WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The federal government shutdown extended into its third week, raising concerns that many who rely on the government for support may soon struggle with hunger, while the East Wing of the White House was demolished amid President Donald Trump‘s plans to build a ballroom.
U.S. officials criticized the Israeli parliament’s move toward annexing the West Bank, while Trump also announced his plans to expand his controversial strikes on alleged drug boats to land targets. Meanwhile, a Trump nominee withdrew his name from consideration for a key White House post — the latest fallout from a scandal of racist and antisemitic texts that have roiled the GOP.
White House East Wing demolished
The East Wing of the White House was demolished over the course of several days as part of a construction project by Trump to build what is expected to be a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the campus.
The East Wing previously included the offices of the first lady and the social secretary, and was in recent decades where visitors touring the White House entered.
A statement from the White House argued criticism was “manufactured outrage,” citing other examples of construction throughout the White House’s history, and circulated an article stating the East Wing wasn’t built until 1942.
The demolition, however, has belied Trump’s pledge July 31 that his ballroom renovation “won’t interfere with the current building.” The cost for the construction, taking place during the government shutdown, has also ballooned to $300 million. According to the White House, it is being shouldered by an assortment of private and corporate donors.
A YouGov survey conducted the same week found most U.S. adults disapprove of the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, finding just 23% of those polled approved of demolition, while 53% said they disapproved, and another 24% still unsure.
Trump commissioned James McCrery, an architect whose firm is known for having designed new Catholic churches in the U.S. according to a classical aesthetic. Among them are the St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel and Newman Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Danger of hunger due to government shutdown
The federal government shutdown reached its 24th day on Oct. 24 as Congress continued to appear deadlocked on funding legislation.
The day before, the Senate failed to advance a GOP-backed bill that would pay federal employees who have continued to work during the government shutdown.
During a government shutdown, some types of essential government services are exempt, including Social Security payments to older adults, but many other functions of government are suspended. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are subject to furloughs, meaning they must stop working and will not be paid until the federal government reopens.
Military families are among those turning to food banks during the shutdown, ABC News reported. Nearly 42 million people in the U.S. who get federal food assistance are in danger of going without this form of social support amid the shutdown.
US officials criticize Israeli vote to annex West Bank
Top U.S. officials criticized a preliminary vote Oct. 22 by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to annex land in the West Bank, a territory that Palestinians are living on and want for a future state.
The preliminary vote, seen as symbolic, was the first of several that would be required to actually pass the law.
“Obviously, I think the president’s made clear that’s not something we’d be supportive of right now,” Rubio told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland the same day en route to the region.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party did not support the legislation, and he sought to distance himself from it in a statement.
“The Knesset vote on annexation was a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel,” he said in a statement issued in English on X.
Vice President JD Vance, during a two-day visit to Israel, called the vote “a very stupid political stunt.”
“I personally take some insult to it,” Vance, who is Catholic, said. “The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.”
Trump said Oct. 23 in response to a question from a reporter at the White House, “Don’t worry about the West Bank.”
“Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank,” he said.
Trump said similar in an interview with Time magazine published the same day.
“It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” he said of a hypothetical West Bank annexation. “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”
White House nominee withdraws after racist texts
Paul Ingrassia, Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, withdrew from his confirmation hearing after a Politico report detailed inflammatory text messages he sent to fellow Republicans in a group chat.
Ingrassia was scheduled to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Oct. 23, but withdrew from the hearing after it became clear he did not have the requisite number of GOP votes to pass.
The texts — which reportedly included comments like his argument that the federal holiday honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and another describing himself as having “a Nazi streak” — came amid a controversy about similar messages in Telegram chats obtained by Politico of messages among Young Republican leaders over several months.
The subject of racism has been a pastoral concern of the U.S. Catholic bishops who issued a pastoral letter in 2018 “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love” and are transitioning their ad hoc committee on racism into a permanent subcommittee by the end of 2025.
The bishops’ pastoral letter stated, “Racism is a moral problem that requires a moral remedy — a transformation of the human heart — that impels us to act.”
“Love compels each of us to resist racism courageously,” it stated. “It requires us to reach out generously to the victims of this evil, to assist the conversion needed in those who still harbor racism, and to begin to change policies and structures that allow racism to persist.”
More recently, Catholic leaders, including Pope Leo XIV, have also decried “the rise of antisemitic hatred in the world.” The Second Vatican Council’s document “Nostra Aetate” condemned antisemitism in 1965 and called on the church to address it.
Ingrassia’s texts were not the only source of concern for even some Trump-allied GOP senators, Politico noted. Ingrassia, 30, was also the subject of an internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security, where he works as White House liaison, according to Politico, after a sexual harassment complaint was filed against him. The individual behind the complaint later withdrew it, and Ingrassia’s attorney denied the allegations to Politico.
Trump may ask Congress to strike drug cartels on land
Trump said that his administration may carry out attacks on alleged drug smugglers from Venezuela on land, but he did not commit to seeking congressional approval first. The U.S. has already carried out a series of lethal strikes against what it said were suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean.
“The land is going to be next,” Trump said at a press conference after a roundtable with members of his administration Oct. 13. “And we may go to the Senate; we may go to the Congress and tell them about it, but I can’t imagine they’d have any problem with it.”
Some have questioned what legal authority the U.S. had to carry out the strike under either U.S. or international law.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states legitimate authorities are entrusted with preserving the common good by “rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm,” and toward that end they “have the right to repel by armed force aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their charge.”
However, the church’s doctrine also states legitimate defense by military force is only morally permissible under all of several strict conditions: the “lasting, grave and certain” damage from the aggressor, the exhaustion of all other efforts to end such damage, “serious prospects of success,” and the use of arms such that graver evils and disorders are not produced.
A number of family members of slain fishermen have claimed they were innocent of any crime.
Katerine Hernandez, whose husband Alejandro Carranza is among the nearly three dozen killed in the boat strikes, told the news agency AFP that the Colombian fisherman was a “good man” with no ties to drugs. She questioned why the U.S. had to take his life.
“The fishermen have the right to live,” she said. “Why didn’t they just detain them?”
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon. OSV News national news editor Peter Jesserer Smith contributed to this report.
