WASHINGTON — Back from a week abroad, President Trump is calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster and reopen the government after a monthlong shutdown, breaking with majority Republicans who have long opposed such a move.
Trump said in a post on his social media site Thursday that “THE CHOICE IS CLEAR — INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER.”
Trump’s sudden decision to assert himself into the shutdown debate — bringing the highly charged demand to end the filibuster — is certain to set the Senate on edge. It could spur senators toward their own compromise or send the chamber spiraling toward a new sense of crisis.
Trump has long called for Republicans to get rid of the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections, dating all the way back to his first term in office. The rule gives Democrats a check on the 53-seat Republican majority and enough votes to keep the government closed while they demand an extension of health care subsidies.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and most members of his Republican conference have strongly opposed changing the filibuster, arguing that it is vital to the institution of the Senate and has allowed them to halt Democratic policies when they are in the minority.
Thune has repeatedly said he is not considering changing the rules to end the shutdown, and his spokesman, Ryan Wrasse, said in a statement Friday that the leader’s “position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged.”
Broad GOP support for filibuster
Even if Thune wanted to change the filibuster, he would not currently have the votes to do so.
“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah posted on X Friday morning, responding to Trump’s comments and echoing the sentiments of many of his Senate Republican colleagues. “Power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t. I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”
Debate has swirled around the legislative filibuster for years. Many Democrats pushed to eliminate it when they had full power in Washington, as the Republicans do now, four years ago. But they ultimately didn’t have the votes after enough Democratic senators opposed the move, predicting such an action would come back to haunt them.
Speaker Mike Johnson also defended the filibuster Friday, while conceding “it’s not my call.” He criticized Democrats for pushing to get rid of it when they had power.
“The safeguard in the Senate has always been the filibuster,” Johnson said, adding that Trump’s comments are “the president’s anger at the situation.”
Little progress on shutdown
Trump’s call comes as the two parties have made little progress toward resolving the shutdown standoff while he was away for a week in Asia. He said in his post that he gave a “great deal” of thought to his choice on his flight home and that one question that kept coming up during his trip was why “powerful Republicans allow” the Democrats to shut down parts of the government.
While quiet talks are underway, particularly among bipartisan senators, the shutdown is not expected to end before next week, as both the House and Senate are out of session. Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension to the health care subsidies while Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.
As the shutdown drags on, from coast to coast, fallout from the dysfunction of the shuttered federal government is hitting home: Alaskans are stockpiling moose, caribou and fish for winter, even before SNAP food aid is scheduled to shut off. Mainers are filling up their home-heating oil tanks, but waiting on the federal subsidies that are nowhere in sight.
Flights are being delayed with holiday travel around the corner. Workers are going without paychecks. And Americans are getting a first glimpse of the skyrocketing health care insurance costs that are at the center of the stalemate on Capitol Hill. Money for food aid — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will start to run out this weekend.
“People are stressing,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as food options in her state grow scarce.
“We are well past time to have this behind us.”
Money for military, but not food aid
The White House has moved money around to ensure the military is paid, but refuses to tap funds for food aid. In fact, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” signed into law this summer, delivered the most substantial cut ever to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, projected to result in some 2.4 million people off the program.
At the same time, many Americans who purchase their own health insurance through the federal and state marketplaces, with open enrollment also beginning Saturday, are experiencing sticker shock as premium prices jump.
“We are holding food over the heads of poor people so that we can take away their health care,” said Rev. Ryan Stoess during a prayer with religious leaders at the U.S. Capitol.
“God help us,” he said, “when the cruelty is the point.”
Deadlines shift to next week
The House remains closed down under Johnson for the past month and senators departed for the long weekend on Thursday.
That means the shutdown, in its 30th day, appears likely to stretch into another week if the filibuster remains. If the shutdown continues, it could become the longest in history, surpassing the 35-day lapse that ended in 2019, during Trump’s first term, over his demands to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The next inflection point comes after Tuesday’s off-year elections — the New York City mayor’s race, as well as elections in Virginia and New Jersey that will determine those states’ governors. Many expect that once those winners and losers are declared, and the Democrats and Republicans assess their political standing with the voters, they might be ready to hunker down for a deal.
“I hope that it frees people up to move forward with opening the government,” Thune said.
Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Matt Brown and Josh Boak in Tokyo contributed to this report.
The US president called for Republicans to go for the ‘Nuclear Option’ in order to end the Democratic Senate roadblock.
Published On 31 Oct 202531 Oct 2025
Share
United States President Donald Trump has called on the Senate to vote to scrap the filibuster custom so that Republicans can end a weeks-long federal government shutdown.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, the US leader chastised “Crazed Lunatics” in the Democratic Party.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option – Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote.
“WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing [end the filibuster], it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN’,” he added.
The filibuster is a longstanding Senate tactic that delays or blocks votes on legislation by keeping debate open. The Senate requires a supermajority – 60 of the chamber’s 100 members – to overcome a filibuster and pass most legislation.
Senate rules, including the filibuster, can be changed by a simple majority vote at any time. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority.
Since October 1, when the new fiscal year began, Senate Democrats have voted against advancing a government bill extending funding to federal agencies.
Democrats have demanded that Republicans reverse planned sweeping cuts to Medicaid, which extends healthcare coverage to tens of millions of low-income Americans, and prevent health insurance premiums from going up.
The deadlock entered its 31st day on Friday. It is set to become the longest deadlock in history if it surpasses the 35-day lapse that took place in 2019 under the first Trump administration.
Federal employees categorised as “essential” continue to work without pay during government shutdowns until they can be reimbursed when it ends.
Most recently, on Tuesday, US air traffic controllers were told they would not receive their paychecks this month, raising concerns that mounting financial stress could take a toll on the already understaffed employees who guide thousands of flights each day.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that the federal government shutdown could cost the US economy between $7bn and $14bn.
Trump has just returned to the US from his Asia tour, in which he visited Qatar, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea – where he held a major summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In his Truth Social post, the US leader said that while the trip was a success, conversations had caused him to consider the filibuster issue.
“The one question that kept coming up, however, was how did the Democrats SHUT DOWN the United States of America, and why did the powerful Republicans allow them to do it? The fact is, in flying back, I thought a great deal about that question, WHY?” he wrote.
The US leader continued that he believed that should the Democrats come back into power, they would “exercise their rights” and end the filibuster on the “first day they take office”.
In shutdowns past — including during Trump’s first term — presidents normally scaled back their schedules. With staffers deemed “non-essential” sent home, the White House often sought to appear sympathetic to Americans affected by disruptions to healthcare, veterans benefits and other key services.
Nonetheless, it’s been mostly business as usual for Trump over the last 29 days.
“It’s like that country song: ‘Sometimes falling feels like flying for a little while,’” said Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and former advisor to President Clinton, who presided over two shutdowns between 1995 and 1996. “They seem to be like, ‘So far, so good, man.’ ”
Ballroom, golf and trips
Trump was on a six-day swing through Asia, after a recent, whirlwind Middle East visit. He hosted a White House fundraiser for major donors to his $300-million ballroom that has seen construction crews tear down the East Wing, and held another fundraiser at his Florida estate.
Members of the Cabinet have similarly hit the road. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Israel, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went to Oregon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth toured Topgun, the U.S. Navy’s elite fighter weapons school in Nevada.
Only 32% of staff in the Executive Office of the President were set to be furloughed during the current shutdown, according to a White House budget office contingency report. That’s down from 61% during the last shutdown in 2018-19, in Trump’s first term. About half of the Executive Mansion’s team that includes housekeepers, ushers, valets and butlers are currently working. Last time, more than 70% were furloughed.
It’s often been hard to tell a shutdown is happening with so many staffers remaining at their desks.
“I don’t even know if they’re supposed to be working, but they wouldn’t miss a day,” Trump said during an event last week.
It’s a departure from Trump’s first term, when he cut out golf and canceled a planned trip to Florida for Christmas during the 2018 shutdown, which stretched into the new year. He made a surprise visit to troops in Iraq then, but nixed plans to go to the Swiss Alps for the World Economic Forum.
When hosting Clemson University football players celebrating their NCAA football championship, Trump brought in burgers and fries from McDonald’s and Domino’s pizza because of White House staff furloughs.
This time, the president had Republican senators over for a lunch that featured burgers, too. But staff made them. “They do great food at the White House,” Trump said.
‘A smarter approach’
Some say barreling ahead like there’s no shutdown has some political advantages for Trump, allowing him to look presidential while avoiding congressional bickering.
“It’s a much smarter approach,” said Marc Short, chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence.
In Trump’s first-term shutdown, he rejected a congressional compromise to force the government to close — an attempt to win funding to wall off the U.S.-Mexico border. Then, he named Pence as lead negotiator to end the shutdown while involving his son-in-law Jared Kushner — creating the visual of them having to go to Capitol Hill.
“The first go-around, he was pretty clear with cameras rolling: He said he wanted the shutdown. He claimed ownership,” Short said. This time? “The White House has been clear about not owning it.”
