Shutdown Day 7: Dems say they can withstand Trump's threats

IN THIS EDITION

Can Democrats withstand Trump’s cuts and threats? They say yes

How Hunt scrambles Texas Senate race

The Vault: The Obamacare developments to watch

New Jan. 6 controversy as Bondi set to testify

THE TOP

Can Democrats withstand Trump’s cuts and threats? They say yes

Happy Tuesday morning.

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:

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.

— Andrew Desiderio, Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Max Cohen

NEW! Join us for a conversation with Reps. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) on Oct. 23, at 8:30 a.m. ET.

We’ll sit down with Griffith and DeGette to discuss the news of the day and their efforts to advance policy for cancer prevention and early detection. Afterward, Mohit Manrao, senior vice president, head of U.S. oncology for AstraZeneca, will join Anna for a fireside chat on the role of innovation and access in improving cancer outcomes. RSVP now!

THE LONE STAR STATE

How Hunt scrambles Texas Senate race

If you thought the Texas Senate race couldn’t be more of a mess, you’re in for a surprise.

Rep. Wesley Hunt’s (R-Texas) entrance into the GOP primary against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has further complicated the election in deep-red Texas.

It’s a massive headache for Senate Republican leaders, who have been trying to help Cornyn and block Paxton from the nomination out of fear that he’s too controversial to win a general election in Nov. 2026. But for months, Cornyn has trailed Paxton in most primary polling.

With Hunt’s launch, this race is now almost certainly heading to a May runoff, prolonging the expensive and high-stakes Republican brawl.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged he was worried that Hunt’s candidacy could create a messy primary. But Thune said Cornyn is “in great shape” and hopes the veteran GOP senator — whom he defeated in last year’s Senate Republican leadership race — can get President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

The Trump factor. The president is staying quiet for now, even as Thune and the NRSC have strongly advocated for Cornyn.

After expressing skepticism of Trump’s comeback in 2023, Cornyn hasn’t yet earned the president’s endorsement.

“I talk to the president regularly. But he’s not ready,” Cornyn said of the possibility of a Trump endorsement.

But here’s something worth considering: Trump has been more than willing to help House and Senate GOP leaders clear primaries. At Trump’s urging, Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) both passed on statewide bids in their respective states.

Hunt is a longtime ally of Trump. And he’s been taking steps toward this run for months, polling and running statewide TV ads to boost his name ID.

The White House didn’t push Hunt into the race, but they also didn’t wave him off, multiple sources told us. We don’t expect the White House to weigh in with an endorsement anytime soon, certainly not before the Dec. 8 filing deadline.

What comes next? This race was in a holding pattern until now. One Nation, a nonprofit aligned with Thune, and a pro-Cornyn super PAC have spent a combined $20 million so far trying to close the gap with Paxton. The contest was just starting to tighten as Hunt jumped in.

Paxton has largely left Cornyn alone. Some of that is to conserve resources, but Paxton and his allies also feel confident they can take Cornyn in a two-man race.

Hunt’s plan is simple. The former Army helicopter pilot is presenting himself as the sane alternative to what he sees as two unpopular candidates. His goal will be to knock Cornyn out and then take Paxton on in the runoff.

Cornyn and his supporters will have choices to make. Cornyn could attack Hunt to nip his candidacy in the bud before it gains traction. However, Cornyn then risks giving Paxton the space to rebuild the big lead he lost under the tens of millions of dollars in pro-Cornyn spending.

The NRSC insists Hunt’s candidacy is a vanity project and that all he does is push the primary into a runoff. And remember, the runoff electorate is smaller and more conservative. It’s the activists and hardcore Republicans who will show up, and that crowd benefits Paxton.

In short, there’s no easy way out for Texas Republicans.

“I like and admire all three of them. I’ve long said I am staying out of this race,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said.

— Ally Mutnick, Andrew Desiderio and Jake Sherman

The Vault: The Obamacare developments to watch

Senate moderates are reaching for any hint of a breakthrough on the looming expiration of Obamacare subsidies as they try to find a way out of the government shutdown.

