Congress

Tables turn for Democrats as they use shutdown for leverage

Published

9 months ago

September 22, 2025

On one side is the minority party, using what little leverage it has — a looming government funding deadline — to push for priorities it can’t enact otherwise. On the other is the majority, insisting a short-term funding punt is no place for negotiation.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because just such a scenario has played out dozens of times on Capitol Hill over the past decade and a half — usually with Republicans pushing for policy concessions and Democrats insisting on a “clean” stopgap.

Not this time. The roles have been reversed between the two parties as Congress barrels toward a government shutdown on Oct. 1 with no obvious off-ramp in sight.

It’s Republicans who are pushing a “clean” seven-week continuing resolution, which they say will buy time for more negotiations on full-year spending bills and possibly an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies. Democrats, meanwhile, wrote an alternative four-week punt that tacks on a laundry list of other demands, including a permanent extension of the insurance subsidies.

Conservative Republicans who have balked at past stopgaps have signed on to their party’s strategy, as have Democrats who have traditionally been most loath to flirt with shutdowns — such as the Washington-area members who represent federal workers who stand to be furloughed.

“My brain’s falling out of my head,” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said in an interview. ”When you talk about the Freedom Caucus talking about passing a CR and the Democrats saying, ‘I’m going to shut down the government.’ I’ve never seen anything so weird in my life.”

There are myriad reasons for the current moment’s Bizarro World politics, but the biggest is a transformation of incentives. Where Republicans have spent most of the past 15 years heeding the wishes of a party base spoiling for a fight, damn the consequences, it’s now Democrats in that position. The GOP, meanwhile, is in lockstep behind President Donald Trump, who is determined to corner his opposition.

The current situation, in fact, is a nearly precise inversion of the standoff seen in the fall of 2013, when conservative Republicans led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas sparked a shutdown over a demand to reverse Democrats’ signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act. They backed down after 17 days.

“It did not work for them,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) recalled last week as he reflected on how Democrats are now seeking a reversal of parts of the GOP’s own signature legislation — health care provisions in the domestic policy bill the party passed in July. Democrats also want to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies that expire at the end of this year.

“They tied something unrelated to spending, Obamacare, and shut down the government,” Cole added. “That was the wrong thing to do then. … You are doing the same thing now. It’s nothing else.”

Democrats at the time insisted that any funding bill stay free of policy provisions. Then-Majority Leader Harry Reid at the time cast the choice for the GOP as “whether to pass the Senate’s clean CR or force a Republican government shutdown.”

They said much the same when they had majorities under President Joe Biden. According to statistics that have been circulated by Senate Republicans this month, Congress complied by passing 13 clean funding stopgaps in that four-year stretch.

Pressed on the turning of the tables, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday insisted there was an articulable distinction.

“What’s different? They were taking something away,” he told reporters. “We’re trying to restore something that they took away. It’s a world of difference when you’re trying to do some good for people rather than doing negative stuff for people.”

It’s not just Democrats who have had to confront a tactical 180 in the current fight. Facing grumbling from the right flank of his conference, Speaker Mike Johnson vowed last year to never pass another continuing resolution to fund the government. On Friday, he muscled through the second GOP-backed stopgap of 2025.

One House Republican described a closed-door conference meeting last week like being in “the Twilight Zone,” as several hard-liners who once opposed continuing resolutions as preludes to bloated, opaque omnibus spending bills voiced support for a short-term punt.

Among those who spoke up was Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a former House Freedom Caucus chair, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the hard-right group who used to push for shutdowns but now urged his colleagues to “send Chuck Schumer a clean CR.”

The key difference this time is Trump, who publicly backed both GOP-led stopgaps this year. It’s also helped that his budget director, Russell Vought, has delighted conservatives by seeking to formally rescind or simply not spend money Congress has previously appropriated. Democrats are now seeking a prohibition on those moves in the current standoff.

“There’s nothing clean about the administration undermining Congress,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said.

