Congress

Why Mark Warner is sitting out the shutdown

Published

8 months ago

October 31, 2025

Not so long ago, if there was a bipartisan group getting together to solve a problem in the Senate, you could count on Mark Warner to be involved.

The Virginia Democrat was part of the “talking stick” gang that helped quickly end a brief 2018 funding lapse. He was a part of a crew that helped cut a major infrastructure deal under former President Joe Biden, and he’s currently working with Republicans to forge an agreement on cryptocurrency regulation.

But as his colleagues hunt for a way out of the 31-day-and-counting government shutdown, Warner this time is hanging on the sidelines.

It’s a twist not only because of Warner’s history as a card-carrying bipartisan “gang” member who would frequently host gatherings at his Old Town Alexandria home. It’s also because of who he represents: His home state has the third-highest number of civilian government workers, plus tens of thousands more in military uniforms. Lawmakers from the Washington area have historically been voices of moderation urging both parties to avoid brinkmanship that could harm the federal workforce.

Yet as the shutdown’s toll has mounted, Warner and his home-state teammate, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, have stuck closely to their party’s line — sounding the alarm over the impending expiration of key federal health insurance subsidies and blaming the impending lapse of nutrition assistance on Republicans.

“He’s always been one of those guys who says, ‘I’ll be part of any gang,’ the sort of ultimate bipartisan leader,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “I think he’s just really frustrated and unhappy with the situation, the shutdown, with what’s happening to Virginians. … I think it just pisses him off.”

In Warner’s estimation, what sets this shutdown apart is his belief that it won’t be solved by a Senate gang, but by one person: President Donald Trump.

Warner publicly aired his concerns this week when he gabbed to reporters alongside Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another bipartisan gang regular who has been involved in the current rank-and-file talks.

After she mentioned the virtues of cross-aisle conversations and the importance of trust, Warner said while Murkowski might feel free to negotiate without Trump’s blessing, “some of the others would have to get a permission slip.”

“I really do think, unlike in the past, you’ve probably got to get the president deeply engaged,” he added.

Warner’s office declined a request for an extended interview. But he confirmed in a brief exchange Thursday that he has not joined the pending shutdown talks — pointing to both his belief that Trump is the key player in ending the stalemate as well as his focus on helping land a cryptocurrency deal.

But there’s also a larger backdrop to Warner’s withdrawal — how the Senate’s partisan fault lines have hardened during the second Trump presidency.

Senate Republicans have repeatedly sidelined Democrats this year at major points, passing a sweeping domestic policy bill along party lines this summer that also included a debt ceiling hike — sidestepping a default cliff that has previously forced bipartisan compromise.

In March, Republicans drafted a stopgap funding bill on their own and then essentially dared Democrats to shut down the government. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer flinched then, but one big hint that Democrats wouldn’t be up for a repeat was that Warner did not join him at that time in helping to advance the shutdown-averting legislation. In a statement with Kaine, Warner explained that the stopgap gave a “blank check to Donald Trump and Elon Musk to continue attacking the federal workforce.”

Now he’s repeatedly voted against the latest House-passed spending patch, which would fund the government until Nov. 21. Warner has backup from fellow Virginia Democrats, who say Trump’s willingness to take a sledgehammer to the federal government this year is affecting what they are hearing back home.

“They’re viewing the shutdown sort of as a continuity of the Donald Trump term two status quo,” Kaine said. He summed up his constituents’ feelings as, “It’s good that you are fighting finally because we’ve been on the receiving end of this since Jan. 20, and it’s time somebody stands up to this guy.”

Warner, unlike Kaine, is up for reelection next year, and political prognosticators widely expect him to easily keep his seat. But Warner, 70, has taken nothing for granted politically after narrowly squeaking out a win by less than a percentage point in 2014. In 2020, Warner won by 12 points.