But there’s still a long way to go to get anything done on the enhanced premium tax credits that expire at year’s end. As the Senate returned to town Monday night, there were a few developments on the subsidy talks. Here’s what we’re watching:

1) President Donald Trump said he’d be open to cutting a health care deal with Democrats, comments that some senators on both sides of the aisle welcomed.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) called Trump’s remarks “helpful.”

“To have the president say this is something we need to address — it’s important,” said Shaheen, who’s been leading some bipartisan conversations on an extension of the Obamacare subsidies.

Republican leaders remain adamant that Democrats must first vote to reopen the government, but several rank-and-file GOP senators pointed to Trump’s openness to discussions as a sign they’re serious.

“The Democrats want to have these talks. The president has just signaled he wants to talk. But reopen the government,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said. “Let’s make sure we have something that prevents us from doing this again, that keeps us at the table. Maybe some trigger points — who knows.”

2) Some key senators involved in talks are offering up more details on what they’re willing to do.

Here’s Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who’s working on a plan of her own, as we mentioned above:

Cutting off the subsidies for households making over $200,000 would leave the vast majority of benefits intact, per JCT’s analysis. Income caps could be tricky, though, especially for some House members representing wealthier areas.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told reporters he’s open to changes to the Obamacare subsidies but emphasized Republicans have to show they’re serious about cutting a deal.

“If they want to put some reforms forward, I would absolutely feel comfortable looking at them and make a decision,” Gallego said.

3) GOP senators are saying they need more time. This just wouldn’t be a simple deal for Republicans, many of whom hate the enhanced subsidies.

“Obamacare is broken,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said. “And it is not an easy thing to fix in a matter of weeks.”

— Laura Weiss, Brendan Pedersen and Samantha Handler

JAN. 6 INVESTIGATION FALLOUT

New Jan. 6 controversy as Bondi set to testify

The revelation that FBI agents pulled the phone records of eight GOP senators and one House Republican as part of the Jan. 6 investigation set off a new controversy just as Attorney General Pam Bondi makes a highly anticipated appearance today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

FBI officials came to Capitol Hill on Monday to privately brief senators before Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released an internal FBI document from Sept. 2023 showing that the FBI obtained cell phone info for GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.) and Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), as well as GOP Rep. Mike Kelly (Pa.).

The records obtained by the FBI covered the period from Jan. 4-7, 2021.

The FBI and Justice Department looked into whether GOP lawmakers had a role in President Donald Trump’s false electors scheme following the 2020 elections. This eventually became part of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation.

Johnson and Kelly’s role in the false electors scheme has been covered extensively, including as part of the Jan. 6 select committee probe, but it hadn’t been revealed that the other senators were investigated by DOJ and the FBI.

FBI Director Kash Patel said officials “recently uncovered proof that phone records of U.S. lawmakers were seized for political purposes.”

More Patel: “That abuse of power ends now.”

Grassley said the “weaponization by federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse than Watergate.” Graham — who was Judiciary Committee chair at the time his phone records were pulled — said the incident “ bothers the hell out of me.”

In an interview, Hawley called it “a total disgrace,” adding he thinks “it sets a dangerous precedent.” Hawley said whoever was involved in the episode should be identified.

The timing of Monday’s disclosure was also noteworthy. Bondi will be grilled by Democrats over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, immigration and ICE raids, Trump’s threatened use of the Insurrection Act and lots more.

But this announcement will help give Republicans plenty of ammo to counter Democrats. Graham, Hawley and Blackburn are all on the panel.

– John Bresnahan

THE CAMPAIGN

Voters in Tennessee’s seventh Congressional district will vote today to choose the GOP nominee to replace Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), who left Congress in the middle of his term for a job in the private sector.

This is a crowded primary. But President Donald Trump unexpectedly endorsed Matt Van Epps, a West Point graduate who has the support of Gov. Bill Lee, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Green himself.

The endorsement pushed state Rep. Lee Reeves out of the race.

– Jake Sherman

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