Last week, Democrats were mainly fuming about Trump’s comments that GOP leaders shouldn’t “even bother dealing with” them. On Friday, he predicted “it could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time.” A day later, after top Democratic leaders demanded a meeting, he said he would “love to meet with them, but I don’t think it’s going to have any impact.”

“Donald Trump told them, ‘Don’t talk to the Democrats,’ and so they didn’t,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said. “He wanted a clean CR, and he got it on the House side. I’m not sure what he’ll get in the Senate.”

Trump’s comments fueled partisan tensions that spilled into plain sight Friday with Schumer and Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Republican leader, bickering on the Senate floor.

Barrasso accused Schumer of trying to take funding “hostage,” blocking Schumer’s attempt to claim speaking time to ask a question.

“The reason we are having a shutdown now is you and your leadership refused to talk to Democrats or have any input,” Schumer said in response. “Never a shutdown when we were in the leadership.”

Top Republican leaders are supremely confident that Democrats are holding a losing hand — based in part on the outcomes of past shutdown fights their own party instigated.

“You learn from past experience,” Thune said, responding to a question about the 2013 shutdown. “When you’re the ones who are trying to have a bunch of new stuff, generally, I think you’re the ones who end up getting blamed when there’s a shutdown.”

But Democrats so far have continued to dig in — including those members who have tended to serve as an internal bulwark against brinkmanship. Typically members with constituencies heavy on federal workers have been wary of shutdowns, but even they are dead set on opposing Republicans’ recent Medicaid cuts and securing the insurance subsidy extension.

“Everything they’re doing is designed to protect their dismantling of Medicaid and the health care system, and we made a very emphatic statement that we are going to stand strong,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said.

GOP leaders believe if Senate Democrats don’t fold right away, they’ll get an earful from constituents when they’re back home this week for the Rosh Hashanah break.

They’re eyeing members such as Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who has been adamant in public that Republicans will bear the cost of a shutdown. Republicans think Warner, who is seeking reelection next year, is likely to change his tune. “I don’t know if they’ll want to stick it out then,” said one House Republican granted anonymity to speak frankly about party strategy.

But Warner said Friday he was ready to fight, citing “17 million Americans going without health insurance, cancer rates going up dramatically, [the] country visibly sicker with cuts to research.”

“I know the president may not want to acknowledge checks and balances,” Warner said. But “he can’t do this with Republican-only votes.”

Hailey Fuchs, Jordain Carney, Katherine Tully-McManus and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Johnson says he will send housing bill to Trump on Monday

Published

15 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Speaker Mike Johsnon said he plans to send President Donald Trump a bipartisan housing bill Monday, just days after the president abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the legislation after Congress failed to pass his elections security act.

Speaking with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Johnson said the 21st Century ROAD To Housing Act is a Republican priority for lowering costs for Americans.

“I’m going to send the bill over to him on Monday, and it will become law,” the Louisiana Republican told host Maria Bartiromo. “I certainly want him to take the biggest, boldest marker that he has and do that big Trump signature proudly on that legislation because we’re delivering for the people, and that’s what he wants to do.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Johnson’s remarks.

The bill is the product of almost a year of back-and-forth between all four congressional corners and aims to increase affordability by boosting housing supply and home ownership. It passed both chambers of Congress with wide bipartisan support.

Trump was scheduled to sign the bill into law last week but canceled the ceremony “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.”

Trump’s SAVE America Act would require voters to present a photo ID at the ballot box and effectively end mail-in voting. Trump has also said he would like the bill to include prohibitions on transgender athletes competing. But Republican leaders have repeatedly indicated the legislation does not have enough votes to pass.

Congressional leaders appeared taken aback by Trump’s signing cancellation, but Johnson on Sunday said he and the president have since met in the Oval Office to discuss the housing bill “in great detail.”

“We made a lot of promises to the voters, and we’re fulfilling those every single day of this Congress,” Johnson said. “This is a big part of that because this will increase the availability, the access to more housing, bring down cost, cut regulations, do the things we know are very important for that market. The president and I talked about that at length. Of course he wants to do those things.”

