10 things you need to know today: December 21, 2018

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1. Shutdown looms as House passes spending bill with $5 billion for wall
2. Mattis resigns, saying views not 'aligned' with Trump's
3. Stocks struggle to stabilize after two days of big losses
4. Whitaker clears himself to supervise Russia investigation
5. Judge rejects motion to dismiss Weinstein sexual assault case
6. Putin praises Trump decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria
7. U.K. hunts for operator of drones that disrupted Gatwick flights
8. Trump administration says some asylum seekers must await decision in Mexico
9. Trump orders troop reduction in Afghanistan
10. Trump signs farm bill as USDA moves to expand food stamp work requirements

published 21 December 2018

1. Shutdown looms as House passes spending bill with $5 billion for wall

The House on Thursday approved a revised stop-gap spending bill seeking to keep federal agencies funded until February and avoid a partial government shutdown, with $5.7 billion for President Trump's long-promised border wall. The Senate passed a version without the wall funding earlier this week after the White House indicated Trump would sign the bill without the wall funding, but Trump on Thursday reverted to an earlier threat to veto the bill and let the government shut down unless he gets the wall money. The developments pushed the government closer to a shutdown at midnight Friday, because Republicans in the Senate lack the votes to pass the bill with money for the wall. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump's "temper tantrum" was "plunging the country into chaos."

President Trump announced Thursday that Defense Secretary James Mattis will step down at the end of February. Mattis said in his resignation letter that he was leaving because his views weren't well "aligned" with Trump's. Mattis said he favored "treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors." The news came after months of rumored tensions between Mattis and the president, and just a day after Trump shocked allies and went against the advice of military leaders by announcing plans to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump tweeted that Mattis had been "a great help to me," and that during his tenure "tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment."

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Stocks took another plunge on Thursday, deepening their losses in what so far has been the worst December for Wall Street since the Great Depression. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 464 points or about 2 percent as investors resumed selling on concerns over the Federal Reserve's decision on continuing rate hikes, and fear of a looming government shutdown. The Dow is now down more than 1,700 points since last Friday. The broader S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped by 1.6 percent. The S&P 500 is now down by 10.6 percent this month. The markets have been dragged down in recent weeks by fears of rising interest rates, slowing global economic growth, and mounting trade tensions. U.S. futures edged down early Friday, pointing to possible further losses.

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker decided not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation despite a Justice Department ethics official's advice that he step aside out of "an abundance of caution," a senior department official close to the process said Thursday. Critics have questioned whether Whitaker can oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into Russian election meddling and possible collusion by Trump associates, because he criticized the investigation before Trump appointed him to step in temporarily after the ouster of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Whitaker never sought a formal recommendation on whether he should recuse himself, and ultimately the decision is his to make. Still, Democrats are expressing concern that he will try to undermine Mueller.

A New York judge on Thursday rejected a motion to dismiss the sexual assault case against former producer Harvey Weinstein. The disgraced movie mogul was arrested in May on six criminal charges over the alleged sexual assault of three women. His lawyers had challenged the reliability of his accusers and the conduct of investigators for months, but the judge rejected the dismissal motions in under 10 minutes. One woman's charges were dropped in October due to emails that were not shared with a grand jury, but the other five charges from two women remain and were allowed to move forward. Despite the ruling, Weinstein's lawyer said that he is still confident that Weinstein will be "completely exonerated" when the case goes to trial. A pretrial hearing has been set for March 7.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual end-of-the-year news conference that President Trump was doing the right thing by withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria. Putin said American troops were not needed to fight the Islamic State, which has faced a series of battlefield defeats and lost most of its territory in Iraq and Syria. Trump said a day earlier that U.S. troops were leaving because they had achieved their goal of defeating ISIS. In Washington, critics and Trump allies alike, including some senior military leaders, questioned the wisdom of Trump's move, saying it would leave Kurdish allies abandoned as they face threats from Turkey and ISIS insurgents.

Britain's defense secretary, Gavin Williamson, said Thursday that the military was deploying soldiers to help police catch the operator of drones that forced the temporary shutdown of Gatwick Airport, the second busiest airport in the U.K. Thousands of Christmas-season travelers were stranded after drones were spotted over the runway and hundreds of flights were canceled. Flights resumed Friday. Police said the intrusion appeared to have been done deliberately to disrupt peak operations at the airport, south of London, but that there were "absolutely no indications to suggest this is terror-related." The drones were described as industrial-grade, raising fears of a potentially deadly collision with an airliner.

The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would direct asylum seekers crossing the southern border illegally to return to Mexico until their cases are decided. Mexico's new government reportedly reluctantly agreed to the new policy after the Trump administration lobbied Mexican leaders to house the migrants. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the arrangement would prevent people from using the asylum process to get into the U.S., then stay illegally. "Today we are announcing historic measures to bring the illegal immigration crisis under control," she said. "Aliens trying to game the system to get into our country illegally will no longer be able to disappear into the United States, where many skip their court dates."

The Trump administration has ordered the withdrawal of about 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing two defense officials. President Trump reportedly made the decision when he also ordered the military to pull out of Syria. The American forces being brought home from Afghanistan represent about half of those the U.S. has in the country after 17 years of war. The Wall Street Journal reported that the pullouts were what prompted Defense Secretary James Mattis to resign on Thursday. The force reduction is intended to make Afghanistan more reliant on its own troops for security, but critics say the move could backfire, because Afghan troops have suffered heavy casualties against the Taliban even with the current level of U.S. backing.

President Trump signed into law an $867 billion bipartisan farm bill on Thursday that provides billions in aid to farmers. The law doesn't include stricter work requirement rules for food stamp beneficiaries, which President Trump and some House Republicans wanted, but the Agriculture Department on Thursday unveiled a proposed new rule designed to broaden food stamp work requirements without Congress' approval. The proposed rule, which will enter a 60-day public comment period, would tighten a policy allowing states to waive work requirements for recipients in areas with high unemployment, potentially stripping waivers from hundreds of thousands of people. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said the proposed regulation "blatantly ignores the bipartisan farm bill" Trump just signed.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.