The Dictatorship
Shutdown standoff deepens ahead of crucial meeting at the White House
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Majority Leader John Thune are digging in ahead of this week’s deadline to keep the government open, showing little evidence of budging even as both sides have agreed to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.
Republicans say Democrats need to help them pass a simple extension of government funding by Tuesday night to avoid a shutdown and they will not agree to negotiate until after it’s approved. Democrats say they want immediate talks on health careand they are willing to shut down the government if they don’t get concessions.
A shutdown is “totally up to the Democrats,” Thune, R-S.D., said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The ball is in their court.” Thune said. “There is a bill sitting at the desk in the Senate right now, we could pick it up today and pass it, that has been passed by the House that will be signed into law by the president to keep the government open.”
Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the same program that “it’s up to them” whether Republicans will negotiate when the two sides meet at the White House on Monday.
“God forbid the Republicans shut the government down,” Schumer said. “The American people will know it’s on their back.”
The Senate standoff is just the latest in annual disagreements over funding, but hopes are dimming for a quick resolution. Democrats have suggested they are more willing than ever to allow a shutdown as they face demands from their base voters to fight harder against Trump and the Republican-led Congress. Some even argue that a shutdown might not make much difference because Trump has slashed so many government jobs already.
“We’re hearing from the American people that they need help on health care,” Schumer said. “And as for these massive layoffs, guess what? Simple, one-sentence answer: they’re doing it anyway.”
The Senate is expected to vote on the House-passed bill to extend government funding on Tuesday, ahead of the 12:01 a.m. Wednesday deadline to avert a shutdown. The bill would keep the government open for another seven weeks while Congress finishes its annual spending bills.
Republicans will likely need at least eight Democrats to approve a short-term fix, as Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to vote against it. Majority Republicans hold 53 seats and they need 60 votes to end a filibuster and pass the legislation.
Schumer said Democrats need “a serious negotiation” at the White House meeting with Trump and the four top congressional leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem JeffriesD-N.Y., and House Speaker Mike JohnsonR-la.
Trump last week abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Democrats after “reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands” of Democrats, Trump said on social media.
Schumer said the rescheduled White House meeting is “a good first step.”
“Now if the President at this meeting is going to rant and just yell at Democrats and talk about all his alleged grievances and say this, that and the other thing, we won’t get anything done. But my hope is it will be a serious negotiation,” Schumer said.
Ahead of the last potential government shutdown in March, many Democrats called on Schumer to resign after he provided support for Republicans to keep the government open.
Democrats now fear, among other things, that Republicans will allow Affordable Care Act tax credits expire that have made health insurance more affordable for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. Informally known as Obamacaretax credits for the expanded health coverage program which go to low- and middle-income people, are set to expire at the end of the year and open enrollment starts in November.
Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but not without changes. Thune said Sunday that the program is “desperately in need of reform” and “is fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse. There are so many people who don’t even know they have coverage, because the payments are made directly to the insurance company.”
The White House has raised the possibility of mass firings across the federal government if there is a shutdown. Trump’s White House told agencies to prepare large-scale layoffs of federal workers if the government shuts down.
Johnson told BLN’s State of the Union that Trump “wants to bring in the leaders to come in and act like leaders and do the right thing for the American people.” Johnson said “the only thing we are trying to do is buy a little time” with a short-term extension to finish the appropriations process.
“It’s fine to have partisan debates and squabbles but you don’t hold the people hostage for their services to allow yourself political cover and that’s what Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are doing right now.”
Johnson said Schumer “is doing this for one reason: He is trying to get cover from the far left base of his party because they’ve been hammering for not fighting Trump. So he’s going to try to show that he’s fighting Trump.”
Jeffries told ABC’s “This Week” that “we are always of the view that we need to fund the government,” later adding he is “hopeful” a deal can be reached.
Jeffries said the White House did not explain why the meeting was initially canceled and that his party would work to blunt the health care cuts Republicans approved earlier this year. Jeffries said time is of the essence because higher healthcare costs would go out “in a matter of days.”
“We want to find a bipartisan path forward and reach a spending agreement with our Republican colleagues that actually meets the needs of the American people but that also addresses the Republican healthcare crisis that’s harming everyday Americans.”
NEW YORK (AP) — About 3 million fewer people in the United States had Affordable Care Acthealth insurance plans in February compared with the same time last year, according to new federal data.
In the reportreleased Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggested the 13% drop in enrollment from 22.1 million people in 2025 to 19.2 million this year could be attributed to a federal crackdown on fraudulent or “phantom” enrollment. But health analysts said it was more likely related to the Jan. 1 expiration of federal subsidieswhich caused a surge in plan costs that resulted in many people being unable to pay their premiums.
“We know that real people lost their health insurance coverage,” said Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, citing survey findings on people who had left their plans. “This coverage loss happened at the same time millions of people faced double or even triple digit increases in their premium payments.”
The new data, compiled in April but showing coverage in February, represents the government’s first official look at how people’s inability to pay their first bills this year affected total enrollment. That is because the figures capture the marketplace after a nonpayment grace period expired.
A federal estimate in Januaryshowed that about 800,000 fewer people had signed up for ACA plans compared with the same time last year, marking the first time in the past four years that enrollment had been down from the previous year at that point in the shopping window.
Cox said KFF expects the total number of people in the government healthcare program to continue to declinethroughout the year, potentially to a low of about 17.5 million. That would be a significant drop for the government’s flagship subsidized health insurance program for working-age people who do not qualify for Medicaid. In recent years, ACA plans have become a popular choice for gig workers, farmers, ranchers, hairstylists and others without health coverage through an employer.