Back in 1995, Begala recalled talking strategy with Clinton during a sweaty summer run at Fort McNair in Washington, and telling the president that Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his party “think they can roll you,” forcing cuts to Medicare by threatening a shutdown.
Clinton responded: “‘My favorite movie’s ‘High Noon,’ ” Begala recalled, meaning the western in which a marshal stands up to outlaws. ”They do that — then I just have a Gary Cooper, ‘High Noon’ moment. That’s easy.”
When Gingrich later came to the White House to negotiate, Begala said Clinton wouldn’t budge, even though some advisors urged him to cut a deal. Voters ultimately blamed congressional Republicans more than the White House for the government closing, and Clinton was easily reelected in 1996.
“That could have really gone badly for Clinton,” Begala said. “But he did understand that standing strong, and having a Gary Cooper moment, would be really good for him.”
Trump could probably find a way to end the current shutdown if he wanted to prioritize it, said Leon Panetta, who worked to end past government closures as Clinton’s chief of staff. But Trump’s “attention is focused on everything but sitting down and getting both parties together to resolve this issue,” Panetta said.
‘Continuing to work night and day’
During the 16-day government shutdown of 2013, President Obama scrapped a four-country Asia trip and skipped the Congressional Hispanic Caucus gala. His schedule featured events meant to show the shutdown’s effects, including visiting a Maryland construction firm that benefited from the kind of federal loans jeopardized with the government shuttered.
In 2019, as that shutdown dragged on, Trump’s White House officials acknowledged feeling pressure to end it. This time, the administration’s approach has been to blame the Democrats, while signaling that it’s prepared to wait — even warning of coming travel delays during the Thanksgiving holidays.
“President Trump is continuing to work night and day on behalf of American people,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “The entire administration, including the president, will continue highlighting the workers and families who are suffering because of the Democrats’ decision to shut down the government.”
Bill Daley, a White House chief of staff to Obama before the 2013 shutdown, said Trump isn’t acting like he’s feeling political heat to reopen the government, even before next Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey — both home to sizable federal workforces.
“My guess is, he thinks it helps him,” Daley said, “until — and I don’t know if it will — the bottom falls out.”
Democrats are demanding an extension of expiring tax credits that have helped millions of people afford health insurance, while Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.
Trump has said the shutdown must end, but also used it to cut federal positions and target programs Democrats favor, while redirecting funds to his own priorities — like covering military paychecks. The president has even said of closed museums, “We should probably just open them.”
Americans, meanwhile, are divided on who’s to blame.
Roughly 6 in 10 say Trump and congressional Republicans have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to a recent poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Mike McCurry, a White House press secretary under Clinton, said Democrats have yet to settle on a clear shutdown message that has resonated. Trump has the presidency to deliver his take, but McCurry noted he has been “mercurial.”
“It is not likely we’re going to have clear winners or losers after this,” McCurry said. “It’s going to be a bit of a muddle.”
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday indefinitely barred the Trump administration from firing federal employees during the government shutdown, saying that labor unions were likely to prevail on their claims that the cuts were arbitrary and politically motivated.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted a preliminary injunction that bars the firings while a lawsuit challenging them plays out. She previously issued a temporary restraining order against the job cuts that was set to expire Wednesday.
Illston, who was nominated by former President Clinton, has said she believes evidence will show the mass firings were illegal and in excess of authority.
Federal agencies are enjoined from issuing layoff notices or acting on notices issued since the government shut down Oct. 1. Illston said her order does not apply to notices sent before the shutdown.
The Republican administration has slashed jobs in education, health and other areas it says are favored by Democrats. The administration also said it will not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, flowing into November.
The American Federation of Government Employees and other labor unions sued to stop the “reductions in force” layoffs, saying the firings were an abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress.
“President Trump is using the government shutdown as a pretense to illegally fire thousands of federal workers — specifically those employees carrying out programs and policies that the administration finds objectionable,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement thanking the court.
The White House referred a request for comment to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not immediately respond.
Lawyers for the government say the district court does not have the authority to hear personnel challenges and that President Trump has broad authority to reduce the federal workforce as he pledged to do during his campaign.
“The president was elected on this specific platform,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Velchik said. “The American people selected someone known above all else for his eloquence in communicating to employees that you’re fired; this is what they voted for.”
Trump starred on a long-running reality TV series called “The Apprentice” in which his signature catchphrase was telling candidates they were fired.
About 4,100 layoff notices have gone out since Oct. 10, some sent to work email addresses that furloughed employees are not allowed to check. Some personnel were called back to work, without pay, to issue layoff notices to others.
The lawsuit has expanded to include employees represented by additional labor unions, including the National Treasury Employees Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. All Cabinet departments and two dozen independent agencies are included in the lawsuit.
Democratic lawmakers are demanding that any deal to reopen the government address expiring health care subsidies that have made health insurance more affordable for millions of Americans. They also want any government funding bill to reverse the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill passed this summer.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to negotiate with Democrats until they agree to reopen the government.
This is now the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history. The longest occurred during Trump’s first term over his demands for funds to build the Mexico border wall. That one ended in 2019 after 35 days.
More air traffic controllers are calling in sick, often to work another job to pay for groceries and medicines.
Published On 28 Oct 202528 Oct 2025
Share
United States air traffic controllers will miss their paycheques because of the ongoing government shutdown, raising concerns that mounting financial stress could take a toll on the already understaffed employees who guide thousands of flights each day.
Paycheques were due on Tuesday.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Flight delays are becoming more common across the country as more controllers call out sick because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was already so short on controllers before the shutdown.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Nick Daniels have continued to emphasise the pressure that controllers are feeling. They say the problems are likely to only get worse the longer the shutdown continues.
Not only are controllers worrying about how to pay for their mortgages and groceries, but Daniels said some of them are also grappling with how to pay for the medicine needed to keep their children alive.
Duffy said he heard from one controller who had to tell his daughter she couldn’t join the travelling volleyball team she had earned a spot on because he couldn’t afford the cost during the shutdown.
“Air traffic controllers have to have 100 percent of focus 100 percent of the time,” Daniels said Tuesday at a news conference alongside Duffy at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. “And I’m watching air traffic controllers going to work. I’m getting the stories. They’re worried about paying for medicine for their daughter. I got a message from a controller that said, ‘I’m running out of money. And if she doesn’t get the medicine she needs, she dies. That’s the end.’”
The FAA restricts the number of flights landing and taking off at an airport anytime there is a shortage of controllers to ensure safety. Most of the time, that has meant delays — sometimes hours long — at airports like New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport or Burbank Airport in California. But over the weekend, Los Angeles International Airport actually had to stop all flights for nearly two hours.
Controllers are planning to assemble outside at least 17 airports nationwide on Tuesday to hand out leaflets urging an end to the shutdown as soon as possible.
Money worries
The number of controllers calling in sick has increased during the shutdown – both because of their frustration with the situation and because controllers need the time off to work second jobs instead of continuing to work six days a week, as many of them routinely do. Duffy has said that controllers could be fired if they abuse their sick time, but the vast majority of them have continued to show up for work every day.
Air traffic controller Joe Segretto, who works at a regional radar facility that directs planes in and out of airports in the New York area, said morale is suffering as controllers worry more about money.
“The pressure is real,” Segretto said. “We have people trying to keep these planes safe. We have trainees — who are trying to learn a new job that is very fast-paced, very stressful, very complex — now having to worry about how they’re going to pay bills.”
Duffy said the shutdown is also making it harder for the government to reduce the longstanding shortage of about 3,000 controllers. He said that some students have dropped out of the air traffic controller academy in Oklahoma City, and younger controllers who are still training to do the job might abandon the career because they can’t afford to go without pay.
“This shutdown is making it harder for me to accomplish those goals,” Duffy said.
The longer the 27-day shutdown continues, the more pressure will continue to build on the US Congress to reach an agreement to reopen the government. During the 35-day shutdown in President Donald Trump’s first term, the disruptions to flights across the country contributed to the end of that disruption. But so far, Democrats and Republicans have shown little sign of reaching a deal to fund the government.
Michaela Thompson, an unemployed mother in the San Fernando Valley, relies on federal assistance to afford the specialized baby formula her 15-month-old daughter needs because of a feeding disorder. At $47 for a five-day supply, it’s out of her reach otherwise.
But with the federal shutdown blocking upcoming disbursements of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — previously known as food stamps — Thompson said she doesn’t know how she’s going to fill her daughter’s bottles.
“It feels like the world is kind of crumbling right now,” she said. “I’m terrified for my family and my daughter.”
Millions of low-income families who rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table in California and across the country — about 1 in 8 Americans — are confronting similar fears this week, as federal and state officials warn that November funds will not be issued without a resolution to the ongoing federal shutdown and Congress shows no sign of a breakthrough.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that California is joining other Democrat-led states in suing the Trump administration to force SNAP payments through the use of contingency funds, but the litigation — even if successful — won’t prevent all the disruptions.
Army Spc. Jazmine Contreras, center, and Pfc. Vivian Almaraz, right, of the 40th Division Sustainment Brigade, Army National Guard, Los Alamitos, help workers and volunteers pack boxes of produce at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank on Friday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
It is already too late for some of the 5.5 million California residents — including 2 million children — who rely on such benefits to receive them in time to buy groceries after Friday, when many will have already used up their October benefits, state officials said. Advocates warned of a tidal wave of need as home pantries and CalFresh cards run empty — which they said is no longer a risk but a certainty.
