Democrats take the fight to Trump on government shutdown
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Republicans are banking on Democrats blinking first to end a government shutdown. But just in case, they're going to make it as painful as possible.
Why it matters: Six months of grassroots fury — and we mean fury – have pushed Democrats to embrace a shutdown as leverage against Republicans. Both sides are dug in.
- Senate Republicans are five votes short of the 60 they will need to reopen the government. But they are making some progress.
- A vote earlier in September on the House-passed bill received one Democrat's vote.
- The second vote — Tuesday night — won over two more senators.
Zoom in: Federal workers will go without pay starting Wednesday. The Trump administration is threatening to turn those furloughs — estimated at 750,000 a day — into mass firings during the shutdown.
- Federal services will be affected (see more here), and anyone visiting a federal website will read that it's Democrats' fault.
- "The Radical Left are going to shut down the government," reads the homepage of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The big picture: All year, Congress has been flirting with disaster. But Republicans found a way to fund the government in March (with Democratic help) and then passed a debt ceiling increase in July (without it).
- Now there's no obvious way out of a shutdown, unless one side makes a major course correction.
- But after DOGE, the defunding of NPR and PBS and controversial National Guard deployments, Democrats feel like they've got nothing to lose.
Between the lines: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is under enormous political pressure not to back down without serious negotiations on extending enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act — at a minimum.
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) says he won't negotiate while Democrats keep the government shut down.
- Thune says Schumer has made unreasonable asks and is holding government funding hostage. Schumer says Thune refuses to even meet to negotiate.
The bottom line: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) are senators to watch on future votes. All voted to keep the government open back in March, but voted no Tuesday night.