The ACA subsidies that expired this year were at the center of a bitter fight in Congress last fall, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for their renewal. Sharp increases in health costs across ACA and other health insurance programs come as voters in the approaching November elections say affordability is among their top concerns.
Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary runoff Saturday, defeating former Rep. John Fleming.
Her win comes as a victory for President Donald Trump, who has endorsed her repeatedly throughout the race — including before she was even officially running.
Letlow made history in 2021 when she became the first Republican woman to represent Louisiana in Congress. In that special election, she won the seat that her late husband, Luke Letlow, had won prior to dying of complications related to Covid-19 in December 2020.
Letlow had no political experience prior to running for her late husband’s seat. She holds a doctorate in communication from the University of South Florida and worked as an administrator for Tulane University and the University of Louisiana, according to her LinkedIn page. Nonetheless, she won the special election House race with nearly 65% of the vote.
In Congress, she has served on the appropriations and education committees, and has been a reliably MAGA Republican.
Letlow’s win also comes as a rebuke to Fleming, who loaned himself more than $11 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, and tried running for the same seat in 2016 only to finish in fifth place in the nonpartisan primary. (Letlow did not loan her campaign any money, and took in more than $5.35 million compared to Fleming’s more than $12.1 million, FEC filings show.)
Trump has played a key role in the race. In addition to backing Letlow early on, the president also helped tank Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy’s re-election campaign in last month’s primary, based on the senator’s record of bucking his party and voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment. In the primaryLetlow earned nearly 45% of the vote, giving her a healthy lead over both Fleming, who received about 28% of the vote, and Cassidy, who earned nearly 25%.
Ahead of Saturday’s runoff, polling showed Letlow and Fleming in a close race, with Letlow retaining a small lead in several polls.
Letlow will now proceed to the November general election to face off against the Democratic nominee, farmer Jamie Davis, who came out on top in tonight’s Democratic primary runoff.
The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, when Mary Landrieu won her last term in office.
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligencehas stirred fear by choosing as his chief of staff a GOP election lawyer who oversaw a poll watching program that included Jack Posobiec and other conservative conspiracy theorists. The lawyer, Christina Norton, also appears to have no experience working in the intelligence community.
“It is horrifying,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW Saturday. “Not only does Norton have absolutely no background, experience or expertise in national security or intelligence, but her principal qualifications appear to be loyalty to Pulte and an embrace of absurd election-interference conspiracies.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has been a vocal critic of Pulte, also raised concerns about election integrity on Sunday while taking shots at the director of national intelligence and the office itself.
“We should eliminate the DNI, and we should eliminate Pulte from the DNI until that happens,” he said on BLN, adding, “I am concerned that we’re gonna continue to cast doubt on elections in November and erode what has been a 250-year tradition of a peaceful transition of power.”
Pulte’s choice of Norton is also likely to increase concerns among Democrats that President Donald Trump intends to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to interfere in the midterm elections. Pulte, a loyalist with no intelligence experience, has used his current position as head of federal mortgage agencies to refer political rivals of the president for federal criminal prosecution.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told MS NOW on Sunday that the choice “just confirms” that the “only job qualification is absolute political loyalty and devotion to Donald Trump.” But he expressed faith in the judicial system during an appearance on “The Weekend,” noting that “right now we have federal courts across the land that are rejecting their various attempts to take over the election process. Nine different federal courts have rejected the claim that the president, by executive order, can compel the states in the union to turn over all of their voter lists to Donald Trump and to the White House.”
The New York Times first reported Norton’s appointment.
The former senior intelligence official, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation, told MS NOW the choice also “signals as clearly as could be that Pulte has been put at ODNI to misuse the awesome power of the U.S. intelligence community to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.”
Norton, reached by MS NOW by telephone, declined to comment and referred questions to an ODNI spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to comment on Norton but defended Pulte’s tenure.
“Acting Director Pulte and his team are focused on carrying out President Trump’s national security priorities while faithfully executing ODNI’s statutory mission,” the spokesperson told MS NOW. “We are leading the Intelligence Community to provide President Trump with elite, apolitical intelligence that keeps America safe.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, said his objection to Pulte is “that he used personal information to target a political enemy of the president,” a reference to New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“You should not be using the force of government to crash upon somebody just because the person in charge does not like them or finds them inconvenient. The fact that Bill did that is disqualifying for someone to be the director of national intelligence,” Cassidy said.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Friday that Congress would ensure that the ODNI under Pulte will “report on legitimate foreign threats to elections, not Donald Trump’s imaginary ones.”
Himes warned that, “Trump was explicit when he appointed Bill Pulte to a job he had no qualifications for that he had elections in mind.”
Trump has said in interviews with the news media that he would like to see Pulte shrink the size of the ODNI and investigate election fraud. Pulte’s predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, participated in investigations in Georgia and Puerto Rico to find proof of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Democrats and some former intelligence officials say they worry that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates in the midterms.
Pulte could falsely claim foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines, they say, and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats during the midterms. Or Trump could instruct Pulte to be present if FBI agents seize ballots and election records in November as they did earlier this year in Fulton County, Georgia.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned in a statement on Friday that Pulte should not use his position to spread Trump’s false election conspiracy theories.
“The mission of ODNI is to identify and counter foreign threats, not to import election denialism into the Intelligence Community,” Warner said. “Americans have every reason to fear that this administration is once again eroding the wall between our intelligence agencies and domestic elections.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
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