“We are past the point at which it is possible to prevent harm,” said Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy at the organization End Child Poverty California.
About 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
State officials, local governments and nonprofit organizations are scrambling to get the word out to families and to redirect millions of dollars in emergency funding to stock more food at local food banks or load gift cards for the neediest families, but many say the capacity to respond is insufficient — and are bracing for a deluge of need.
“People really don’t understand the scale and scope of what is happening and the ripple effect it will have on the economy and with people just meeting their basic needs,” said Angela F. Williams, president and chief executive of United Way.
Already, United Way is seeing an uptick in calls to its 211 centers nationwide from people looking for help with groceries, utility bills and rent, Williams said. “There’s a critical crisis that has been brewing for a while, and it’s reaching a fevered pitch.”
Cheyne said many families are well aware of the looming disruption to aid and scrambling to prepare, including by going to state food banks for groceries. Newsom has activated the National Guard to help handle that influx in California.
However, Cheyne said many others will likely find out about the disruption while standing in grocery store checkouts.
“We anticipate a huge surge in people extremely upset to find out that they’ve literally shopped, and the groceries are in their cart, and their kids are probably with them, and then they get to the checkout, and then it’s, ‘transaction denied: insufficient funds.’”
Children and older people — who make up more than 63% of SNAP recipients in California — going hungry across America is a dire enough political spectacle that politicians of both parties have worked aggressively to prevent it in the past, including during previous government shutdowns. But this time around, they seem resigned to that outcome.
Members of the military and their families receive food donated by Feeding San Diego food bank on Friday.
(Sandy Huffaker / AFP / Getty Images)
Republicans and Democrats have been unable to reach a deal on the budget impasse as Democrats fight Republicans over their decision to slash healthcare subsidies relied on by millions of Americans. With no end in sight to the nearly month-long shutdown, federal workers who are either furloughed or working without pay — including many in California — are facing financial strain and increasingly showing up at food pantries, officials said.
A deluge of SNAP recipients will only add to the lines, and some food bank leaders are becoming increasingly worried about security at those facilities if they are overwhelmed by need.
Pointing fingers
In a statement posted to its website Monday, the Department of Agriculture wrote that Senate Democrats had repeatedly voted not to restore the SNAP funds by passing a short-term Republican spending measure.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” it said. “We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”
The Trump administration had said Friday that it cannot legally dip into contingency funds to continue funding SNAP into November, even as it uses nontraditional means to pay for the salaries of active-duty military and federal law enforcement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) walks through Statuary Hall at the Capitol on Tuesday.
(Samuel Corum / Bloomberg / Getty Images)
The administration has used tariff revenue to temporarily fund the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, which serves about 6.7 million women and children nationally, though it is unclear how long it will continue do so. The California Department of Public Health said the state WIC program, which supports about half of all babies born in California, should “remain fully operational through Nov. 30, assuming no unexpected changes.”
On Capitol Hill, negotiations to end the shutdown have mostly ground to a halt. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) once again refused to call House members back into session this week, sparking criticism from Democrats and some Republicans who want to negotiate a deal to reopen the government. In the Senate, negotiations remain at a stalemate.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have relentlessly blamed President Trump and his administration for causing the disruption to food aid, just as they have blamed the president for the shutdown overall.
“Donald Trump has the power to ensure 40 million people don’t go hungry during the shutdown. But he wishes to inflict the maximum pain on those who can least afford it. He won’t fund food. But he’s happy to build a golden ballroom,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote Monday on X.
Schiff was referring to a $250-million ballroom Trump has planned for the White House, which he recently set into motion by demolishing the historic East Wing.
A member of the U.S. Navy waits in line to receive food from volunteers with Feeding San Diego food bank.
(Sandy Huffanker / AFP / Getty Images)
State and local responses
States have responded to the looming cut in different ways. Some have promised to backfill SNAP funding from their own coffers, though federal officials have warned they will not be reimbursed.
Newsom has stood up the National Guard and directed tens of millions of dollars to state food banks, but has made no promises to directly supplement missing SNAP benefits with state dollars — despite advocacy groups calling on him to do so.
On Friday, dozens of organizations wrote a letter to Newsom and other state officials estimating the total amount of lapsed funding for November to be about $1.1 billion, and calling on them to use state funds to cover the total amount to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude.”
Carlos Marquez III, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Assn. of California, said counties and other local agencies are responding in a number of ways, including making contributions to local food banks and looking for ways to redirect local funds — and find matching philanthropic dollars — to directly backfill missing SNAP benefits.
Los Angeles County, which has about 1.5 million SNAP recipients, has already approved a $10-million expenditure to support local food banks, its Department of Children and Family Services has identified an additional $2 million to redirect, and its partners providing managed care plans to SNAP recipients have committed another $5 million, he said.
He said his group has advocated for Newsom to declare a statewide emergency, which would help equalize the response statewide and allow for mutual aid agreements between wealthier and poorer areas.
He said his group also is advocating for the state to begin using school lunch programs to direct additional food to families with younger children at home, and to work with local senior care facilities to make sure elderly SNAP recipients are also being helped.
What comes next?
Williams, of United Way, said the organization’s local chapters are “looking for partners on the ground” to provide additional support moving forward, as needs will persist.
“It seems like every day the needs just become more and more pressing, and I’m concerned, honestly, not only about the economic toll that is being taken on individuals, I’m concerned about the mental health and emotional toll this is taking on people,” Williams said. “My hope is that people from all sectors will step up and say, ‘How can we be good neighbors?’”
On Friday, National Guard troops began a 30-day deployment at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, where they are sorting produce and packing food boxes. Due to “heightened concern” in the community about the military’s role in Trump’s immigration crackdown, the troops will be working in warehouses and not interacting directly with the public, said Chief Executive Michael Flood.
Flood said there has already been a surge in demand from laid-off federal workers in Los Angeles, but he’s expecting demand to increase markedly beginning Saturday, and building up distribution capacity similar to what was in place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which seemed odd, considering “this is a man-made disaster.”
“It doesn’t have to happen,” Flood said. “Folks in D.C. can prevent this from happening.”
WASHINGTON — Twenty-two days into the government shutdown, California Rep. Kevin Kiley spent an hour of his morning in Washington guiding a group of middle school students from Grass Valley through the empty corridors of the U.S. Capitol.
Normally, one of his staff members would have led the tour. But the Capitol is closed to all tours during the shutdown, unless the elected member is present. So the schoolchildren from Lyman Gilmore Middle School ended up with Kiley, a Republican from Rocklin, as their personal tour guide.
“I would have visited with these kids anyway,” Kiley said in his office after the event. “But I actually got to go on the whole tour of the Capitol with them as well.”
Kiley’s impromptu tour is an example of how members of California’s congressional delegation are improvising their routines as the shutdown drags on and most of Washington remains at a standstill.
Some are in Washington in case negotiations resume, others are back at home in their districts meeting with federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay, giving interviews or visiting community health centers that rely on tax credits central to the budget negotiations. One member attended the groundbreaking of a flood control project in their district. Others are traveling back and forth.
“I’ve had to fly back to Washington for caucus meetings, while the opposition, the Republicans, don’t even convene and meet,” Rep. Maxine Waters, a longtime Los Angeles Democrat, said in an interview. “We will meet anytime, anyplace, anywhere, with [House Speaker Mike] Johnson, with the president, with the Senate, to do everything that we can to open up the government. We are absolutely unified on that.”
The shutdown is being felt across California, which has the most federal workers outside the District of Columbia. Food assistance benefits for millions of low-income Californians could soon be delayed. And millions of Californians could see their healthcare premiums rise sharply if Affordable Care Act subsidies are allowed to expire.
For the California delegation, the fallout at home has become impossible to ignore. Yet the shutdown is in its fourth week with no end in sight.
In the House, Johnson has refused to call members back into session and prevented them from doing legislative work. Many California lawmakers — including Kiley, one of the few GOP lawmakers to openly criticize him — have been dismayed by the deadlock.
“I have certainly emphasized the point that the House needs to be in session, and that canceling a month’s worth of session is not a good thing for the House or the country,” Kiley said, noting that he had privately met with Johnson.
Kiley, who represented parts of the Sacramento suburbs and Lake Tahoe, is facing political uncertainty as California voters weigh whether to approve Proposition 50 on Nov. 4. The measure would redraw the state’s congressional districts to better favor Democrats, leaving Kiley at risk, even though the Republican says he believes he could still win if his right-leaning district is redrawn.
The Senate has been more active, holding a series of votes on the floor and congressional hearings with Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The chamber, however, has been unable to reach a deal to reopen the government. On Thursday, the 23rd day of the shutdown, the Senate failed to advance competing measures that would have paid federal employees who have been working without compensation.
The Republicans’ plan would have paid active-duty members of the military and some federal workers during the shutdown. Democrats backed a bill that would have paid all federal workers and barred the Trump administration from laying off any more federal employees.
