Congress

6 ways the shutdown is about to get worse

Published

8 months ago

October 27, 2025

The government shutdown gets uglier at the end of this week.

With President Donald Trump traveling abroad and Congress still deeply divided over a path to fund federal agencies, a pileup of deadlines on and around Nov. 1 is set to put many U.S. households at risk of new hardship: Popular programs that provide nutrition assistance, early childhood education and air service to rural communities are now among those about to run out of money.

Thousands of federal employees will also miss their first full paychecks this week, so services like TSA screenings and air traffic control operations could be further stunted if those workers stop showing up, as was the case during the 35-day partial shutdown that ended in early 2019.

“Things are about to get worse,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned in a floor speech late last week.

And that’s to say nothing of the Nov. 1 date that open enrollment begins for Affordable Care Act health plans. That’s when people will start to see just how much their premiums are set to skyrocket because insurers aren’t confident Democrats and Republicans will reach a deal to extend enhanced tax credits before they expire at the end of the year — a central point of conflict amid the partisan shutdown impasse.

Trump employed a strategic — and unprecedented — maneuver to alleviate the first major pain point of the shutdown earlier this month, when he paid active-duty members of the military out of other accounts. Still, the White House has yet to take similar steps to fund several other priorities where payments come due in the coming days.

In Congress, some lawmakers are working to mitigate the shutdown’s effects on select services with piecemeal bills. But none of those measures are on the fast track to final passage.

As the shutdown hits the four-week mark and Thanksgiving fast approaches, here’s when cash is expected to run out for key programs if Congress can’t strike a deal soon.

SNAP food aid

Food assistance that more than 40 million people rely on — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will start to run out of money Saturday. And the Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to keep those food benefits going, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

At least 25 states are already planning to cut off benefits, which support low-income families.

Some lawmakers have been pressing the administration to tap into an agriculture contingency fund to pay out some of the benefits next month. That pot of cash only has about $5 billion left, though — far less than the roughly $9 billion needed to cover food aid through November.

Head Start

Federal funding will stop flowing on Saturday to some early childhood education programs supported by Head Start, the Health and Human Services program that funds education, health and nutrition services for more than 800,000 children under the age of six.

More than 130 programs are set to miss federal funding, spanning 41 states and Puerto Rico, and serving about 59,000 children, according to the National Head Start Association, the nonprofit organization that represents the providers. Loss of federal funding means some teachers won’t get paid and some centers will close.

After funding first lapsed Oct. 1, Head Start programs serving about 6,500 children didn’t get their usual cash.

WIC nutrition assistance

The administration already buoyed funding earlier this month for the federal nutrition assistance program that serves about 7 million low-income mothers and babies by redirecting cash from an account that funds things like school breakfast and lunch programs.

But the coffers will dry up Saturday unless the Trump administration taps another $300 million in emergency cash for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC.

Essential Air Service

The Trump administration has warned that the Essential Air Service — which subsidizes airline service to small, often rural, communities — is likely to run out of funding over the weekend.

Some airlines serving Alaska and other remote areas of the country might have to increase airfare to have enough cash to pay staff in the absence of federal subsidies. Residents and businesses in hard-to-reach areas have been sensitive to disruptions in the program, especially after many airlines stopped operating out of small airports during the pandemic.

The service is crucial enough that the Transportation Department tapped $42 million to avoid a lapse earlier this month.

Military pay

Members of the military will miss paychecks on Friday if Trump doesn’t intervene like he did earlier this month, when he paid active-duty servicemembers by tapping about $6.5 billion meant for military research and development efforts. But it could be hard to make the same move again since that pot of cash had about $10 billion left before the president pulled from it last time.

Trump does plan to continue using other funding to cover military paychecks during the shutdown, according to two White House officials granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pentagon officials also said Friday that they have accepted an anonymous gift of $130 million from a wealthy donor to help pay military salaries during the shutdown.

The White House has not disclosed how much money it believes is still available, however, and a multibillion-dollar payout twice a month could quickly drain the Pentagon’s leftover cash.

Federal civilian paychecks

Many civilian employees across government agencies will experience their first fully missed paychecks of the government shutdown Tuesday and Thursday, after some already went without compensation late last week since there are different pay periods for various federal offices.

