Shutdown threatens Trump voters’ livelihoods

Reuters Weekend Briefing <dailybriefing@thomsonreuters.com>
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2025-11-08 13:25

Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello, today we have some excellent stories for you including a special report on the MAGA-aligned influencers and media emerging as the new mainstream, the Trump voters whose livelihoods are threatened by the shutdown, and the Bedouins uprooted by sectarian clashes in Syria's south.

Plus, this week's On Assignment podcast goes inside Ukraine's ‘fortress belt’.

US Senate rejects bill to restore federal worker pay, remains at odds over shutdown

Joyce Kenney at her home in Prescott Valley, Arizona. REUTERS/Rebecca Noble/File Photo

“It's a domino effect”: The longest US government shutdown in history is cutting lifelines for millions of Americans, many of whom voted for Trump. Conversations with five Trump voters – part of a group of 20 whom Reuters has interviewed monthly since February – show that while the shutdown has disrupted their lives, it has not diminished their opinion of the president's performance.
SNAP suspension: The US Supreme Court allowed Trump's administration to withhold for now about $4 billion needed to fully fund a food aid program for 42 million low-income Americans this month amid the federal government shutdown. US airlines and travelers slogged through a second day of flight cuts across the country as the government shutdown was expected to drive more cancellations in the days to come.

Major retailers promise a cheaper Thanksgiving, but there's a twist

It's (still) the economy: US consumer sentiment slumped to near a 3-1/2-year low in early November as households across the political spectrum worried about the economic fallout from the longest government shutdown in history. The shutdown has disrupted parts of Americans' lives from food benefit payments to domestic flights.
Popular election issue: Donald Trump and his Republican allies were left grappling with a string of Democratic victories in off-year elections, a rare setback for Trump as voters signaled resistance to his agenda. Democratic wins in New Jersey, New York and Virginia were driven in part by cost-of-living concerns.

"Other shareholder meetings are like snoozefests, but ours are bangers"

The payout: Tesla CEO Elon Musk won shareholder approval for the largest corporate pay package in history as investors endorsed his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut. Ahead of the vote, the Tesla board said Musk could quit if investors voted down his pay package.
Chips Ahoy: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the semiconductor giant is experiencing "very strong demand" for its state-of-the-art Blackwell chips, as its appetite for wafers from TSMC grows. This as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman doubled down on the company's ask for the US to expand eligibility for a Chips Act tax credit.

US intel found Israeli lawyers warned there was evidence of Gaza war crimes

Uprooted Bedouins: A July surge of sectarian bloodshed in Syria's Druze‑majority Sweida shattered decades of uneasy coexistence with neighboring Sunni Bedouins, leaving more than a thousand dead, tens of thousands displaced, and families torn apart amid kidnappings, reprisals, and contested narratives of blame.
Inside Ukraine's ‘fortress belt’: Reuters journalists witness daily life under drone fire in Kramatorsk, a key Ukrainian city just 20 kilometers from the front line. As Russia pushes deeper into the Donbas region, the On Assignment podcast explores how drone warfare has transformed the conflict and what Ukraine's grip on this strategic territory means for any future peace talks.

Before I forget…

The Philippines' weather bureau warned of life-threatening storm surges of up to five meters and destructive winds as Typhoon Fung-wong churns toward the country's eastern coast, where it is forecast to intensify into a super typhoon before making landfall on Sunday night.
Obesity drug developer Metsera said that it had accepted Pfizer's $10 billion acquisition offer, ending a fierce bidding war between the New York-based pharma giant and Danish rival Novo Nordisk.
Governments heading to the U.N. COP30 climate summit in Brazil are bracing for the possibility that the Trump administration may seek to disrupt negotiations at the event - even without any US officials showing up.
The Group of 20 summit in South Africa later this month will take place without any US government officials attending, because of what Trump said were "human rights abuses" taking place in the country. South Africa's foreign ministry repeated its rejection of claims that white Afrikaners face persecution based on their race.
France's crackdown on Shein over childlike sex dolls and banned weapons is exposing a perennial problem of online marketplaces: failing to properly police third-party sellers and block sales of counterfeit, illegal, dangerous or simply offensive products.
Jesus may have heard words of wisdom from his mother Mary, but she did not help him save the world, the Vatican said. A new decree approved by Pope Leo this week made waves, when the Vatican's top doctrinal office ordered the world's Catholics not to refer to Mary as the "co-redeemer" of the world.
The Hague like a local: Our correspondent's guide to legal landmarks, Dutch-Indonesian fusion food and seaside escapes.
Once dominated by French Burgundy and Italian Barolo wines, Russia's supermarket shelves are now stocked with an array of domestic vintages as Western sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine push consumers toward local vineyards.

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