“California has one of the largest federal workforces in the country, and no federal worker or service member should miss their paychecks because Donald Trump and Republicans refused to come to the table to protect Americans’ health care,” Sen. Alex Padilla said in a statement.
Working conditions get harder
The strain on federal employees — including those who work for California’s 54 delegation members — are starting to become more apparent.
Dozens of them have been working full time without pay. Their jobs include answering phone calls and requests from constituents, setting the schedules for elected officials, writing policy memos and handling messaging for their offices.
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks about the shutdown at a news conference Thursday with other Republican House members.
(Eric Lee / Getty Images)
At the end of October, House staffers — who are paid on a monthly basis — are expected to miss their first paycheck.
Some have been quietly told to consider borrowing money from the U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union, which is offering a “government shutdown relief loan program” that includes a no-interest loan of up to $5,000 to be repaid in full after 90 days.
The mundane has also been disrupted. Some of the cafeterias and coffee carts that are usually open to staffers are closed. The lines to enter office buildings are long because fewer entrances are open.
The hallways leading to the offices of California’s elected officials are quiet, except for the faint sound of occasional elevator dings. Many of their doors are adorned with signs that show who they blame for the government shutdown.
“Trump and Republicans shut down the government,” reads a sign posted on the door that leads into Rep. Norma Torres’ (D-Pomona) office. “Our office is OPEN — WORKING for the American people.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Torrance, posted a similar sign outside his office.
A sign is posted outside of the office of Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, in Washington on Wednesday.
(Ana Ceballos / Los Angeles Times)
Rep. Vince Fong, a Republican who represents the Central Valley, has been traveling between Washington and his district. Two weeks into the shutdown, he met with veterans from the Central Valley Honor Flight and Kern County Honor Flight to make sure that their planned tour of the Capitol was not disrupted by the shutdown. Like Kiley’s tour with the schoolchildren, an elected member needed to be present for the tour to go on.
“His presence ensured the tour could continue as planned,” Fong’s office said.
During the tour, veterans were able to see Johnson as well, his office said.
Shutdown highlights deep divisions
California’s congressional delegation mirrors the broader stalemate in Washington, where entrenched positions have kept both parties at a negotiation impasse.
Democrats are steadfast in their position that they will not agree to a deal unless Republicans extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring at the end of the year, while Republicans are accusing Democrats of failing to reopen the government for political gain.
Kiley is one of the few Republicans who has called on Johnson to negotiate with Democrats on healthcare. Kiley said he thinks there is a “a lot of room to negotiate” because there is concern on both sides of the aisle if the tax credits expire.
“If people see a massive increase in their premiums … that’s not a good thing,” he said. “Especially in California, where the cost of living is already so high, and you’re suddenly having to pay a lot more for healthcare.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, in a press event Wednesday with five other California Democrats talked about the need to fight for the healthcare credits.
Garcia, of Long Beach, said he recently visited a healthcare center in San Bernardino County that serves seniors with disabilities. He said the cuts would be “devastating” and would prompt the center to close.
“That’s why we are doing everything in our power to negotiate a deal that reopens the federal government and saves healthcare,” he said.
As the shutdown continues, many Democrats are digging their heels on the issue.
At an Oct. 3 event outside of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, for instance, Rep. Laura Friedman held a news conference with nurses and hospital staff and said she would not vote for a bill to reopen the government unless there is a deal on healthcare.
Last week, the Glendale Democrat said her position hasn’t changed.
“I will not support a shutdown deal that strips healthcare from tens of thousands of my constituents,” she said.
WASHINGTON — The government shutdown, already the second-longest in history, with no end in sight, is quickly becoming an additional way for President Trump to exercise new command over the government.
It wasn’t always this way. In fact, it all started with an attempt to tighten Washington’s observance of federal law.
The modern phenomena of the U.S. government closing down services began in 1980 with a series of legal opinions from Atty. Gen. Benjamin Civiletti, who was serving under Democratic President Carter. Civiletti reached into the Antideficiency Act of 1870 to argue that the law was “plain and unambiguous” in restricting the government from spending money once authority from Congress expires.
In this shutdown, however, Trump has used the funding lapse to punish Democrats, as he tried to lay off thousands of federal workers and seized on the vacuum left by Congress to reconfigure the federal budget for his priorities.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” the Republican president posted on his social media platform at the outset of the shutdown.
Democrats have only dug into their positions.
It’s all making this fight that much harder to resolve and potentially redefining how Washington will approach funding lapses to come.
Why does the U.S. government even have shutdowns?
In the post-Watergate years, Civiletti’s tenure at the Department of Justice was defined by an effort to restore public trust in Washington, sometimes with strict interpretations of federal law.
When a conflict between Congress and the Federal Trade Commission led to a delay in funding legislation for the agency, Civiletti issued his opinion, later following it up with another that allowed the government to perform essential services.
He did not know that it would set the groundwork for some of the most defining political battles to come.
“I couldn’t have ever imagined these shutdowns would last this long of a time and would be used as a political gambit,” Civiletti, who died in 2022, told the Washington Post six years ago.
How shutdowns evolved
For the next 15 years, there were no lengthy government shutdowns. In 1994, Republicans retook Congress under House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and pledged to overhaul Washington. Their most dramatic standoffs with Democratic President Clinton were over government shutdowns.
Historians mostly agree the shutdowns did not work, and Clinton was able to win reelection in part by showing he stood up to Gingrich.
“The Republicans in the Gingrich era, they do get some kind of limited policy victories, but for them overall it’s really kind of a failure,” said Mike Davis, adjunct professor of history at Lees-McRae College.
There was one more significant shutdown, in 2013, when tea party Republicans sparred with Democratic President Obama. But it was not until Trump’s first term that Democrats adopted the tactic of extended government shutdowns.
How is this shutdown different?
During previous funding lapses, presidential administrations applied the rules governing shutdowns equally to affected agencies.
“A shutdown was supposed to close the same things under Reagan as under Clinton,” said Charles Tiefer, a former acting general counsel for the House and a professor emeritus at the University of Baltimore School of Law. He said that in this shutdown, the Trump administration has used “a kind of freewheeling presidential appropriation power, which is contrary to the whole system, the original Constitution, and the Antideficiency Act.”
The administration has introduced a distinctly political edge to the funding fight, with agencies updating their websites to include statements blaming Democrats for the shutdown. The Department of Defense has tapped research and development funds to pay active-duty service members. (And a private donor has helped out.) Trump has tried to initiate layoffs for more than 4,000 federal employees who are mostly working in areas perceived to be Democratic priorities.
During a luncheon at the White House with GOP senators last week, Trump introduced his budget director Russ Vought as “Darth Vader” and bragged how he is “cutting Democrat priorities and they’re never going to get them back.”
Democrats have only been emboldened by the strategy, voting repeatedly against a Republican-backed bill to reopen the government. They argue that voters will ultimately hold Republicans accountable for the pain of the shutdown because the GOP holds power in Washington.
Democrats are confident they have chosen a winning policy demand — opposing big rate hikes in healthcare plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces — but there is an undercurrent that they are also fighting to halt Trump’s expansion of presidential power.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) acknowledged that his state has more to lose than perhaps any other due to the large number of federal employees and activity based there. But he argued that his constituents are fed up with a “nonstop punishment parade” from Trump that has included layoffs, cancellation of money for economic development projects, pressure campaigns against universities and the dismissal of the U.S. attorney for Virginia.
“It kind of stiffens folks’ spines,” Kaine said.
Democratic resolve will be tested in the coming week. Federal employees, including lawmakers’ own staffs, have now gone almost an entire month without full paychecks. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries, faces a potential funding cliff on Nov. 1. Air travel delays threaten to only grow worse amid air traffic controller shortages.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said he hopes his colleagues start negotiating quickly to end the impasse.
He said he’s been one of the few members of the Democratic caucus to vote for ending the shutdown because “it empowers the president beyond what he would be able to do otherwise, and it damages the country.”
The ongoing government shutdown continues to disrupt flights at times and put pressure on air traffic controllers, who are working without pay.
On Friday evening, airports in Phoenix, Houston and San Diego were reporting delays because of staffing issues, and the Federal Aviation Administration warned that staffing problems were also possible at airports in the New York area, Dallas and Philadelphia.
A day earlier, flights were delayed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, New Jersey’s Newark airport and Washington’s Reagan National Airport because of air traffic controller shortages. The number of flight delays for any reason nationwide surged to 6,158 Thursday after hovering around 4,000 a day earlier in the week, according to FlightAware.com.
Many FAA facilities are so critically short on controllers that just a few absences can cause disruptions, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said that more air traffic controllers have been calling in sick since the shutdown began. Early on in the shutdown, there were a number of disruptions at airports across the country, but for the last couple of weeks there haven’t been as many problems.
Duffy said the disruptions and delays will only get worse next week after Tuesday’s payday arrives and “their paycheck is going to be a big fat zero.” He said controllers are telling him they are worried about how to pay their bills and frustrated with the shutdown.
“The stress level that our controllers are under right now, I think is unacceptable,” he said at a news conference Friday at Philadelphia International Airport.
