Morning Brief: Dems Crack Over Shutdown, ICE Attacked In Chicago, & Trump Set For Historic Sitdown

Amid a record-breaking shutdown, the Senate advances a deal to fund the government, a man opens fire on ICE agents in Chicago, and in a historic move, the President of Syria is set to visit the White House.

It’s Monday, November 10, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the video version can be seen on The Daily Wire:

Dems Fracture Over Shutdown

Topline: With the record-breaking shutdown leading to thousands of cancelled flights and government employees missing paychecks, cracks began to form over the weekend among Senate Democrats.

On Sunday night, the Senate took a major step toward ending the government shutdown with a procedural vote. The vote was to break the 60-vote filibuster threshold to proceed to the legislation necessary to reopen the government until the end of January.

As it stands, the deal would allow a separate vote on Obamacare subsidies in December, which deviates from the original push by Democrats to pass a continuing resolution with a stipulation in the bill that the subsidies would continue.

Dems in turmoil: The vote set off fireworks within the Democratic Party, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and many other lawmakers sounded off against the move by moderate Democrats to make strides toward reopening without including the Obamacare subsidies in the spending bill. 

What’s next: The government is not reopened yet; the legislation still needs to make it through the Republican-majority House to reach President Donald Trump’s desk. Trump’s been leaning heavily into the issue, calling for the end of the filibuster as a nuclear option. 

View from the Oval: Trump has called on GOP lawmakers to abolish the Senate filibuster, which would allow them to pass a bill with a simple majority and end the shutdown themselves. 

“I am totally in favor of terminating the filibuster, and we would be back to work within 10 minutes after that vote took place, and lots of other good things would happen,” Trump said on Friday.

Trump went on to make clear that eliminating the filibuster is not just about forcing a budget vote and ending the shutdown. The president says it would also empower Republicans to codify his agenda, ensuring GOP success in the midterms next November. In a social media post over the weekend, he claimed Democrats were “cracking like dogs on the Shutdown because they are deathly afraid that I am making progress with the Republicans on TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER!” 

But at the moment, in a rare sign of pushback against the White House, plenty of Senate Republicans are standing firm in their refusal to kill the filibuster.

ICE Targeted In Chicago

Topline: Border Patrol agents were fired upon in Chicago over the weekend as federal officers continue to be targeted for carrying out immigration enforcement operations.

The Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that Border Patrol agents were working in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood “when an unknown male driving a black Jeep fired shots at agents and fled the scene.” Law enforcement has not yet nabbed a suspect.

The agents then had a run-in with agitators who “threw a paint can and bricks at Border Patrol’s vehicles.” Reports and videos that circulated online showed people yelling obscenities at agents, walking around with whistles, and getting in their way. Chicago police were brought in to assist the agents and clear the scene. At least a few arrests were made during the chaos.

Chicago PD’s appearance is a change from last month, when ICE agents were surrounded by a hostile crowd and local officers were reportedly told to stand down. Those ICE agents were left to deal with the mob alone.

According to Homeland Security, “This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of violence and obstruction.” The department further noted that threats have increased over the past two months.

National Guard: Citing violence like in Chicago, Trump has attempted to send National Guard troops into some jurisdictions, but has been blocked by the courts. Despite that, there have been some sightings of National Guardsmen around Chicago, however.

The situation is the same in Portland, where protests have happened regularly outside ICE facilities. The latest court ruling came on Friday, when a federal judge in Oregon permanently banned the president from stationing National Guard troops in Portland. That order could, however, be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Hawaii bust: Meanwhile, immigration agents have continued mass raids to sweep up illegal aliens. In Hawaii, immigration officers arrested dozens, including two suspected Tren de Aragua members, in a raid on the island of Kauai, according to the Kauai County Facebook page. 

According to Hawaii News Now, all those arrested were employees at Hawaii Care and Cleaning. The same company, back in January, agreed to pay $3.8 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the Department of Labor.

Trump To Meet with Syrian President

Topline: President Trump is set to meet with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Monday. Ahead of the meeting, faith leaders sent a letter to Trump asking him to continue his defense of persecuted Christians and other religious minorities. 

Morning Wire spoke to Victoria Coates, former deputy national security advisor to Trump and a foreign policy expert at The Heritage Foundation, for more on the scheduled meeting between Syria’s leader and the U.S. president. (The following interview has been edited.)

Morning Wire: The visit comes just after the U.S. lifted sanctions on al-Sharaa and removed a global terror designation on him. Why did the Trump administration feel this was appropriate?

Coates: Well, while not really rising to the heights of a country like North Korea or Iran, Syria has been historically one of the most sanctioned countries on the planet for good reason. Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad committed egregious hostilities against his own people, which earned him the Caesar Act, an act of Congress that sanctions those things. Al-Sharaa was specifically sanctioned for his participation in ISIS, which remains, obviously, a special designated terrorist group and a foreign terrorist organization, as well as Al Qaeda, which remains in the same camp. Those designations remain on those groups, but they’re loosening the sanctions on [al-Sharaa] personally, which is why he could come to New York in September and Washington now.

Morning Wire: Do you see any progress on protecting Christians and other religious minorities in Syria and the Middle East more broadly?

Coates: Well, hopefully, yes. When I was in the Middle East, when this all went down in Syria a little more than a year ago, there was enormous concern from the Israelis about the Druze population in southern Syria, from the Emiratis and other Gulf allies about what might happen. And so Syria, a little bit like Lebanon, is kind of a made-up country – with apologies to any Syrians who may be listening – in that it is an amalgamation of these different groups. And you do have a dominant Muslim majority, but the others have been endangered historically. I think that is very well taken from the faith leaders and hopefully the president will be very strong on this and convince al-Sharaa this is a priority for the United States.