The government shutdown, now in its 30th day, will continue into next week and is likely to break the record as the longest shutdown ever after the Senate adjourned for the week on Thursday afternoon. The record was set by the shutdown that stretched 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019 during Trump’s first term.
While there’s no chance that the funding lapse will get resolved in the next few days, lawmakers this week reportedly evinced a new sense of cautious optimism that they might find a path to pass one or more packages of fiscal year 2026 spending bills in a bipartisan manner and end the shutdown standoff.
Democrats reportedly will want firm commitments that the White House and Republicans won’t look to push through additional rescissions bills or continue mass firings of federal workers. And while some appropriators reportedly are thinking that progress on full-year appropriations could help break the shutdown impasse, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is insisting that Democrats agree to reopen the government before moving on to the full-year spending bills.
“Even if you’ve got consent it’s still going to take a while to move those bills across the floor, so we’ve got to reopen the government and then we’ll have a normal appropriations process,” he said.
Judge likely will force SNAP funding: With no concrete deal in the offing, a federal judge in Boston on Thursday indicated that she is likely to order the Trump administration to use a contingency fund to help cover the cost of monthly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food aid.
Some 42 million Americans rely on those benefits, formerly known as food stamps, and dozens of states had sued the Trump administration over its refusal to tap into the contingency funds to keep the food aid flowing starting on November 1. The Department of Agriculture initially said that it could prevent the benefits from being cut, but it later reversed itself. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA website said in a notice that blamed Democrats for the shutdown. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”
The lawsuit brought this week by 25 states and the District of Columbia argued that the federal government is legally obligated to continue funding SNAP. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani indicated at a hearing Thursday that she was likely to order the administration to use its roughly $5 billion in reserves to partially pay for the monthly food assistance.
“Congress has put money in an emergency fund, and it is hard for me to understand how this is not an emergency,” Talwani reportedly said, adding, “You need to figure out how to stretch that emergency money for now.”
Another vote against Trump’s tariffs: Before senators left for the weekend, they did vote 51-47 to end the national emergency President Trump declared back on April 2 as he imposed his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
It is the third straight day that the Senate has handed Trump a defeat on his trade agenda, as Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky again joined with Democrats in backing the joint resolution. The Senate voted Tuesday to repeal Trump’s tariffs on Brazil and yesterday it voted to end his tariffs on Canada. But those defeats will only be symbolic, as the three measures now head to the House, where they are expected to be ignored. House Republicans have set the chamber’s rules to block any consideration of Trump’s tariffs until after March 31 of next year.
The Supreme Court will get a chance to rule on the tariffs before then. The justices are set to hear arguments challenging the president’s tariffs next Wednesday.