The shutdown is having real consequences, as some students at the controller academy have decided to abandon the profession because they don’t want to work in a job they won’t be paid for, Duffy said.
That will only make it harder for the FAA to hire enough controllers to eliminate the shortage, since training takes years. He said that the government is only a week or two away from running out of money to pay students at the academy.
“We’re getting word back right now from our academy in Oklahoma City that some of our young controllers in the academy and some who have been given spots in the next class of the academy are bailing. They’re walking away,” Duffy said. “They’re asking themselves, ‘Why do I want to go into a profession where I could work hard and have the potential of not being paid for my services?’ ”
The head of the air traffic controllers union, Nick Daniels, joined Duffy. He said that some controllers have taken on second jobs delivering for DoorDash or driving for Uber to help them pay their bills.
“As this shutdown continues, and air traffic controllers are not paid for the vital work that they do day in and day out, that leads to an unnecessary distraction,” Daniels said. “They cannot be 100% focused on their jobs, which makes this system less safe. Every day that this shutdown continues, tomorrow we’ll be less safe than today.”
Airlines and airports across the country have started buying controllers meals and helping them connect with food banks and other services to get through the shutdown.
The greatest concern is for new controllers who might make less than $50,000, but even experienced controllers who make well over six figures while working six days a week may be living paycheck to paycheck without much cushion in their budgets. Daniels said it’s not fair that controllers are facing impossible choices about whether to pay for rent or child care or groceries.
Duffy has said that air traffic controllers who abuse their sick time during the shutdown could be fired.
Republicans and Democrats have been unable to reach an agreement to end the shutdown that began on Oct. 1. Democrats are demanding steps be taken to avoid soaring healthcare premiums for many Americans set to take effect under the GOP spending law adopted this summer. Republicans have said they will negotiate only after ending the shutdown.
The airlines and major unions across the industry have urged Congress to make a deal to end the shutdown.
Air Line Pilots Assn. President Capt. Jason Ambrosi said in a message to his members that he’s concerned about air traffic controllers and other federal employees.
“The safety of millions of passengers and tens of thousands of tons of cargo is in the hands of these workers. Worrying about how they’ll make their mortgage payment or pay for day care is an added stress they do not need,” Ambrosi said.
Democrats have called on Republicans to negotiate an end to the shutdown. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, put the onus on Democrats.
“Our aviation system has operated safely throughout the shutdown, but it’s putting an incredible and unnecessary strain on the system, and on our air traffic controllers, flight crews, and many other aviation professionals,” Graves said.
Funk writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Rio Yamat contributed to this report.
If the United States federal government shutdown continues, millions of low-income Americans could lose access to a monthly benefit that pays for food.
About 42 million people receive money through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), sometimes called food stamps. The Department of Agriculture told states in an October 10 letter that if the shutdown continues, the programme would run out of money to pay for benefits in November.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration is blaming the Democrats with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins repeating a false healthcare talking point on October 16 on X: “Democrats are putting free health care for illegal aliens and their political agenda ahead of food security for American families. Shameful.”
The government shutdown stems from disagreements between Democrats – who want Congress, as part of approving federal funding, to extend expiring enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), through which uninsured Americans can buy health insurance – and Republicans, who want to extend federal funding first before negotiating over whether or how to extend the ACA subsidies.
SNAP is a federal programme operated by state agencies. Participants receive an average individual monthly benefit of about $190 or $356 per household. Recipients may use the benefits to buy fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products, bread and other foods. The majority of SNAP households live in poverty.
Lawmakers and social media users have made several statements about SNAP with varying degrees of accuracy about the shutdown and the Republican tax and spending law that Trump signed in July. Here’s a closer look:
Social media posts say food stamps will disappear on November 1
Many social media posts have said food stamps are going away as soon as November 1.
“Let that sink in – just in time for the cold season and the month of giving thanks,” one Instagram post said.
That could happen for millions of people. But it might not happen for all of them, and it could happen throughout the month of November because the monthly date when people receive their benefits varies by state.
The Trump administration could use SNAP’s contingency fund to pay for nearly two-thirds of a full month of benefits, or it could transfer other Agriculture Department funds, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. The administration has said it has found funding to continue the Women, Infants and Children programme, another food programme for low-income families.
According to an Agriculture Department funding lapse plan, SNAP “shall continue operations during a lapse in appropriations, subject to the availability of funding”.
An Agriculture Department letter told states to hold off on steps that would lead to people receiving their November benefits. Federal regulations require that reductions be made in a way that higher-income recipients lose more benefits than the lowest-income recipients.
We asked administration officials for more detail but received no response to our questions.
Many state officials – including in Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin – said that if the shutdown continues, participants might not or will not receive benefits in November. A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Children and Families told PolitiFact that if the shutdown continues into November, benefits will not be issued.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday that he will deploy the National Guard and California Volunteers, a state agency, to support food banks and provide $80m in state money.
“Empty cupboards and stomachs are not abstract outcomes,” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers told Rollins in a Wednesday letter. “They are the very real and near consequences of the dysfunction in Washington. These are also consequences you can prevent today.”
Meanwhile, food banks across the country have taken a hit from other Trump administration policies. ProPublica reported on October 3 that earlier in the year, the administration cut $500m in deliveries through the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides food to state distribution agencies.
So what have key lawmakers said on this issue and how true are their claims?
‘We are not cutting’ SNAP
– Mike Johnson, speaker of the US House of Representatives, on the TV programme Face the Nation on May 25
This is false.
Johnson spoke after the House passed a Republican-backed bill known at the time as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which included many of Trump’s policy priorities.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the nonpartisan number-crunching arm of Congress, estimated in May that 3.2 million fewer people per month on average would receive SNAP benefits over the next nine years based on the bill’s changes to work requirements and restrictions on states’ ability to waive the work requirements in areas with high unemployment.
A more recent August CBO analysis estimated the changes would reduce participation in SNAP by roughly 2.4 million people.
‘Nearly 25 cents of every $1 spent via SNAP goes to farmers and ranchers’
– Wisconsin state Representative Francesca Hong in a June 12 X post
This is true.
In a series of X posts, Hong said it wouldn’t be only families receiving food aid that would be hurt by the legislation.
A chart published this year by the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service showed that in 2023, farm establishments made 24.3 cents of every dollar spent on food at home, including at grocery stores and supermarkets.
‘About 20 percent of households with veterans rely upon’ SNAP
– House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries at a May 8 news conference
This is mostly false.
An April 2 study found that 8 percent of veterans rely on SNAP benefits. No state had a share higher than 14 percent. Studies with data from a few years earlier showed rates from 4.9 percent to 6.6 percent.
Louis Jacobson, Staff Writer Loreben Tuquero and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Madeline Heim contributed to this article.
WASHINGTON — The government shutdown has reopened debate on what has been a central issue for both major political parties in the last 15 years: the future of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Tax credits for people who get health insurance through the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, expire at the end of the year.
Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension of the expanded subsidies. Republicans say they won’t negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government. Lawmakers in both parties have been working on potential solutions behind the scenes, hoping that leaders will eventually start to talk, but it’s unclear if the two sides could find compromise.
As Congress circles the issue, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about their health costs going up in the next year. Those worries extend across age groups and include people with and without health insurance, the poll found.
A look at the subsidies that are expiring, the politics of the ACA and what Congress might do:
Enhanced premium help during the pandemic
Passed in 2010, the ACA was meant to decrease the number of uninsured people in the country and make coverage more affordable for those who don’t have private insurance. The law created state by state exchanges, some of which are run by the individual states, to try to increase the pool of the insured and bring down rates.
In 2021, when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House during the COVID-19 pandemic, they expanded premium help that was already in the law. The changes included eliminating premiums for some lower-income enrollees, ensuring that higher earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income and expanding eligibility for middle-class earners.
The expanded subsidies pushed enrollment to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. This year, a record 24 million people have signed up for insurance coverage through the ACA, in large part because billions of dollars in subsidies have made the plans more affordable for many people.
If the tax credits expire, annual out-of-pocket premiums are estimated to increase by 114% — an average of $1,016 — next year, according to an analysis from KFF.
Democrats push to extend subsidies
Democrats extended those tax credits in 2022 for another three years but were not able to make them permanent. The credits are set to expire Jan. 1, with Republicans now in full control.
Lacking in power and sensing a political opportunity, Democrats used some of their only leverage and forced a government shutdown over the issue when federal funding ran out on Oct. 1. They say they won’t vote for a House-passed bill to reopen the government until Republicans give them some certainty that the subsidies will be extended.
Democrats introduced legislation in September to permanently extend the premium tax credits, but they have suggested that they are open to a shorter period.
“We need a serious negotiation,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly said.
Republicans try to scale the ACA back, again
The Democratic demands on health care have reignited longstanding Republican complaints about the ACA, which they have campaigned against for years and tried and failed to repeal in 2017. Many in the party say that if Congress is going to act, they want to scrap the expanded subsidies and overhaul the entire law.
The problem is not the expiring subsidies but “the cost of health care,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Tuesday.
