Morning Brief: Trump’s Peace Plan Pivot, Troops Paid In Dem Shutdown, & Cartel Targets ICE Agents

President Donald Trump pivots from the Middle East to peace in Ukraine, Trump intervenes to protect military paychecks amid the Democrat shutdown, and drug cartels declare “open season” on federal agents.

It’s Thursday, October 16, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.

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After Middle East Peace, Trump Turns Toward Russia

Topline: After securing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Trump has shifted his focus to the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will make his third trip to the White House on Friday since Trump began his second term. The two are expected to discuss supplying Ukraine with more powerful weapons, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, as well as additional air defenses to counter Russian bombardments.

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The United States has reportedly started to share intelligence on Russian energy infrastructure with Ukraine, increasing Ukraine’s ability to strike deep inside Russian territory.

Trump pushes Putin: The U.S. president has made clear in recent months that he sees Russian President Vladimir Putin as the main obstacle to peace in the Ukraine war. The president is reportedly considering additional sanctions on Russia to increase pressure on Putin to negotiate.

“I’m very disappointed because Vladimir and I had a good relationship,” said Trump on Tuesday. “He just doesn’t want to end that war.”

View from Moscow: Moscow has said that even if Tomahawks were provided to Ukraine, that would not “change the dynamic” of the war. A Kremlin spokesman later added that the missiles would be an “extreme concern.” Putin said that he would increase Russia’s air defense, but he did not mention escalation on his end.

Trump Shuffles Funds In Dem Shutdown To Pay Military

Topline: Two weeks into a Democrat shutdown, and now federal employees are starting to feel the effects. On Wednesday, military personnel were set to miss their first paychecks, but President Trump ordered War Secretary Pete Hegseth to find a way to keep the troops paid.

Morning Wire spoke with Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), chairman of the Republican Study Committee. (The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Morning Wire: Now we’ve crossed one of the first thresholds for missed pay of this shutdown. There were fears that the military would miss a paycheck this week, but then Trump intervened. How did that go down? 

Pfluger: As a veteran and as somebody who served for over 20 years, this is personal to me because I saw it firsthand during previous shutdowns, where you had especially the junior enlisted personnel, those with families and young kids, some of them on food stamps. This puts them in a terrible position, and commanders, instead of focusing on the mission and the threat, readiness and lethality now have to focus on how are their men and women in uniform going to put food on the table? Thankfully, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth came up with a plan to pay the troops and that is happening mid-month. But it doesn’t last forever, so if Democrats keep up their shenanigans and keep up the shameful approach that they’re using and showing why they don’t really like the military, then I’m not sure that they’re going to get a paycheck on the next pay period.

Morning Wire: To be clear – they managed to pay everyone this time, but this isn’t something that can continue for weeks. 

Pfluger: Yeah, they’re pulling money out of other areas. I mean, the money that they’re using to pay the troops was probably intended to go to operations or readiness or things like that. It was not the bucket that Congress appropriated for military pay, personnel pay, so this isn’t going to last forever.

Morning Wire: Is there any way that Congress could ensure going forward that this doesn’t happen again, particularly with the military? Can we put in place emergency measures for how government shutdowns affect military members?

Pfluger: I sure hope so. I think there’s an appetite for that. And I’d go a step further. I would include Border Patrol. I would include law enforcement, federal law enforcement, all the agencies that are charged with keeping us safe, national security level agencies. I’d go a step further on that. But let me just say this. Where are my Democrat colleagues on the other side of the aisle who served in uniform? Where are they right now? Why are they not standing up and taking the stand and saying enough is enough? … I’d like to see a country where we come back together and we unite and do the right thing. I thought that was going to happen after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and, obviously, it hasn’t.

DHS Says Cartels Threaten Federal Immigration Agents

Topline: Federal immigration agents carrying out President Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago are facing mounting threats stemming from drug cartels in Mexico, according to the Department of Homeland Security. 

Intelligence on threats is coming into federal immigration agencies daily, an agent on the ground in Chicago told The Daily Wire. Mexican drug cartels are recruiting and operating within the city of Chicago to go after ICE and Border Patrol agents. 

DHS says cartels are offering up to $50,000 in bounties for the heads of federal officers. On top of that, they are recruiting leftist, anti-ICE agitators who have already been out in the streets, and they’re asking them to help.

According to DHS, cartels are placing armed spotters on top of rooftops in areas where ICE agents are making arrests, and the spotters mark the coordinates of ICE officers and Border Patrol agents and relay their whereabouts.

The threats: The latest allegedly involved a Latin Kings gang member. A leader of that gang was nabbed by the federal authorities in Chicago. He is accused of placing a bounty on the head of Operation Midway Blitz, Chief Gregory Bovino.

On Tuesday, Border Patrol agents were rammed by an illegal alien driver who also had an illegal alien passenger in his car. That brought an anti-ICE riot mob to one of the quiet neighborhoods in Chicago.

The riot forced federal authorities to deploy tear gas. Federal officials were targeted with rocks and other objects.