Congressional aides are among the people who will feel the pain, with House staffers due to miss pay Friday. Their Senate counterparts are set to go without compensation the following week. The lawmakers embroiled in the shutdown standoff, however, will continue to get their salaries on schedule thanks to the Constitution.

The Trump administration has been looking for ways to pay air traffic controllers during the shutdown following his unilateral action to pay the troops. And while some lawmakers have proposed legislation to that end, Senate Democrats rejected a measure last week that would pay select government workers and active-duty members of the military.

Opponents of that bill argued that it would empower Trump to choose who gets to be paid and who must remain on furlough without a paycheck, strengthening the negotiating position of Republicans as the shutdown continues.

Speaker Mike Johnson has also said he would not call House lawmakers back to town to pass piecemeal bills to pay federal workers, arguing that it would “take the pressure off” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “to get his job done and open the government again.”

Meredith Lee Hill, Grace Yarrow, Mackenzie Wilkes, Pavan Acharya and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Johnson-backed plan to combine Pentagon and election bills advances to floor

Published

4 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.

The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.

However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.

Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.

The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.

“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”

The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.

The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.

The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Pentagon and elections bills could be combined in bid to unfreeze House floor

Published

7 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.

That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.

Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”

Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.

House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.

She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.

But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.

Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.

“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.

He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Top Trump officials face bipartisan questions in first all-member Iran briefings

Published

8 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawmakers of both parties questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff Monday in the first broad congressional briefings on President Donald Trump’s Iran deal.

While Democrats asked some of the sharpest questions, participants in an afternoon conference call with House members said, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at one point pressed the administration officials on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.

According to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private remarks, Witkoff and Rubio repeated assurances the administration has privately made to select lawmakers in prior briefings — that the goal is to negotiate a final deal that would prohibit Iran from keeping its highly enriched uranium.

The memorandum of understanding Trump signed earlier this month, they said, was meant to launch those negotiations. Witkoff, the people said, added that the technical team involved in that part of the talks was traveling from Switzerland to Qatar, where talks between the U.S. and Iran are set to happen Tuesday.

Democrats, meanwhile, pushed the administration for more details on what financial benefits Iran could reap under the memorandum — including proceeds from previously sanctioned oil sales.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) went back and forth with Rubio and Witkoff over the lifting of the oil sanctions, two other people granted anonymity on the House call said. The officials eventually cut off the conversation and ended the call.

At another point, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) raised concerns about Witkoff’s business interests in the Middle East as he’s negotiating with Iran, prompting a sharp defense from Rubio, those people said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked Rubio and Witkoff about the oil sanctions during a separate all-senators call Monday, saying in a statement afterward that they “confirmed to me that Iran will reap billions in oil revenue while retaining dangerous leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.”

“If this is the administration’s defense behind closed doors, Secretary Rubio should make it under oath, in public, before the Foreign Relations Committee,” Schumer added, calling the briefing “delayed, deficient, and devoid of details.”

An administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly countered on Schumer’s characterization, noting that he had previously gotten a briefing of the deal as part of a group of top leaders engaged on national security matters. Schumer, the official said, had the opportunity to ask multiple follow-up questions on the Senate call.

A separate group of White House officials briefed top congressional leaders and key committee chairs in a classified briefing in the Capitol later Monday.

The administration has faced bipartisan skepticism over multiple provisions of the memorandum of understanding — particularly the lifting of oil sanctions and a $300 billion reconstruction fund that many Senate Republicans fear will help fuel Iran’s military and regional proxies.

Rubio and Witkoff sought to ease concerns about the slow reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — the critical trade route whose closure has sparked higher fuel and fertilizer costs. Both officials said more mine removal is required, and Witkoff indicated that Iran broke the terms of the Trump-signed deal by launching a drone attack on a passing ship over the weekend.

They also sought to assure lawmakers that Iran has received no money under the memorandum — especially not directly from American sources. Administration officials have previously pledged in smaller briefings that the reconstruction fund won’t include U.S. funds.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the Senate briefing a “productive conversation” but said “much of what I heard today is similar to what I heard last week” during a dinner at Vice President JD Vance’s residence.