In a virtual briefing Tuesday, the libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative Paragon Health Institute branded the subsidies as President Joe Biden’s “COVID credits” and claimed they’ve enabled fraudsters to sign people up for fully subsidized plans without their knowledge.
Others have pitched more modest proposals that could potentially win over some Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said he is open to extending the subsidies with changes, including lower income limits and a stop to auto-enrollment that may sign up people who don’t need the coverage.
The ACA is “in desperate need of reform,” Thune has said.
House Republicans are considering their own ideas for reforming the ACA, including proposals for phasing out the subsidies for new enrollees. And they have begun to discuss whether to combine health care reforms with a new government funding bill and send it to the Senate for consideration once they return to Washington.
“We will probably negotiate some off-ramp” to ease the transition back to pre-COVID-19 levels, said Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, during a virtual town hall Tuesday.
Is compromise possible?
A number of Republicans want to extend the subsidies. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said most people who are using the exchanges created by the ACA “don’t really have another option, and it’s already really, really expensive. So I think there are things we can do to reform the program.”
Hawley said he had been having conversations with other senators about what those changes could be, including proposals for income limits, which he said he sees as a “very reasonable.”
Bipartisan groups of lawmakers have been discussing the income limits and other ideas, including making the lowest-income people pay very low premiums instead of nothing. Some Republicans have advocated for that change to ensure that all enrollees are aware they have coverage and need it. Other proposals would extend the subsidies for a year or two or slowly phase them out.
It’s unclear if any of those ideas could gain traction on both sides — or any interest from the White House, where President Donald Trump has remained mostly disengaged. Despite the public stalemate, though, lawmakers are feeling increased urgency to find a solution as the Nov. 1 open enrollment date approaches.
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire has been talking to lawmakers since the shutdown began, trying to find areas of compromise. On Tuesday, she suggested that Congress could also look at extending the enrollment dates for the ACA since Congress is stalled on the subsidies.
“These costs are going to affect all of us, and it’s going to affect our health care system,” she said.
Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
“Every single government shutdown, typically, the party in power is the party that gets blamed for the shutdown.”
US Republican commentator Chet Love explains what’s behind the latest federal government shutdown and how voters could change the course of what he calls “broken” US politics.
WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown enters its fourth week, Senate Republicans are headed to the White House on Tuesday — not for urgent talks on how to end it but for a display of unity with President Trump as they refuse to negotiate on any Democratic demands.
Senate Democrats, too, are confident in their strategy to keep voting against a House-passed bill that would reopen the government until Republicans, including Trump, engage them on extending health care subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
With both sides showing no signs of movement, it’s unclear how long the stalemate will last — even as hundreds of thousands of federal workers will miss another paycheck in the coming days and states are sounding warnings that key federal programs will soon lapse completely. And the lunch meeting in the White House Rose Garden appears unlikely, for now, to lead to a bipartisan resolution as Senate Republicans are dug in and Trump has followed their lead.
Asked about the message at lunch, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, second in Senate GOP leadership, told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday that it will be, “Republicans are united, and I expect the president to say, ‘Stand strong.’”
Senate Republican leader John Thune, of South Dakota said on Monday that he thinks Trump is ready to “get involved on having the discussion” about extending the subsidies. “But I don’t think they are prepared to do that until (Democrats) open up the government,” he said.
Missed paychecks and programs running out of money
While Capitol Hill remains at a standstill, the effects of the shutdown are worsening.
Federal workers are set to miss additional paychecks amid total uncertainty about when they might eventually get paid. Government services like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, and Head Start preschool programs that serve needy families are facing potential cutoffs in funding. On Monday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the National Nuclear Security Administration is furloughing 1,400 federal workers. The Federal Aviation Administration has reported air controller shortages and flight delays in cities across the United States.
And as the shutdown keeps future health costs in limbo for millions of Americans, most U.S. adults are worried about health care becoming more expensive, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, as they make decisions about next year’s health coverage.
Still, there has been little urgency in Washington as each side believes the other will eventually cave.
“Our position remains the same: We want to end the shutdown as soon as we can and fix the ACA premium crisis that looms over 20 million hardworking Americans,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Monday, referring to the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire in December.
Schumer called the White House meeting a “pep rally” and said it was “shameful” that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has kept the House out of town during the shutdown.
November deadlines
Members of both parties acknowledge that as the shutdown drags on, it is becoming less likely every day that Congress will be able to either extend the subsidies or fund the government through the regular appropriations process. The House GOP bill that Senate Democrats have now rejected 11 times would only keep the government open through Nov. 21.
Thune on Monday hinted that Republicans may propose a longer extension of current funding instead of passing individual spending bills if the shutdown doesn’t end soon. Congress would need to pass an extension beyond Nov. 21, he said, “if not something on a much longer-term basis.”
Democrats are focused on Nov. 1, when next year’s enrollment period for the ACA coverage begins and millions of people will sign up for their coverage without the expanded subsidy help that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once those sign-ups begin, they say, it would be much harder to restore the subsidies even if they did have a bipartisan compromise.
“Very soon Americans are going to have to make some really difficult choices about which health care plan they choose for next year,” Schumer said.
The president last week dismissed Democratic demands as “crazy,” adding, “We’re just not going to do it.”
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said that Republican senators will talk strategy with the president at Tuesday’s lunch. “Obviously, we’ll talk to him about it, and he’ll give us his ideas, and we’ll talk about ours,” Hoeven said. “Anything we can do to try to get Democrats to join us” and pass the Republican bill to reopen the government, Hoeven said.
Still, GOP lawmakers expect Trump to stay in line with their current posture to reject negotiations until the government is open.
“Until they put something reasonable on the table to talk about, I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,” said Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy.
Democrats say Trump has to be more involved for the government to reopen.
“He needs to get off the sidelines, get off the golf course,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. “We know that House and Senate Republicans don’t do anything without getting permission from their boss, Donald J. Trump.”
Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves and Matt Brown contributed to this report.
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a stark warning Monday that food assistance benefits for millions of low-income Californians could be delayed starting Nov. 1 if the ongoing federal shutdown does not end by Thursday.
The benefits, issued under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and formerly called food stamps, include federally funded benefits loaded onto CalFresh cards. They support some 5.5 million Californians.
Newsom blamed the potential SNAP disruption — and the shutdown more broadly — on President Trump and slammed the timing of the potential cutoff just as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches.
“Trump’s failure to open the federal government is now endangering people’s lives and making basic needs like food more expensive — just as the holidays arrive,” Newsom said. “It is long past time for Republicans in Congress to grow a spine, stand up to Trump, and deliver for the American people.”
The White House responded by blaming the shutdown on Democrats, as it has done before.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the “Democrats’ decision to shut down the government is hurting Americans across the country,” and that Democrats “can choose to reopen the government at any point” by voting for a continuing resolution to fund the government as budget negotiations continue, which she said they repeatedly did during the Biden administration.
“Newscum should urge his Democrat pals to stop hurting the American people,” Jackson said, using a favorite Trump insult for Newsom. “The Trump Administration is working day and night to mitigate the pain Democrats are causing, and even that is upsetting the Left, with many Democrats criticizing the President’s effort to pay the troops and fund food assistance for women and children.”
Congressional Republicans also have blamed the shutdown and resulting interruptions to federal programs on Democrats, who are refusing to vote for a Republican-backed funding measure based in large part on Republican decisions to eliminate subsidies for healthcare plans relied on by millions of Americans.
Newsom’s warning about SNAP benefits followed similar alerts from other states on both sides of the political aisle, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned state agencies in an Oct. 10 letter that the shutdown may interrupt funding for the benefits.
States have to take action to issue November benefits before the month ends, so the shutdown would have to end sooner than Nov. 1 for the benefits to be available in time.
Newsom’s office said Californians could see their benefits interrupted or delayed if the shutdown is not ended by Thursday. The Texas Health and Human Services Department warned that SNAP benefits for November “won’t be issued if the federal government shutdown continues past Oct. 27.”
Newsom’s office said a cutoff of funds would affect federally funded CalFresh benefits, but also some other state-funded benefits. More than 63% of SNAP recipients in California are children or elderly people, Newsom’s office said.
In her own statement, First Partner of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom said, “Government should be measured by how we protect people’s lives, their health, and their well-being. Parents and caregivers should not be forced to choose between buying groceries or paying bills.”
States were already gearing up for other changes to SNAP eligibility based on the Republican-passed “Big Beautiful Bill,” which set new limits on SNAP benefits, including for nonworking adults. Republicans have argued that such restrictions will encourage more able-bodied adults to get back into the workforce to support their families themselves.
Many Democrats and advocacy organizations that work to protect low-income families and children have argued that restricting SNAP benefits has a disproportionately large effect on some of the most vulnerable people in the country, including poor children.
According to the USDA, about 41.7 million Americans were served by SNAP benefits per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion. The USDA has some contingency funding it can utilize to continue benefits in the short term, but does not have enough to cover all monthly benefits, advocates said.
Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy at the advocacy group End Child Poverty California, urged the USDA to utilize its contingency funding and any other funding stream possible to prevent a disruption to SNAP benefits, which he said would be “disastrous.”