These days, Warner is leaning into his willingness to fight Trump and calling himself one of Republicans’ “top targets” in his fundraising efforts, even though there’s little to suggest he’s worried about a razor-thin November contest.

“I am doing everything in my power to stop Trump and his unelected co-president from overhauling the federal government so they can enrich themselves and leave Americans in the dust. But that makes me one of their top targets,” Warner wrote in one recent online fundraising solicitation.

Warner has also been sharply critical of Trump and his administration on various other fronts. As the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, he held a lengthy news conference Thursday to lambast the administration for briefing Senate Republicans on recent military strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean but not Democrats.

“The one area that I thought we could maintain some level of comity … was around national security, but not from this crowd,” he said, describing the difference between Trump’s first and second terms as “night and day.”

Bob Holsworth, a longtime Virginia political analyst, said Warner’s more “aggressively critical” stance toward Trump is part of a long-running political evolution.

“It reflects the changes that have occurred nationally and certainly in Virginia,” Holsworth said. “Virginia … clearly on state-wide elections tilts blue.”

Warner has also embraced a push led by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in recent years to get Democratic lawmakers more comfortable delivering their message online, including by cutting shareable short-form videos. In one recent shutdown-themed clip, Warner sought to debunk “as many Republican lies as I can in 90 seconds.”

And he leaned into social media to dispel rumors being circulated from some Republicans who thought the in-cycle senator would quickly relent on the shutdown and vote for the House-passed stopgap. “Not caving,” he wrote on X.

Beyer predicted that if the shutdown does play into Warner’s race next year it would only help him.

“They’re never going to assign blame on the shutdown to him — [Republicans] have the White House, they have the Senate, they have the House,” he said. “Regardless of the national landscape, he’s been a constructive part of our polity and our economy now for a generation.”

Congress

The messy standoff driving a wedge between a bipartisan Senate duo

Published

14 minutes ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray have long prided themselves on working together to advance government funding bills. That collegiality is now showing signs of decay.

The Maine Republican and Washington Democrat have been openly feuding about the path forward on spending measures this summer. It comes after their successful collaboration on bipartisan legislation during Murray’s two-year reign as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which continued when Collins took the gavel last year.

Democrats attribute the clash to Collins’ pursuit of President Donald Trump’s demands for a record military budget that eclipses domestic spending, as she fights to retain her Senate seat in November. Republicans say Murray is playing midterm politics by trying to prevent Collins from landing a deal before Election Day, when Democrats hope to regain House and Senate majorities — and the upper hand in year-end funding talks.

“It’s not personal, but it is very frustrating,” Collins said last week, while insisting she and Murray are still on good terms.

All Murray would say about the state of their relationship was, “We’re talking.”

While that impasse doesn’t necessarily heighten the odds of a government shutdown this fall, it could delay any meaningful Senate appropriations action until after the elections. The outcome of congressional races — including Collins’ toss-up contest against Democrat Graham Platner — could change the power balance in government funding negotiations.

“It certainly looks to me like the Democrats don’t want to give Susan Collins a victory,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview. “I really think it’s intensely political. She is a very reasonable legislator. If you can’t make a deal with Susan Collins, you don’t want to make a deal.”

Part of Collins’ campaign-trail pitch to Mainers is that she gets results in Washington, and her inability to advance the dozen annual appropriations bills through her committee undercuts that narrative.

Collins isn’t refuting the idea that Democrats might want to deprive her of legislative success as she competes against Platner in one of the closest and most-watched races in the country.

“That’s certainly a viable theory, which is pretty pathetic,” she said in an interview.

This month Collins publicly accused Murray of sending government funding offers that have “made it clear that Democrats are abandoning the appropriations process.” Murray, meanwhile, suggested Collins was at fault for the stalemate by divulging she hadn’t responded to Murray’s latest offer in more than two weeks.

