THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT: The federal government is on the brink of shutdown at midnight unless congressional Republicans make concessions or some kind of deal with the Democrats.

  Leaders from both parties emerged from a meeting yesterday with President Trump without such a deal.

  The Republicans accuse the Democrats of holding the government hostage, which in effect they are because they now think it’s the only way to get any kind of compromise out of the Republicans. The Democrats are demanding an extension to Affordable Care Act health subsidies and reversal of cuts Republicans made to Medicaid and other health programs in President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”

  “I think we’re headed into a shutdown because Democrats won’t do the right thing,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters. “I hope they change their mind.”

  Following the meeting President Trump posted a racist meme showing House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero with a handlebar moustache like a Mexican bandito.

   House speaker Mike Johnson says that if the government shuts down it will cut funding to food programs and health insurance … the very same things that the Republicans slashed in their “Big Beautiful Bill.” Johnson said it’s not the right time to negotiate, but with his party holding all three branches of the government, they don’t negotiate.

THE WAR ROOM: President Trump met with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday and released a Gaza peace plan that promises “If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end.”

  Here are some of the high points of the proposal, some of it in Trumpian language that we eliminate for brevity.

• Gaza will be a de-radicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.
• Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza. 
• Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.
• Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after Oct. 7, 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. 
• Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.
• Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. 
• Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee. 
• Oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” to be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump.
• A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts. 
• Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors. 
• Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. 
• The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence.

THE REGIME:

— As many as 800 generals and admirals gather today at Quantico Marine base in Virginia in an expensive and unprecedented meeting at which they are expected to be given a talking-to by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the President. They are coming in from all over the world.

  Hegseth is expected to lecture the commanders about the “warrior ethos,” as if you could become a general in the US military and not know something about that. Some commanders fear that they will be required to declare their loyalty to President Trump.

  In an exchange with a reporter  Trump said, “We have some great people coming in and it’s just an ‘esprit de corps.’ You know the expression ‘esprit de corps’? That’s all it’s about. We’re talking about what we’re doing, what they’re doing, and how we’re doing.”

— The Trump administration deported a planeload of 100 Iranians back to Iran in a deal reached with the government of Iran. For many years the US has sheltered refugees from Iran who face persecution and even death under the extremist regime back home.

— YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to President Trump to resolve his 2021 lawsuit that claimed he was the victim of censorship when the site suspended his account following the January 6^th insurrection. YouTube agreed to pay $22 million of that money toward Trump’s building of a giant ballroom on the White House compound.

— Federal employees who took the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” buyout offer, resigning with months of pay and benefits, go off the payroll at the end of the day.

 THE OBIT PAGE: Lally Weymouth, a globe-trotting reporter, socialite, and member of the Graham family that owned The Washington Post for 80 years, died of pancreatic cancer at age 82. She was the daughter of the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.

  Weymouth was known for getting hard-to-land interviews with foreign leaders, including Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat, and Muammar el-Qaddafi. 

THE SPIN RACK:  Investigators say everyone has been accounted for in the Michigan Mormon church attack that killed four people and left the church a smoking rubble. — Actress Nicole Kidman, who’s in just about every movie made, split from her musician husband Keith Urban after 20 years of marriage. — The post-season for Major League Baseball begins today. — Sales of electric vehicles surged for buyers to take advantage of the $7500 tax credit that expires today.

BELOW THE FOLD: President Trump says New York’s Democratic-socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is a communist and that if he’s elected the President will cut off all federal funding to New York City.

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