trade schools and the importance of workforce training. We saw this in the deal they made with Brown University over the summer where the school agreed to pay $50 million. Instead of paying the federal government, they agreed to give that money to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island. I've reached out to Harvard about an upcoming deal, and officials there have not confirmed any settlement.

Okay, we'll keep watching that. Npr's Alyson Edwarning. Thanks so much. You bet. That's a first for this Friday, October third. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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