A government shutdown is here, and the partisan messaging wars over who is to blame are in full swing with no sign of compromise.
On Tuesday evening, just hours before the midnight deadline to keep the government open, the Senate rejected dueling stopgap spending bills authored by Republicans and Democrats.
It was the second set of failed Senate votes on the competing plans this month. The Republican bill, which passed the House earlier this month, again fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster but picked up two more votes from Democrats for a 55-45 vote.
Most Democrats are blocking Republicans’ seven-week stopgap spending bill to keep the government open into the fiscal year that begins Wednesday. They say they want to add their health care priorities to the legislation. Their chief demand is a permanent extension of pandemic emergency expansions of Obamacare subsidies that cap out-of-pocket premium costs at 8.5%.
Republicans say Democrats are taking government funding “hostage” with their unrelated demands and are at fault for the shutdown. Democrats say the onus is on Republicans, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress, to negotiate with Democrats to get their votes.
Both parties are banking on winning the messaging war and using public sentiment to win the shutdown showdown.
SEE ALSO: Trump threatens ‘irreversible’ cuts to federal programs as government shuts down
“We are staying united for a basic economic necessity for Americans, and that’s the ability to afford health care,” Rep. Greg Casar, Texas Democrat, told The Washington Times. “And Republicans now have to face a choice whether they want to prioritize their billionaire donors and force a shutdown while cutting people’s health care, or if they want to listen to their own constituents.”
Republicans, trying to portray the opposition as unreasonable, say Democrats oppose a “clean” stopgap funding extension similar to the 13 continuing resolutions enacted with bipartisan support during the Biden administration.
“What’s changed is President Trump is in the White House. That’s what this is about,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican. “This is politics. And there isn’t any substantive reason why there ought to be a government shutdown.”
Mr. Thune said he’ll keep holding votes on the House-passed stopgap, starting Wednesday, until five more Democrats flip to pass it and end the shutdown.
Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat, and Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, voted for the bill Tuesday. They joined Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has consistently voted to keep the government open.
“We need a bipartisan solution to address this impending health care crisis, but we should not be swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another,” Ms. Cortez Masto said. She added that a government shutdown “would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration.”
SEE ALSO: Shutdown hits D.C. tourist destinations, federal workers but essential services persist
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, voted yes on her party’s plan after previously rejecting it and the Democratic measure as “messaging” bills. She wants a two-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
Democrats say the only way out of the shutdown is for Republicans to negotiate with them on health care. Republicans say they won’t engage under those circumstances.
“That’s not something that could be talked about or negotiated until we get a 45-day extension” of government funding, said Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican.
Mr. Rounds said he is open to discussing a one-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies or some other compromise after the funding stopgap is enacted.
Democrats think the millions of Americans who will face rising health care premiums if the Obamacare subsidies expire at year’s end will pressure Republicans to change course.
The public may not be fully awake to the issue yet but will be once the notices of premium increases go out in most states beginning Wednesday, said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.
“We’re going to be right there explaining to them it’s because the Republicans wouldn’t negotiate with us,” he said. “There’ll be huge heat on them.”
Mr. Thune said Democrats are appealing to their base, but how “mainstream America” will react to a shutdown is unclear.
“That seems to be a bet they’re willing to make,” he said. “I think it’s a bad bet.”
Democrats say their health care fight is not just about the Obamacare subsidies. They cite Republicans’ budget law cutting $1 trillion in federal Medicaid funding and the Trump administration freezing National Institutes of Health grants and other public health funding as examples of a “health care crisis” contributing to rural hospitals and community health clinics closing. Their counterproposal, which the Senate rejected Tuesday on a 47-53, party-line vote, would have reversed those cuts.
“This is an unbelievable, quite extraordinary, full-scale assault on public health in the United States,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top House Democratic appropriator.
Democrats are seizing on any opportunity to drive their message home, including holding press conferences and forums with Americans who are siding with them in the health care fight.
Republicans say Democrats’ scattered messaging makes it tough to parse what they truly want. Their requests have included extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, rolling back Medicaid cuts, appropriations provisions to stop the Trump administration from ignoring congressional spending directives, and reversing cuts to public broadcasting funding.
Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said Democrats really seem to want a shutdown fight with Mr. Trump.
“It may be good for them politically, but I doubt it. But it will be very bad for people, very, very bad for the American people,” Mr. Hawley said. He added that government services for veterans and working families would be unavailable during a shutdown.
Mr. Trump warned that he and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought could use the shutdown to cut the federal budget in ways they usually couldn’t and that it would be painful for Democrats.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” he said.
Mr. Schumer said the comment means Mr. Trump was “taking ownership” of the shutdown.
“Trump admitted himself that he is using Americans as political pawns,” he said.
The Trump administration’s hardball tactics have Democrats even more dug in for a fight.
“What I hear from federal workers is they’ve been on a slow shutdown, firing since the beginning of this administration,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat. “They want us to push back.”
Democrats were especially irate after Mr. Trump, hours after meeting with congressional leaders at the White House on Monday, posted to social media a doctored video of Mr. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York addressing the press.
The video put a fake sombrero and handlebar mustache over Mr. Jeffries’ face. It used artificial intelligence to dub over Mr. Schumer’s voice with invented remarks about Democrats feeling they have no voters left in their corner.
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, New York Democrat, described the White House video as “juvenile behavior” in response to her party trying “to do serious work on behalf of the American people.”
“That the White House would have the nerve to put out such racist, bigoted memes is just indicative of what they feel about the American people,” she said. “We’re not going to be distracted. We’re going to fight and we’re going to win.”
Mr. Jeffries directly addressed his remarks to Mr. Trump: “The next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video. When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are honing their messaging on Mr. Schumer because his caucus is filibustering the House-passed stopgap measure.
They noted that Mr. Schumer took heat from Democrats inside and outside Congress for supporting a Republican stopgap funding bill enacted in March and said his maneuvering now is just a response.
“It’s a sign that Sen. Schumer is captive to the left wing of the Democrat Party, specifically, AOC,” said Sen. John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the liberal “squad” member who could decide to primary Mr. Schumer in 2028.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, said Mr. Schumer has been coordinating with liberal groups for months on how to orchestrate a shutdown.
“He is being held hostage by the liberal wing of the party after he did the right thing in March and was severely punished by the group that is against Trump, wanting to shut the government down,” he said. “That’s what they’re demanding. They’re not thinking ahead to the impact and the damage that’s going to do to the American people.”