But if Trump does not sign the housing bill into law within the next few days, it would still become law unless he were to veto it. Congress also has the power to override a presidential veto.

Congress

Sen. Thom Tillis rails against Trump’s fixation on voting legislation

Published

15 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Thom Tillis on Sunday expressed frustration with President Donald Trump’s continued fixation on passing the SAVE America Act.

In an interview with BLN’s “Face the Nation,” the retiring North Carolina Republican lamented “the impossible task” of implementing the requirements of the legislation ahead of November’s crucial midterms.

“Why are we doing more things to undermine our confidence in elections, rather than getting the strong message out that will win for Republicans this year?” Tillis said.

Rather than promoting the bill — which would require voters to present a photo ID at the ballot box and effectively end widespread mail-in voting — Tillis said Republicans should tell voters about “the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America” while accepting the current voting laws.

“Win by the good results that Republicans have produced and stop undermining the confidence in the elections,” said Tillis. “This is a bedrock of our 250-year history of success as the democracy that changed the world. Let’s not mess with that between now and November.”

Trump has said the SAVE America Act is his “No. 1 priority” ahead of midterms, going so far as to abruptly cancel a bill signing for major bipartisan legislation on housing affordability until Congress passes his elections bill. But many Democrats are staunchly against the bill, arguing it could disenfranchise millions of voters, and Republican leaders in Congress have repeatedly indicated it does not have the votes to pass.

Tillis co-sponsored the original SAVE America Act but has objected to Trump’s version of the legislation, which would also bar transgender athletes from women’s sports.

It’s not the first time Tillis has clashed with Trump.

Earlier this year, Tillis blocked Trump’s Fed chair nominee, Kevin Warsh, until the Justice Department dropped an investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. He has also spoken out against the Justice Department’s $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” calling it a “payout for punks.” And he has emerged as a fierce critic of Bill Pulte, Trump’s interim director of national intelligence.

“Let’s try and figure out a way to completely and finally end these distractions so that we can focus on the damage Democrats could do if they take the House, if they beat incumbent Republicans in the Senate. That’s what Republicans need to be talking about between now and November,” Tillis said Sunday.

Congress

Sen. Bill Cassidy on Trump: ‘Sometimes he acts as if Congress is merely an appendage’

Published

16 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bill Cassidy appeared to question President Donald Trump’s view of Congress, saying in an interview that he is not sure Trump grasps that Congress “is a separate body, separate from the presidency.”

“Sometimes he acts as if Congress is merely an appendage, and, frankly, sometimes Congress acts like it’s an appendage,” the Louisiana Republican said in a pre-taped interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday.

The latest criticism in a public clash between the two leaders, Cassidy also told host Margaret Brennan that he would be focused on affordability, including the cost of health care and groceries, if he were president.

“If I were president, I would be focused on those people that they have, my people, our people, us at the kitchen table. How do you make their life better? And that’s what I think the president should be focused on,” Cassidy said.

The relationship between Cassidy and Trump has been rocky for some time. Cassidy was one of only a handful of Republican leaders who voted to convict Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Trump and Cassidy recently clashed in a closed-door meeting between GOP leaders, with Cassidy admitting he raised his voice to “match” the president’s.

“The president said something negative about me. I received it as attempting to bully me from asking a question that I think the American people need to know, and I’m not going to be bullied,” Cassidy said at the time.

However, after receiving a special briefing from Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff, Cassidy changed his vote on a resolution designed to rein in Trump’s power to wage war against Iran.

“They said right now the negotiations are delicate, and they could collapse if they’re not nursed along in the appropriate way. I can accept that,” Cassidy said.

“That’s the reason they said for their kind of lack of being forthcoming. I can accept that, but my goal was to be briefed, to have the truth in order to make a decision for the benefit of my country, and that was satisfied.”

Still, Cassidy’s stance against Trump has cost him: After serving more than a decade in the Senate, Cassidy lost his campaign for renomination after Trump endorsed against him. Rep. Julia Letlow will be the Louisiana Republican Senate candidate this fall.