Vance runs indirect talks with Iran on a ceasefire and new nuclear talks while Trump weighs renewed strikes.
Vice President JD Vance has spent two weeks personally involved in indirect negotiations with Iran, aiming for a new ceasefire and a restart of nuclear talks, Axios reports. Trump is letting the diplomacy run while his advisers split, per The Wall Street Journal. Vance wants a deal, and others want renewed attacks.
“We’re talking to them.”Trump, to reporters on Friday, Nov. 6
A proposed meeting of U.S. and Iranian technical teams has not happened. Qatar is pushing both sides toward an interim deal.
The clockThe War Powers Resolution gave Trump until May 1, 60 days after he notified Congress on March 2. He then argued the April 7 ceasefire ended the war, so new strikes start a fresh clock. Lawfare argues the blockade kept the old clock running, so the deadline has already passed.
The moneySome Democrats want the Dec. 11 government funding bill to bar spending on the Iran war, Politico reported. Party leaders have not committed. The outgoing, Republican-run Congress writes that bill. The Pentagon’s shutdown guidance keeps combat running during a funding lapse, and the Pentagon told Congress the war had cost $47.1 billion through Oct. 16, the AP reported.
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Trump names Stephen Miller White House chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles after Republicans lost the House and Senate.
Wiles resigned Thursday, Nov. 5, and moves to Trump’s political operation. Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration crackdown, starts Monday, Nov. 9. The chief of staff decides who and what reaches Trump.
“The mission now is more clear than ever: Fight with all of our soul to support our President.”Miller, on X
Hardliners were “jubilant,” said Mike Howell, co-founder of the Mass Deportation Coalition. “Horrible decision,” Indiana Republican Marlin Stutzman told Politico. The BBC reports it is unclear whether Wiles’s deputies will stay.
The recordEight midterms since 1986 flipped a chamber. By our count from tenure dates, the chief of staff changed within 90 days only twice, in 2011 and 2019. Miller starts six days after the vote.
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Employers added 165,000 jobs in October against a 65,000 forecast; unemployment fell to 4.1%.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.2% in September, even as 421,000 people joined the labor force. Revisions added 84,000 jobs to the August and September totals combined.
- Health care +41,600
- Government +6,000
- All other employers +117,400
2025’s average of 9,700 is less than one rung. The forecast is what economists expected for October.
Hourly pay rose 3.1% from a year earlier, still behind prices, which rose 3.7% in the year to September. The Fed raised its benchmark rate in September and held it in October. After the report, futures traders put the odds of a December hike at 77%, up about 10 points from Thursday, per CME’s FedWatch, AP reported.
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U.S. measles cases reach 5,182 in 45 states and D.C. as PAHO prepares to review U.S. elimination status.
That is 330 more than the CDC’s previous weekly update. PAHO, the World Health Organization’s office for the Americas, decides whether a country has stopped measles from spreading locally. Mexico faces the same review.
Before 2025, the most in any year since the U.S. declared measles eliminated in 2000 was 2019’s 1,274.
The testPAHO looks for one chain of the same virus strain spreading without a break inside the country for at least 12 months, counted from Jan. 20, 2025. CDC says gene sequencing can rule out links between outbreaks but cannot prove a link without case-tracing data.
The CDC has confirmed four measles deaths this year and says that total may change. State officials have reported eight.
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European governments want Russia to end its Ukraine war before the U.S. and Russia talk about a broader security deal.
They fear a broader U.S. deal with Russia could weaken NATO and restore Moscow’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, Bloomberg reports. Before the Nov. 10–11 talks in Abu Dhabi, Zelensky wants allies to put in writing who would defend Ukraine, and how fast, if Russia attacks again.
“What matters is that it’s clear on paper. If Russia starts (attacking) again, what will happen? Who will do what, with what means, and when?”Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president
Ukraine already has a written U.S. promise, but it is thin. A 2024 pact only requires senior officials to meet within 24 hours of an attack, and it commits no troops. Trump has disclosed no terms for the broader U.S.–Russia deal.
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The Justice Department’s national security chief and the Miami U.S. attorney who ran the probe of officials who investigated Trump resign.
Quiñones’s office oversaw the so-called grand-conspiracy investigation, which asks whether officials who investigated Trump conspired against him. It has produced no criminal indictments.
Three senior departures in two days
- Thursday, Nov. 5
- Harmeet DhillonCivil Rights Division chief
- Friday, Nov. 6
- John EisenbergNational Security Division chief
- Friday, Nov. 6
- Jason Reding QuiñonesU.S. attorney in Miami
In public, neither man gave a reason. Senior administration officials told Bloomberg Law that Attorney General Todd Blanche forced Eisenberg out, saying Eisenberg had slowed Trump’s demands to subpoena reporters about their sources. People familiar with the matter told AP that Washington officials were frustrated with how Quiñones ran the probe.
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Democratic wins give four states a new opening to expand Medicaid, as four others sue to block its work requirements.
Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Wisconsin are four of the 10 states that have not adopted the Affordable Care Act’s full expansion, which covers adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. The federal government pays 90% of the cost for newly eligible enrollees. Lawmakers have not yet said what they will propose.
Whose votes an expansion bill needs, per Stateline
- Georgia
- Republicans hold the Senate 29–27, so at least two GOP senators must vote yes.
- Kansas
- Republicans appear to keep both chambers, so expansion would need their votes in each.
- Texas
- Republicans hold the Senate 19–12, so at least four GOP senators are needed.
- Wisconsin
- Reported Democratic majorities of 53–46 in the Assembly and 18–15 in the Senate could pass it with no Republican votes, if every Democrat votes yes.
The lawsuitOregon, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington sued Thursday, Nov. 5, to block Medicaid work requirements due to start in 2027. Most expansion adults ages 19 to 64 would have to document 80 hours a month of work, school or volunteering. The states argue the federal government went beyond its constitutional power by requiring states to carry out the rules. Washington’s attorney general projects about 120,000 of roughly 600,000 adults facing the rules could lose coverage.