Shutdown fatigue triumphed over anger among moderate Democrats in the Senate, which took a crucial procedural step late last night toward ending the country's longest government shutdown, now in Day 41.

• The crucial Democrats folded on the party's biggest shutdown demand — a one-year extension on Affordable Care Act tax credits — without much to show for it, Axios' Hans Nichols writes.

Why it matters: It looks like federal workers will get paid, food assistance will flow and flights should resume normal schedules in time for Thanksgiving.

State of play: After final passage by the Senate, the bill, which advanced last night on a 60-40 vote, will go to the House, where it's expected to pass and be sent to President Trump for his signature.

• Eight senators in the Democratic caucus voted for the deal, which reverses shutdown RIFs, funds the government until late January, and promises a vote (not a guarantee) on extending the health care credit.

🧠 How it happened: Four former governors — Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, and Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, home to about 147,000 civilian federal workers — broke the six-week stalemate.

• "It wasn't working," King said of his effort to broker a compromise. "It's been six weeks. Republicans made it clear they weren't going to discuss the health care issue, the Affordable Care Act tax credits, until the shutdown was over."
• A promise from the White House to rehire federal workers helped bring a deal to fruition. "When I talk to my constituents in New Hampshire, you know what they say to me?" Shaheen said at a press conference. "They say, 'Why can't you all just work together to address the problems that are facing this country?'"

Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, joined six centrist Democrats and one independent to vote with 52 Republicans.

• In addition to the four former governors, the three others voting aye were Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen.

🥊 Progressives expressed outrage. "As everybody here knows, that is a totally meaningless gesture," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said about the promised vote on Affordable Care Act tax credits. "The House is not going to take it up."

• Still, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted against the compromise, but insisted Democrats had gained ground on health care. Schumer said on the floor at 8:23 p.m. ET as he concluded his remarks before voting began: "Health care costs made a major impact on the 2025 election, and they will certainly have an even greater impact on the 2026 election."

💡 Between the lines: Not a single Democratic senator who'll face voters in the 2026 midterms supported the deal. Save Durbin, who's retiring, the entire Democratic leadership voted against it — a stark reversal from their move in March to support a spending stopgap.

• Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), the party's most endangered incumbent, voted no.

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Democratic lawmakers and liberal grassroots groups erupted last night after moderate Senate Democrats cut a deal with Republicans to end the government shutdown, Axios' Andrew Solender and Kate Santaliz report.

• Why it matters: Less than a week after Democrats' election-night triumphs, the deal threatens to reopen deep divisions that have roiled the party all year.

What we're hearing: House Democrats' text message chains lit up in fury as details of the deal began to trickle out.

• A progressive House Democrat said "people are pissed" and that it feels like Senate Democrats "got almost nothing. It seems like they are just tired."
• A centrist House Democrat told Axios: "It's an awful deal and a total failure to use leverage for anything real."

Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) told Axios of the deal for a vote, not a guarantee, on extending health-care tax credits: "It's complete B.S. — a concept of a possible vote ... People need health care, damn it, not some lame promise about a mythical future vote."

• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in a statement: "We will fight the GOP bill in the House of Representatives."

Progressive groups were even more strident in their criticism. MoveOn spokesperson Joel Payne said the deal will "screw over millions of working Americans ... [T]oo many Democrats in Congress ... are failing to listen to the clear message voters sent on Election Day."

• Ezra Klein, influential N.Y. Times columnist, writes this morning: "If I were in the Senate, I wouldn't vote for this compromise."

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We've asked the top AI executives for their private take on the American rival they fear most. Without pause, they all cough up the same name: Google.

• Why it matters: After a sleepy start in the AI race, the search giant's combination of scientific brain power, deep access to data, and lucrative income streams has competitors worried.

🏁 The big picture: Google and its closest rival, OpenAI, are increasingly in direct competition to conquer the next generation of search — one where AI curates smarter, faster, better answers without the hassle of digging and clicking, Axios' Ina Fried and Dan Primack write.

• The prize: The generational business of being America's — and much of the world's — front door to just about everything.

💼 Google has been pursuing all the buzzy AI trends, including promising AI agents, enterprise subscriptions and putting chatbots everywhere.

• Perhaps as important as recent gains, Google has a large and profitable business to support its aggressive training and development pace, while cash-burning rivals like OpenAI must constantly find fresh sources of capital.
• Google also has a leg up on OpenAI when it comes to distribution, thanks to its ubiquitous search engine, Chrome browser and Android operating system.

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President Trump last night attended the Washington Commanders-Detroit Lions game in Landover, Md., complete with an Air Force One flyover — becoming the first sitting president in 47 years (since President Carter in 1978!) to join a regular-season NFL game.

• Above, Trump is flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Commanders owner Josh Harris.