It’s a major tone shift for the two lawmakers, who have earned a reputation for trying to stay out of the partisan fray since they became their party’s top leaders on the Appropriations Committee in 2023. They’ve consistently resisted broadcasting behind-the-scenes friction during tough negotiations and succeeded in reaching cross-party compromises to advance funding bills each year — even after the record government shutdown last fall.

But they’re now at loggerheads over funding totals for the military and domestic programs, along with votes on hot-button Trump policies. Senate Republicans are seeking a military funding boost more than four times larger than any increase in domestic spending, as Trump calls for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget.

“We do not have an agreement,” Murray said, because Republicans “are set on increasing defense in an increasingly huge way that we’ve never had to deal with before.”

GOP senators also want to avoid any amendment votes that could sink approval of appropriations bills, including some related to the Justice Department’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” administration officials have promised not to pursue.

The result is that Collins has yet to hold a committee markup on a single government funding bill with just three months left before federal dollars expire. And some Republican appropriators acknowledge it’s possible the panel won’t vote on any of the spending measures this year given the deadlock.

“Obviously Susan is up this year. And Democrats, at every level and every opportunity, are playing politics with it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview. “The appropriations process used to be fairly bipartisan. … Murray and the Democrats have turned it into a partisan game.”

Some Democrats openly sympathize with Collins’ predicament in trying to represent politically moderate Maine while holding one of the most influential positions on Capitol Hill during Trump’s second term and unified Republican control of Congress.

“The chair of the committee is being squeezed in every direction,” Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview.

Many Senate Republicans don’t “give a damn” about funding domestic efforts like public education and biomedical research, Baldwin continued. “I believe that the chairwoman does care about those issues. But you know, she’s in an unenviable position.”

Since Trump was reelected, Collins has worked to negotiate funding bills that spend far more on domestic programs than the president sought. The result has been essentially flat funding for nondefense programs and a 17 percent increase in military spending, which includes the billions of dollars Republicans enacted along party lines last year.

“Chair Collins is very devoted to, or interested in, following through to help the president get more money for the Department of War and munitions, et cetera,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a top Republican appropriator. “And I think Senator Murray is on the opposite page.”

“Rather than legislate and work these things out,” Capito added, “I think it’s been decided on the other side to just be obstinate and not participate and not negotiate.”

Trump is calling this year for boosting Pentagon spending by more than 40 percent while slashing domestic programs by 10 percent. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a senior Democratic appropriator who has served in Congress for more than 40 years, calls it “a massive change” in the way government funding has been divvied up for decades — by negotiating matching dollar-for-dollar increases in both military and nondefense funding.

“We’re so far apart. We haven’t faced anything like that in recent memory,” Durbin said in an interview. “And to accept the premise of it — what’s left for nondefense is terrible.”

Collins could proceed with markups this summer without an agreement with Democrats, as the House Republican majority has done for years. But Republican senators would need to be willing to vote on controversial amendments Democrats might offer — including proposals that defy Trump.

Senate Republican appropriators faced that issue last summer, when the panel unexpectedly adopted an amendment barring the Trump administration from repurposing cash intended for relocating the FBI headquarters. That outcome prompted several GOP senators to withdraw support for the funding bill.

“The challenge is that, if you have every Democrat voting against reporting the bill out — and then they also are offering poison pills — it’s hard to move those bills,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the FBI, said in an interview.

During the two years Murray chaired the full committee, Moran recalled, “We had members who wanted to offer what would probably be considered poison pills by Democrats. And Senator Collins talked Republicans out of doing so, to move the process.”

The two sides could easily reach an agreement on amendments and policy stipulations, some Democrats contend, if only Collins and Murray could bridge the divide between the president’s military funding demands and their own domestic priorities.

“Senator Collins is carrying out the administration’s wishes,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, another senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview. “And Senator Murray is noting that a reckless increase in defense spending is not in the best interest of Americans.”

“So they’re both advocating for their viewpoint,” Merkley added. “That’s what we do in a democracy.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

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

Published

7 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

9 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.