Hi there, everyone. It's 4 o'clock in New York at a tumultuous and increasingly dangerous moment

for the federal government and the country and the city of New York.

16 hours into a government shutdown and the prospect of the Trump administration using said

government shutdown to finish what Elon Musk and his chainsaw started with mass firings that could

further gut the federal government and potentially impair its ability to function.

All that coming as Democrats have managed to stall a parallel effort by Team Trump to hold the safety and

security of millions of Americans as ransom.

Yesterday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from temporarily withholding

federal funds to 10 blue states and the District of Columbia.

Among those funds, more than $100 million that was

bound for the New York Police Department, FDNY, and New York State Police programs,

programs that have been put in place to fight terrorism in the days and months and years

since the September 11th terrorist attacks. At stake, money that according to the New York Times,

quote, help fund bomb squads, canine teams, and chemical weapon detection. They helped train officers

to respond to an active shooter situation or a collapse building and paid for intelligence

analysts and for members of the National Guard standing

watch at Grand Central Terminal. New York's governor, Kathy Hockel, writing in a letter to

Christy Nome this, quote, while the Trump administration may talk tough, in practice, you have

chosen to defund the counterterrorism efforts at the New York Police Department at FDNY, New York State

Police and law enforcement agencies from Long Island to Buffalo. You have ignored the National

Counterterrorism Center's own determination that New York has been attacked by foreign or foreign

inspired terrorists nearly twice as many times as the next most targeted state.

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