The Senate Democrats on Tuesday voted virtually in unison to defeat a Home-passed invoice to fund the federal government by way of Nov. 21, placing Washington on the point of a authorities shutdown that would final for days and even weeks.
Democrats are jittery about how the probably shutdown will play out over the subsequent a number of days after President Trump informed reporters within the Oval Workplace that he would take “irreversible” actions to intestine their priorities throughout a shutdown.
However they emerged from a protracted lunch assembly Tuesday with Senate Democratic Chief Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) resolved to defeat the GOP-crafted funding invoice, which that they had beforehand rejected on Sept. 19.
The measure wanted 60 votes to go, and it fell 5 votes brief. Authorities funding expires at midnight, at which level a shutdown will start.
Centrist Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) have been the one Democrats to vote for the Republican-drafted measure, as did Sen. Angus King (Maine), an impartial who caucuses with Democrats.
Cortez Masto stated she voted for the Republican funding invoice as a result of a authorities shutdown would hit Nevadans who’re already coping with excessive prices and an financial slowdown.
“This administration doesn’t care about Nevadans, but I do. That’s why I cannot support a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration,” she stated in a press release.
Fetterman, the one one of many three who had voted in favor of the identical invoice earlier this month, warned {that a} shutdown may empower Trump to additional slash federal applications.
“The president has a lot of levers he could pull,” Fetterman warned reporters on Capitol Hill.
He stated a shutdown would “be the ideal for Project 2025,” referring to the conservative blueprint for overhauling authorities that generated controversy through the 2024 presidential election.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), who voted in opposition to the Home-passed stopgap when it got here to the ground earlier this month, additionally voted in favor of it on Tuesday.
Whereas Murkowski stated she was open to reaching a compromise with Democrats on extending enhanced medical health insurance premium subsidies and defending federal funded focused by a White Home pocket rescission, she desires to keep away from a shutdown.
“We’ve got mere hours before the end of the fiscal year and so I’ve got no options now,” Murkowski stated earlier than a Republican lunch assembly.
“I’m not interested in seeing a continued shutdown,” she stated.
The vote on the GOP proposal adopted a vote on a Democratic various that might have funded the federal government till Oct. 31. That measure would have completely prolonged enhanced medical health insurance premium subsidies beneath the Inexpensive Care Act which are on account of expire in three months and restored practically $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.
The Democratic proposal failed by a vote of 47-53 with out help from a single Republican.
Senate Majority Chief John Thune (R-S.D.) touted the GOP Home-passed measure as the one invoice that has an opportunity of getting signed into regulation by Trump earlier than authorities funding expires.
“I don’t know what the House can do that they haven’t already done,” he stated, dismissing the chance that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would convey Home lawmakers again to Washington this week to vote on another proposal to fund the federal government.
He stated the pending GOP proposal is “a bill that’s passed by the House, sitting here in the Senate, ready to be signed into law by the president.”
He stated Democrats will “be the ones that have to explain at midnight tonight why the government is shut down.”
Thune famous that the funding invoice the Democrats defeated is identical type of routine short-term funding invoice that they handed 13 occasions to maintain the federal government open when Democrats managed the White Home and Senate beneath President Biden.
He has filed a cloture movement to arrange one other vote on Wednesday to advance the Home-passed persevering with decision, however it’s unlikely to choose up a lot Democratic help.
The result of Tuesday’s vote was largely anticipated after a gathering between Trump and congressional leaders on the White Home Monday didn’t make any vital progress.
Trump virtually appeared to goad Democrats into voting in opposition to the federal government funding invoice by posting on social media an AI-generated parody video of Schumer and Home Democratic Chief Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) talking on the White Home.
The video depicted Jeffries sporting a crudely animated sombrero and handlebar mustache and performed a pretend voiceover of Schumer lamenting the political woes of the Democratic Social gathering whereas Mexican music performed within the background.
Schumer stated the parody video posted by the president reveals that he isn’t severe about negotiating with Democrats to maintain the federal government funded.
“Hours away from a shutdown, which we don’t want, the American people don’t want, the president is busy trolling away on the Internet like 10-year-old. And that’s exactly why Americans are going to blame him if the government shuts down,” he fumed on the Senate flooring.
Schumer argued throughout a press convention Tuesday that Trump and Republicans would come beneath “tremendous” strain to reopen the federal government by agreeing to the Democratic calls for to increase extra beneficiant medical health insurance subsidies, a hold-over coverage from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s right now in the Republicans’ court. We’ve said this to Trump yesterday. He can easily call up Thune and Johnson and say, ‘Just add the two parts [Democrats] want added to the bill,’” Schumer stated. “The American people are learning how bad this health care crisis is and they will put tremendous heat on Republicans to solve it.”
Democrats need to add language to the invoice to increase the expiring medical health insurance premium subsidies and to forestall White Home finances director Russ Vought from concentrating on congressionally appropriated funds with pocket rescissions.
Thune, nonetheless, dominated out the prospect of negotiating with Democrats on well being care whereas the federal government is shut down.
“The negotiation happens when government is open,” he informed reporters after assembly along with his convention Tuesday.
The Republican chief stated he’s open to negotiating an extension of the subsidies if Democrats conform to proceed authorities funding however he stated doing so can be a part of a broader overhaul of the ACA to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
“We’re happy to sit down and talk about these other issues that they’re interested in but it should not have anything to do with whether or not for a seven-week period we keep the federal government open,” he stated.
