After the federal government officially shut down overnight, congressional leaders spent much of the day Wednesday trying to sway public opinion and ramp up pressure on the other side.
With federal government functions halted and hundreds of thousands of government workers facing furloughs, firings or unpaid work, the deadlocked Senate again failed to pass a pair of competing funding bills, ensuring that the shutdown will continue until Friday at the very least. And the Trump administration began to carry out its plans to squeeze Democrats and use the shutdown to further its agenda.
Another round of failed votes: The Senate again failed to pass a pair of competing short-term funding bills, one from Democrats and one from Republicans. The Democratic bill, which would fund the government through October 31 and extend expiring health care tax credits, failed in a 47-53 party-line vote. The “clean” Republican bill to fund the government through November 21, already approved by the House, was blocked in a 55-45 vote, falling short of the 60 votes needed. As they did yesterday, Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of New Mexico and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine voted in favor of the Republican bill. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against it.
The Senate is out tomorrow for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, but senators will be back Friday and Republican leaders have vowed to keep forcing votes on the funding plans, hoping to pressure Democrats and peel off more moderates until they eventually get the eight or more they’ll need to reach the 60-vote threshold to pass their stopgap measure and reopen the government.
“I can’t predict what congressional Democrats are going to do,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters at a White House briefing, “but I actually don’t think it’s going to be that long of a shutdown. I think you already saw some evidence that moderate Democrats are cracking a little.”
The messaging battle: GOP leaders held news conferences and took to the media throughout the day to defend their insistence on a “clean” funding extension and argue that Democrats’ policy demands can be negotiated once the government is reopened.
Democrats contended they are fighting to protect Americans’ healthcare. They said the healthcare issue can’t wait until the ACA subsidies expire at the end of the year because millions of families will start to be hit with a massive spike in costs before then. And they say they can’t trust Republican promises for future talks based on their actions this year. House Democrats noted that they were at work and ready to negotiate while Republicans in the chamber were away until next week.
As the spin wars heated up, Vance and other Republicans repeated the misleading claim that Democrats were fighting to give billions in free, taxpayer-funded healthcare to immigrants not eligible for federal benefits. And they argued that this is a “Schumer shutdown,” driven by the personal political calculations of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Vice President JD Vance said at a White House briefing. “The reason why the American people’s government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far-left radicals in his own party because he’s terrified of a primary challenge.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continues to troll Democrats in social media posts. Asked about AI-generated videos Trump shared depicting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and mustache, Vance defended the posts that have been widely criticized as racist.
“I think it’s funny. The president’s joking,” Vance said. “I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now: I make this solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop, and I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that.”
White House starts to squeeze Democrats: Trump on Tuesday had said that “a lot of good can come from shutdowns” and his administration wasted no time in using the extraordinary power it has as a result of the funding lapse.
Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, announced in a social media post on Wednesday that about $18 billion in infrastructure projects in New York City “have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” New York is, of course, home to Schumer and Jeffries. The Department of Transportation reportedly said the halt was necessary because employees involved in the projects had been furloughed.
Vought also announced the cancellation of nearly $8 billion in funding “to fuel the Left's climate agenda” in programs across 16 states that have Democratic senators and voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
Vance told reporters at a White House news briefing that the administration was “going to have to lay some people off,” and in a call with House Republicans, Vought reportedly said the job cuts will begin within a few days. Vance also said that the federal food program for women, infants and children will run out of funding next week.
What’s next: The chances of a quick deal to end the shutdown appear slim. No high-level negotiations are happening at this point, but some senators have ramped up talks about ways to extend Obamacare subsidies and end the shutdown. A group of more than a dozen lawmakers huddled on the Senate floor during Wednesday’s votes to discuss possible paths forward. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that when those senators should came and talk to him once they “have critical mass.”