The US government is drawing nearer to a potential shutdown after Donald Trump told Republicans on Friday “don’t even bother dealing with” the Democrats, whose congressional leaders are refusing to support spending bills that do not include their healthcare priorities.
Congress is up against an end-of-the-month deadline to approve legislation funding the federal government, otherwise many departments will stop work and employees will be told to stay home. While the Senate and House of Representatives have made some progress on passing the 12 appropriations bills that make up the budget, it seems certain that Congress will need to pass a short-term measure to keep the government open beyond 30 September.
On Thursday, the top House and Senate Democrats said they would not support any legislation that does not meet their demands on healthcare.
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“We will not support a partisan spending agreement that continues to rip away healthcare from the American people, period, full stop,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader.
In an interview with Fox News on Friday morning, Trump insisted that Republicans should go it alone on spending – a tall ask because Democrats can use the Senate’s filibuster to block legislation in the upper chamber.
“They want to give away money to this and then that, destroy the country. If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it,” Trump said of the Democrats. He said he had told Republicans: “Don’t even bother dealing with them.”
The squabble is developing as Democrats face pressure from their base to use whatever leverage they have in Congress to stand up to Trump, with an eye towards retaking control of at least one chamber in next year’s midterm elections. While Jeffries and other top Democrats have been vague about what exactly they are demanding in exchange for keeping the government open, they appear to want to undo changes to Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs imposed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Republicans passed in July.
They have also pushed for an extension of subsidies for the premiums charged by Affordable Care Act plans, warning that millions of Americans will be forced to pay more for health coverage if they are not renewed.
“They’re already feeling it,” said Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. “In several states, notices have gone out already how your healthcare premiums and your insurance is going to go way up, hundreds of dollars.”
Many unanswered questions remain in the appropriations process, including how long a short-term funding bill would last, and if it would encompass any spending bills that the parties have found agreement on. With Republicans able to pass most legislation through the House with a simple majority, the spending battle is likely to center on the Senate, where the GOP will need to win the support of at least seven Democrats to overcome the filibuster.
In an interview with Punchbowl News on Friday, the Senate majority leader, John Thune, said he expected the House to pass, with Trump’s support, a short-term bill to stretch government funding for seven weeks to the Thanksgiving holiday, the goal being to give appropriators more time to finish their work. He accused Democrats of seeking confrontation for political reasons.
“I think that they see it as politically advantageous to have a shutdown. I think that their base is clamoring for that,” Thune said.
“They want to fight with the Trump administration. They don’t have a good reason to do it, and I don’t intend to give them a good reason to do it.”
Democrats are wary of a repeat of the funding squabble that occurred earlier this year, when Schumer and a handful of Democratic senators reluctantly supported legislation to keep the government funded, arguing that letting spending lapse so early in Trump’s term would undermine their ability to resist his attempts to remake the federal government.
They are now facing pressure from activist groups such as MoveOn, which said in a memo sent to Democratic leadership earlier this week that the party should “refuse support for any funding bill that doesn’t reverse Republicans’ massive healthcare cuts”.
“There is no denying that Democrats are left with little legislative power as Republicans control all three branches of government. But that is exactly why Democrats have to use every ounce of leverage we have surrounding the September 30 funding deadline to prove the Democratic party’s commitment to fighting like hell for the American people,” read the memo, which was first reported by Politico.
Democrats hope to win back the House next year, which the GOP controls by a majority that is no larger than three seats. In an interview with NBC News, the congresswoman Suzan DelBene, who leads House Democrats’ campaign arm, said Republicans should be blamed for any shutdown.
“If we’re heading for a shutdown, it’s because that’s where they’re leading us,” she said. “We’re ready to be at the table. Republicans don’t even know what they want to do. They’re in charge. They have all the levers.”
