Good morning and welcome to White House Watch. The US government shutdown is now into its second month. If it extends through tomorrow, the stoppage will surpass the record 35-day shutdown during Donald Trump’s first administration to become the longest in US history. Also in today’s newsletter:
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Key races in today’s US elections
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Business leaders urge the Supreme Court to strike down Trump’s tariffs
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Lisa Cook makes first public remarks since Trump attacks
American voters will head to the polls on Tuesday for state and local elections in what has been seen as the first major test of Trump’s second-term agenda since he returned to the White House in January.
In New Jersey, a tight race for the state’s next governor is being closely watched as a barometer of the country’s political mood.
The state, which spans the wealthy suburbs of New York to gritty industrial towns, has historically voted for the Democrats.
While Trump lost New Jersey to Kamala Harris by six points in the 2024 presidential election, the US president significantly closed the gap on his 16 per cent loss to Biden in the state in 2020, making it one of the largest swings towards Trump in the country.
Republicans are now hoping to build on that momentum ahead of the midterm elections next year.
For the democrats, still soul-searching following their resounding loss to Trump last year, elections in New York City and Virginia offer two very different visions of the party’s future.
In New York City, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is on course to become the next mayor.
The 34-year-old has pledged to tackle the city’s soaring cost of living by increasing taxes on the wealthy, and introducing universal childcare, free buses and city-run grocery stores.
His campaign, marked by slick social media videos, has electrified younger voters and garnered worldwide attention while sparking unease on Wall Street.
Mamdani’s style is in contrast to his party’s candidate in the Virginia governor’s race. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer and member of Congress, has held a consistent lead against her Republican opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears.
Like Mamdani, Spanberger has campaigned on addressing the affordability crisis, but has instead pitched herself as a pragmatic centrist.
Spanberger has sought to distance herself from the most liberal members of her party. She made national headlines in the wake of the 2020 election when the party lost more than a dozen congressional seats, chastising them for not distancing themselves from the term socialist.
Hundreds of elections will take place across dozens of US states today. The FT’s Lauren Fedor and Eva Xiao have the rundown of which elections to watch.
Is the political tide turning in the US? Join Edward Luce and Rana Foroohar of the Swamp Notes newsletter in the latest Ask An Expert Q&A on Thursday, November 6 at 1pm GMT. Submit a question for them here.
The latest headlines
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Dick Cheney, the former Republican vice-president who championed US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11 attacks and then became a fierce critic of Donald Trump, has died aged 84. There’s also a full obituary.
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Business leaders are urging the US Supreme Court to strike down Trump’s use of emergency tariff powers ahead of the court’s landmark hearing on the issue tomorrow.
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The EU has seen a surge in American academics applying for grants, following the attacks on US universities by the Trump administration.
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The Trump family has tapped two little-known boutique banks to help finance its crypto empire. Here’s why.
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Miami realtors are hoping to cash in on an exodus of wealthy New Yorkers seeking refuge in the sunshine state if Mamdani wins in New York City’s mayoral race.
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Trump’s administration has been accused of using “bully-boy” tactics as it sought to block a historic climate deal for shipping.
What we’re hearing
A December interest rate cut is far from assured, Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook said yesterday in her first public remarks since Trump attempted to have her removed from the US central bank’s board.
“Policy is not on a pre-determined path,” Cook told a crowded room at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington.
“Keeping rates too high increases the likelihood that the labour market will deteriorate sharply. Lowering rates too much would increase the likelihood that inflation expectations will become unanchored,” Cook said in her remarks.
Trump attempted to sack Cook in August in an extraordinary assault on the independence of the Fed as he has urged the body to cut interest rates. His administration has accused her of mortgage fraud, charges she has denied.
Cook sued Trump in August and a federal court in Washington reinstated her. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case in January.
After finishing her prepared remarks on Monday, the Fed governor addressed her case against the US president. Many people had reached out to her about Trump’s treatment of her, Cook said, adding that she was “beyond grateful” to those in the room that had offered their support.
When asked what she thought about the administration’s frequent attacks on the Federal Reserve to set interest rates as it saw fit, Cook quipped: “I am not going to say much, but I support [the Fed’s independence]”.
Later asked whether her foray into public service had been worth it, Cook reflected that it had been, saying she had been spurred into action by her family’s — along with her own — work in the civil rights movement.
“I’ve learnt to have a thick skin, if the principle is worth pursuing,” she said, adding that central bank independence was one such principle.
“This too shall pass,” she said. “I’ll continue to do this work on behalf of the American people.”
— Additional contributions from Claire Jones, the FT’s US economics editor
Viewpoints
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Faced with a rapidly changing world order, American conservatives should embrace, rather than reject, the contributions women bring to the workplace, the FT’s Rana Foroohar writes.
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The anti-Jewish threat in America today comes largely from the right, argues Edward Luce.
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Presidents Trump and Xi may have agreed to a détente last week — but escalating tensions in the US-China relationship are here to stay.
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Tej Parikh offers some “counter-consensus analysis” of the economic upsides of Trump’s second term.
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Elon Musk has launched his own AI-powered online encyclopedia. Jemima Kelly writes that instead of setting up a serious challenger to Wikipedia, the Tesla chief executive has scored a major own goal.
Read the full article here