During the third quarter, Trump chatted live in the Fox broadcast booth with game callers Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma, who showed a photo of Trump (No. 85) in the team picture from his high school, New York Military Academy. Trump told them he played tight end: "We had a good time with it."

• This weekend, the White House leaned into an ESPN report that Trump wants the Commanders' new D.C. stadium, which is being built on the site of the old RFK Stadium, to be named for him.

🎤 In the Fox booth, Trump didn't mention the name but said: "They're gonna build a beautiful stadium here in Washington — that's what I'm involved in. We're getting all the approvals and everything else."

• After a touchdown by the Commanders (who'd been down 32-10, and lost 44-22): "Now your ratings have gone up because there's hope. ... I love ratings — you gotta have ratings."
• At halftime, as part of Veterans Day weekend, Trump administered the oath for an on-field military enlistment ceremony.
• Part of the crowd jeered loudly when Trump was shown on the videoboard in a suite with House Speaker Mike Johnson, and again when the stadium announcer introduced Trump at halftime, AP reports.

As Trump left the Fox booth, he told the announcers: "I'd love to have your job someday."

• Watch Trump in the booth (8½-min. YouTube)

🕯️ Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue died yesterday at 84 in Chevy Chase, Md., of heart failure after living with Parkinson's disease, according to his family. His 17-year tenure from 1989 to 2006 included four expansion franchises and massive TV deals, solidifying the league's dominance in the U.S. Read the obit.

Laura Loomer, the feared online MAGA loyalty enforcer, exemplifies "posters in control" — a rising term for "the startlingly porous barrier between the internet and the government," Antonia Hitchens writes in "Under the Influence," a Loomer profile in the new issue of The New Yorker.

• Loomer's private conversations with President Trump — on Air Force One and the Oval Office, and on the phone from her Florida podcast studio — have triggered spontaneous purges of administration officials.
• "Bro, I got Loomered," one administration official told Hitchens over drinks.

⚡️ The executioner of MAGA careers revels in her mystique: Loomer's autobiography and website are both called "Loomered."

• Loomer, 32, just got a Pentagon press pass, and calls herself an investigative journalist. "I get demonized for it, which is kind of crazy," she told Hitchens. "They don't say Maggie Haberman is a national-security threat."

"Though many of Loomer's posts read like empty threats being pushed out into the void," Hitchens writes, "they often reach more than a million people":

• "Her motives apparently range from a desire to save the country to unabashed, petty vindictiveness; the two often overlap."

👀 Between the lines: A strategist close to the Trump administration told The New Yorker that influence "is perceived power ... That's what it is with Laura. If people think you have power, then you do."

• Loomer suggests she and Trump channel each other: "I don't want to say, 'Oh, President Trump is me,' or, 'I see myself in Trump,'" she told the magazine. "But I do. I mean, I do ... Every time I listen to him speak, I feel like I'm listening to myself speak to myself. Does that make sense?"
• There are lots of inside-MAGA suspicions about motives and even money behind Loomer's X postings. Hitchens notes that paying influencers to tweet is "an ascendant model." Loomer replies: "I just say what I say ... I'm not a puppet."

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Bloody Marys aren't the only cocktails that can double as apps — martinis are snacks now, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.

• That's according to a forecast, out this morning from The Infatuation, which provides dining recs across the country.

🍕 What else is trending: Great pizza outside of the traditional hotspots like New York and Chicago, like at Sho Pizza Bar in Nashville which serves up Japanese-style Neapolitan dough.

• Plus, elaborate coffees, like Phê in Seattle's matcha topped with banana pudding.

👑 The Infatuation has also crowned its best new restaurants of this year.

They include Dōgon, D.C.'s swanky new Afro-Caribbean spot, Houston's Asian American diner Agnes and Sherman, and San Francisco wine bar Verjus.

More standout restaurants ... More trends.

DoorDash data shared exclusively with Axios shows big cities where restaurants were most likely to remain open from September 2024 to September 2025, signaling strength in the local economy, Alex Fitzpatrick writes:

📈 Zoom in: Lincoln, Neb. (97.3%), Anaheim, Calif. (95.7%) and Fort Wayne, Ind. (95.5%) had the best restaurant resiliency rates.

• Fremont, Calif. (87.6%), Henderson, Nev. (89.2%) and Seattle (89.8%) had the lowest resiliency rates — meaning lots more closures.

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🌴 Since January, D.C. plastic surgeons have seen a wave of Trump insiders asking for overt procedures being called "Mar-a-Lago face," Axios D.C.'s Mimi Montgomery reports.

• Washington is typically an understated town on plastic surgery. Now, "we're seeing people who want to look like they had something done," local plastic surgeon Troy Pittman told us.

💄 Fillers are big with this crew — especially lips, says Pittman, as are Botox and Dysport.

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