“CalFresh is a lifeline for 5.5 million Californians who rely on the program to eat. That includes 2 million children. It is unconscionable that we are only days away from children and families not knowing where their next meal is going to come from,” Cheyne said.
He said the science is clear that “even a brief period of food insecurity has long-term consequences for children’s growth and development.”
Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, said a disruption would be “horrific.”
“We speak out for the needs of kids and families, and kids need food — basic support to live and function and go to school,” he said. “So this could be really devastating.”
Times staff writer Jenny Gold contributed to this report.
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) visited three Black churches in Los Angeles on Sunday morning to campaign for California’s redistricting effort, which could add five or six Democratic representatives to his ranks.
Amid a congressional deadlock over healthcare subsidies that has left the government shut down for more than two weeks, the minority leader returned to the Golden State to campaign for Proposition 50. The ballot measure would give his party more power against Republicans, who Jeffries said have refused to negotiate in the shutdown and otherwise.
“This is trouble all around us,” Jeffries told the congregation at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles in West Adams — after poking fun at President Trump’s 2016 gaffe misspronouncing a book of the Bible. “Folks in the government who would rather shut the government down than give healthcare to everyday Americans. Wickedness in high places. And now they want to gerrymander the congressional maps all across the country to try to rig the midterm elections.”
The packed congregation — most wearing pink to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month — were receptive to his message.
“This is a way of trying to keep things equal,” said Kim Balogun, who was in Sunday’s crowd. “A level playing field.”
For many of its members, First AME is more than just a church. As the city’s oldest African American congregation, it has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights since its founding in 1872.
“This is family,” said Toni Scott, a retired special-education teacher who has been with First AME for 52 years. “As one of the church’s previous ministers used to say, ‘This is a hospital. People are sick; we come to be healed,’” she said.
When news reached L.A. that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison, South African immigrants and anti-apartheid activists flocked to the church, anxiously awaiting the first sights of Mandela walking free. During the 1992 riots, First AME was a bastion of hope amid a sea of chaos.
“We thank you, God, for bringing us through dark times and chaotic times,” the Rev. Charolyn Jones said to the congregation on Sunday, “knowing that our church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was born out of protest.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, left, greets parishioners at First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50,” Jeffries said.
(Ethan Swope / For The Times)
For Jeffries, the first Black person to lead a major political party in Congress, the West Coast trip amid a congressional impasse was important.
“The African American churchgoing community has always been the foundation of the Black experience in the United States of America,” Jeffries said, who also visited the congregations of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in South L.A. and Resurrection Church of Los Angeles in Carson. “It’s an honor and a privilege to spend time worshiping at Black churches here with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove to reinforce the message of the importance of voting yes on Proposition 50.”
The state’s redistricting effort, Proposition 50, is part of a national fight over control of the U.S. House of Representatives, instigated by President Trump. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, but in June, Trump began pushing Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional maps to yield five more likely GOP seats.
In response, Newsom proposed California temporarily depose of its independent redistricting commission, led by 14 citizens, to redraw the state’s maps and add five Democratic seats, effectively canceling out Texas’s move.
The Democratic-controlled state Legislature quickly produced redrawn maps and scheduled a Nov. 4 special election to put them up for a vote. Mail-in ballots are already in the hands of voters.
California Republicans, including former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, have slammed the initiative as a “big scam.” Schwarzenegger called Democrats hypocritical, arguing that while they call Trump a “threat to democracy,” they want to “tear up the Constitution of California” and “take the power away from the people and give it back to the politicians.”
Jeffries noted that California was letting its citizens ultimately decide — unlike some Republican-led states.
“We said from the very beginning that we want to find bipartisan common ground whenever possible, but unfortunately, Republicans, from the beginning of this presidency, have adopted a take-it-or-leave-it, go-at-it-alone strategy,” he said, which is part of why, he added, Proposition 50 is so important.
In the current shutdown, Democrats said they will not vote for a funding bill unless it extends tax credits in the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire for many Americans at the end of the year and reverses cuts to Medicaid that Republicans passed in July’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
If the ACA credits expire, premiums would on average more than double for Americans on the enhanced tax credit, one health policy research firm found. But Republicans point out they come with a price: The Congressional Budget Office estimates they would cost the government $350 billion over the next decade.
The bill, which is now law, will cut Medicaid spending by $793 billion, the CBO estimated, and lead to 7.8 million Americans losing their insurance.
On the government shutdown, Richard Balogun, a member of Sunday’s First AME congregation, thinks fighting for healthcare is a worthwhile cause.
“Isn’t it amazing that in England, Australia … you can have national healthcare? Maybe you don’t get treated within the first hour, but you get treated,” he said. In America, “you have to ask yourself sometimes, if I’m going to the emergency room, can I afford that thousands of dollars I’m going to have to pay? That should not be the case in this country.”
A government shutdown has consequences: 2.3 million civilian federal employees are going without pay — roughly 750,000 of whom are furloughed. When the employees are back-paid after the government reopens, that’ll correspond to roughly $400 million of taxpayer money spent every day of the shutdown to pay employees who were not working, the CBO estimates.
Beyond National Park closures and air travel delays, food programs for low-income families could run dry without a funding bill. The Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) can see effects as soon as one week after a shutdown, the CEO of the National WIC Assn. said. Meanwhile, SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) could also run out of funding further down the line.
Republicans blame Democrats for shutting down the government over their healthcare concerns, but Jeffries pinned it on Republicans, who’ve refused to negotiate.
To Scott, the pink her congregation was wearing to support breast cancer survivors only emphasized the importance of access to healthcare. (Jeffries sported a pink tie.)
“More people need to know what’s going on, so just having him go from church to church, mostly in the Black neighborhoods — that’s where we have the most people: in our churches,” Scott said. “Some may hear the word, see something on fake news, but we know in the church you’re going to hear truth.”
Oct. 18 (UPI) — Senate Democrats and Republicans are not budging on their demands to temporarily fund the federal government and end the shutdown as key dates approach.
The shutdown is the federal government’s third-longest and entered its 18th day on Saturday after the Senate failed to approve a temporary funding measure for the 10th time on Thursday and adjourned for the weekend.
More votes are expected to be held next week, but if the Senate stalemate continues, active federal workers won’t receive their full paychecks on Friday for the first time during the current shutdown, according to The Hill.
Those federal workers who are still on the job also received only partial pay on Oct. 10, which affected an estimated 2 million employees and their families.
Federal workers are guaranteed back pay when the shutdown eventually ends and the government is funded, in accordance with a 2019 federal law.
While active federal workers could miss their first full paychecks on Friday, military personnel are slated to be paid a week later on Oct. 31.
President Donald Trump earlier announced his administration has located $8 billion in unused research-and-development allocations from the 2025 fiscal year that ended on Sept 30.
He used that money to pay 1.2 million military personnel on Wednesday, but several congressional lawmakers question the legality of doing so.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., intends to hold a vote to pay military personnel and other “excepted” federal workers.
“We’re going to give [senators] a chance to pay the military next week,” Thune told media.
Senate staffers also are slated to be paid on Monday and House staffers on Oct. 31, but the funds are not available.
Another pressing issue is the Affordable Care Act’s annual open enrollment period starting on Nov. 1.
A House-approved continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through Nov. 21 does not include an extension of ACA tax credits, which expire at the end of the year.
The 18-day shutdown will last at least into Monday and only has been surpassed by a 21-day shutdown from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996, and a 35-day shutdown that started on Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted until Jan. 25, 2019.
Senate Democrats mostly have refused to approve the continuing resolution and instead offered an alternative funding measure that would fund the federal government through Oct. 31 and would include an extension of the ACA tax credits and Medicaid eligibility.
Senate Republicans mostly prefer to negotiate such things in the 2026 fiscal year budget, though.
Another pressing date is Nov. 21, which is the Friday after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest travel weekends in the United States.
If the shutdown extends into the Thanksgiving weekend, a shortage of air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers would greatly affect air travel.
The president has cited the shutdown when laying off federal workers, but U.S. District of Northern California Judge Susan Illstonhas temporarily blocked the Trump administration from continuing to lay off federal workers who are represented by two public sector unions.
On Friday, Illston said she might expand the injunction to include members of three more labor unions, Roll Call reported.
Former President Bill Clinton appointed Illston to the federal bench in 1995.
Oct. 17 (UPI) — The Army Corps of Engineers has paused work on $11 billion in low-priority projects while the federal government remains shut down amid a budget impasse in Congress.
The shutdown has deprived the corps of the funds needed to continue work on many projects, some of which might be canceled, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Friday in a post on X.
“The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects,” Vought said.
“The Corps will be immediately pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority projects and considering them for cancellation.”
He said the pauses and potential cancellations would include projects in Baltimore, Boston, New York City and San Francisco.
The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects. The Corps will be immediately pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority projects & considering them for cancellation, including projects in New York, San Francisco,…— Russ Vought (@russvought) October 17, 2025
Vought is the first Trump administration official to announce layoffs of federal workers and project pauses due to the government shutdown, CNBC reported.
