This is Day 7 of the government shutdown. There’s no resolution to the crisis in sight.
In fact, the outlook is pretty grim.
On Monday, Senate Democrats blocked — for the fifth time — the Republicans’ stopgap Nov. 21 funding bill. No additional Democratic senators backed the measure. GOP senators countered by blocking the Democrats’ proposal to extend enhanced Obamacare premium tax credits, roll back Medicaid cuts and eliminate President Donald Trump’s ability to unilaterally rescind congressionally-approved funding.
Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters at the White House that he was having conversations with Democrats. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the president’s claim “isn’t true.” Jeffries said there’s been radio silence from the White House since the Democrats’ meeting with Trump last week. It was a bizarre episode.
Trump also said he’d be willing to make a health care deal with Democrats. Democratic leaders took that as a sign that the president was getting nervous about the shutdown’s impact. In his remarks, Trump didn’t include the caveat, “when the government is open.” This seemed to undermine GOP messaging. Trump later clarified his position in a Truth Social post.
Despite Trump’s comments, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson are showing absolutely no signs of caving in. Thune said he thought it was “implied” by Trump that no deal is possible until Democrats first vote to reopen the government.
The Senate is expected to vote again today on the House-passed CR. And it’ll almost certainly fail.
Schumer said this should make it clear to Republicans that their clean CR has no path forward and that Democrats aren’t buckling.
“Every poll we have seen shows [the American people] want us to do it, and they feel that the Republicans are far more responsible for the shutdown than we are,” Schumer said.
But with Trump making the shutdown as painful as possible — axing billions of dollars of infrastructure and energy projects in blue states and furloughing 750,000 federal employees — we wondered if there would come a point where the chaos is just damaging enough for Democrats to fold. In fact, Democrats are still far from concluding — at least publicly — that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), one of just three in the Democratic Caucus backing the GOP CR, said it’s the exact opposite.
“The [Obamacare] increases are so dramatic and will be hitting so many people across the country. And it’s an immediate problem. We can’t wait. It’s got to be done by the end of this month,” King told us. “So that’s the urgency. The Republicans need to face that reality and help us fix it.”
Again, that’s a Senate Democrat who’s been defying the rest of his caucus to back the House-passed funding bill. This appears to justify Democratic leaders’ shutdown strategy to try to force Republicans to negotiate an extension of the Obamacare subsidies.
Here’s Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) saying that the impacts of the shutdown – while serious — pale in comparison to the calamity that would ensue if the Obamacare subsidies expire:
“If we don’t get ACA tax credit extensions, more than 100,000 Arizonans are easily going to double their premiums on their health insurance. That’s painful and that’s permanent, right? …
“Obviously, we don’t want to see [federal employees] hurt, but this guy has already been randomly hurting federal employees all year and using them as hostages. So what else do you do?”
Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said there’s “pain writ-large” whether there’s a shutdown or not.
“I know how tough it is to go through these shutdowns,” Kim said “But I also know that there are millions of Americans who are terrified about their ability to afford health care.”
Meanwhile, informal bipartisan talks on the Obamacare subsidies are continuing even as Republican leaders insist that the government must first be reopened. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Monday she’s circulating a “discussion draft” of a plan that would involve GOP leadership commitments on a bipartisan Obamacare deal and full-year appropriations bills.
But Democrats have long said a commitment alone isn’t enough to get them to support the House-passed stopgap funding bill.
MTG backs extension of Obamacare subsidies. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) unexpectedly came out in favor of extending the enhanced premium Obamacare tax credits.
MTG said in a Monday evening post on X that she is “absolutely disgusted that health insurance premiums will DOUBLE if the tax credits expire this year.”
“[I]’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” MTG added.
MTG joins an interesting band of Republicans who are in favor of extending the tax credits, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Collins. Reps. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) are the most notable House Republicans in favor of extending the credit.
MTG isn’t always a harbinger of the party — see what’s happened on the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition. But perhaps the support in the party for extending the Obamacare credits is a bit deeper than House GOP leaders expect. We won’t know since Johnson has the House out of session for weeks at a time.