Vought and President Donald Trump have called the shutdown an opportunity to reduce the size of the federal government.
The president has suggested Democrat-led cities, states and federal programs would be targeted as the funding fight continues in the Senate.
Vought said more information would be released regarding corps project pauses, which also might occur in locales that are not run by Democrats.
The four cities that Vought announced for pauses are led by Democrats and are located in states that have Democrats for their respective governors and representing them in the Senate.
The Trump administration already has paused $18 billion in infrastructure projects in New York City and $2.1billion in Chicago infrastructure projects, according to CBS News.
The administration also has canceled $8 billion for projects involving the climate in 16 states.
About 1,400 workers will be cut from the agency, which is responsible for overseeing the US nuclear weapons stockpile.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced that it will furlough about 1,400 workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) starting next week due to the ongoing shutdown of the US government.
A spokesman at the Department of Energy, of which the NNSA is a semiautonomous branch, said on Friday that nearly 400 workers would remain at the agency, which is responsible for overseeing the US nuclear weapons stockpile.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
President Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, said “enough is enough” in a post on X on Friday, as he announced the planned furlough of NNSA workers.
“Starting next week, we’re going to have to furlough thousands of workers that are critical to modernizing our nuclear arsenal because of [Chuck] Schumer’s disastrous Shutdown,” Wright said in his post, referring to the US Senate’s Democratic party leader.
On Thursday, Democrats in the Senate voted against advancing a Republican bill to extend funding to federal agencies for a 10th time, and continuing the government shutdown that has now lasted for 17 days.
Starting next week, we’re going to have to furlough thousands of workers that are critical to modernizing our nuclear arsenal because of Schumer’s disastrous Shutdown.
Republicans have blamed Democrats for the deadlock, as they continue to block the funding legislation to force Republicans to negotiate on healthcare subsidies.
Federal employees categorised as “essential” continue to work without pay during government shutdowns until they can be reimbursed when it ends.
Approximately 750,000 of the US government’s more than two million federal employees have been furloughed so far, along with tens of thousands of federal contractors.
The NNSA’s federal staff oversee approximately 60,000 contractors, who maintain and test nuclear weapons at national laboratories and other locations across the US.
The agency also works to secure dangerous nuclear materials around the world, including in Ukraine, where there is an escalating risk of nuclear disaster due to Russia’s invasion, according to the United Nations.
Nuclear weapons control expert Daryl Kimball, who is the executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan organisation promoting arms control, criticised next week’s potential cuts to NNSA staffing.
“If the Trump administration really thinks the NNSA’s functions are important – and many of them are essential for nuclear facility safety and security – I am sure they can find the funds to keep the workers on the job,” Kimball said.
“Or else, they might want to rethink their position on the federal government shutdown,” he added.
Speaking to the Bloomberg news organisation on Friday, Energy Secretary Wright warned that modernisation of the US’s nuclear weapons programme will be slowed by the shutdown.
“We’re just getting momentum there … To have everybody unpaid and not coming to work, that will not be helpful,” he said.
The Energy Department said Wright would visit the National Nuclear Security Site in Nevada on Monday to discuss the impacts of the shutdown.
Earlier this year, NNSA employees were among hundreds of employees in the Energy Department who received termination letters as part of Elon Musk’s short-lived efforts to slash government expenditure through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The Trump administration quickly scrambled to rehire the majority of the axed employees, issuing a memo days later rescinding the firings.
WASHINGTON — President Trump is showing little urgency to broker a compromise that would end the government shutdown, even as Democrats insist no breakthrough is possible without his direct involvement.
Three weeks in, Congress is at a standstill. The House hasn’t been in session for a month, and senators left Washington on Thursday frustrated by the lack of progress. Republican leaders are refusing to negotiate until a short-term funding bill to reopen the government is passed, while Democrats say they won’t agree without guarantees on extending health insurance subsidies.
For now, Trump appears content to stay on the sidelines.
He spent the week celebrating an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal he led, hosted a remembrance event for conservative activist Charlie Kirk and refocused attention on the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, his administration has been managing the shutdown in unconventional ways, continuing to pay the troops while laying off other federal employees.
Asked Thursday whether he was willing to deploy his dealmaking background on the shutdown, Trump seemed uninterested.
“Well, look, I mean, all we want to do is just extend. We don’t want anything, we just want to extend, live with the deal they had,” he said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Later Thursday, he criticized Democratic health care demands as “crazy,” adding, “We’re just not going to do it.”
Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Democrats must first vote to reopen the government, “then we can have serious conversations about health care.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune echoed that approach before leaving for the weekend, saying Trump is “ready to weigh in and sit down with the Democrats or whomever, once the government opens up.”
Thune said he’d also be willing to talk, but only after the shutdown ends.
“I am willing to sit down with Democrats,” Thune posted on social media Friday.
“But there’s one condition: End the Schumer Shutdown. I will not negotiate under hostage conditions, nor will I pay a ransom,” he added.
Frustration is beginning to surface among rank-and-file Republicans, with bipartisan conversations breaking out on the Senate floor as members look for ways to move things forward. Still, even those Republicans admit little happens in Congress without Trump’s direction.
Leaving the Capitol on Thursday, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “We’re not making much headway this week.” For things to progress, Murkowski acknowledged Trump may need to get more involved: “I think he’s an important part of it.”
“I think there are some folks in his administration that are kind of liking the fact that Congress really has no role right now,” she added. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”
Trump has not been slowed by the shutdown
While Congress has been paralyzed by the shutdown, Trump has moved rapidly to enact his vision of the federal government.
He has called budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has taken the opportunity to withhold billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and lay off thousands of federal workers, signaling that workforce reductions could become even more drastic.
At the same time, the administration has acted unilaterally to fund Trump’s priorities, including paying the military this week, easing pressure on what could have been one of the main deadlines to end the shutdown.
Some of these moves, particularly the layoffs and funding shifts, have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges. A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the administration from firing workers during the shutdown, ruling that the cuts appeared politically motivated and were carried out without sufficient justification.
And with Congress focused on the funding fight, lawmakers have had little time to debate other issues.
In the House, Johnson has said the House won’t return until Democrats approve the funding bill and has refused to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Democrats say the move is to prevent her from becoming the 218th signature on a discharge petition aimed at forcing a vote on releasing documents related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
So far, the shutdown has shown little impact on public opinion.
An AP-NORC poll released Thursday found that 3 in 10 U.S. adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Democratic Party, similar to an AP-NORC poll from September. Four in 10 have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Republican Party, largely unchanged from last month.
Democrats want Trump at the table. Republicans would rather he stay out
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries have said Republicans have shown little seriousness in negotiating an end to the shutdown.
“Leader Thune has not come to me with any proposal at this point,” Schumer said Thursday.
Frustrated with congressional leaders, Democrats are increasingly looking to Trump.
At a CNN town hall Wednesday night featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both repeatedly called for the president’s involvement when asked why negotiations had stalled.
“President Trump is not talking. That is the problem,” Sanders said.
Ocasio-Cortez added that Trump should more regularly “be having congressional leaders in the White House.”
Democrats’ focus on Trump reflects both his leadership style — which allows little to happen in Congress without his approval — and the reality that any funding bill needs the president’s signature to become law.
This time, however, Republican leaders who control the House and Senate are resisting any push for Trump to intervene.
“You can’t negotiate when somebody’s got a hostage,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who added that Trump getting involved would allow Democrats to try the same tactic in future legislative fights.
Trump has largely followed that guidance. After previously saying he would be open to negotiating with Democrats on health insurance subsidies, he walked it back after Republican leaders suggested he misspoke.
And that’s unlikely to change for now. Trump has no plans to personally intervene to broker a deal with Democrats, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The official added that the only stopgap funding bill that Democrats can expect is the one already on the table.
“The President is happy to have a conversation about health care policy, but he will not do so while the Democrats are holding the American people hostage,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Thursday.
A product of the Congress Trump has molded
In his second term, Trump has taken a top-down approach, leaving little in Congress to move without his approval.
“What’s obvious to me is that Mike Johnson and John Thune don’t do much without Donald Trump telling them what to do,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.
His hold is particularly strong in the GOP-led House, where Speaker Mike Johnson effectivelyowes his job to Trump, and relies on his influence to power through difficult legislative fights.
When Republicans have withheld votes on Trump’s priorities in Congress, he’s called them on the phone or summoned them to his office to directly sway them. When that doesn’t work, he has vowed to unseat them in the next election. It’s led many Democrats to believe the only path to an agreement runs through the White House and not through the speaker’s office.
Democrats also want assurances from the White House that they won’t backtrack on an agreement. The White House earlier this year cut out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.” And before he even took office late last year, Trump and ally Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan funding agreement that both parties had negotiated.
“I think we need to see ink on paper. I think we need to see legislation. I think we need to see votes,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “I don’t accept pinky promises. That’s not the business that I’m in.”
Both parties also see little reason to fold under public pressure, believing they are winning the messaging battle.
“Everybody thinks they’re winning,” Murkowski said. “Nobody is winning when everybody’s losing. And that’s what’s happening right now. The American public is losing.”
Cappelletti and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
