{"id":14181,"date":"2025-10-08T12:01:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T12:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-muddies-the-gop-shutdown-message\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T12:01:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T12:01:48","slug":"capitol-agenda-trump-muddies-the-gop-shutdown-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-muddies-the-gop-shutdown-message\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Trump muddies the GOP shutdown message"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One week into the shutdown, Republicans are trying to stay on message \u2014 but President Donald Trump is making that difficult.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune want to show Democrats there\u2019s no daylight inside the GOP: Republicans will only negotiate a deal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies once the government is back open.<\/p>\n

But Trump is causing major headaches by going off script<\/a>. On Monday, Trump pointed to health care negotiations with Democrats that didn\u2019t appear to exist, but would have contradicted Johnson and Thune\u2019s red line about no ACA talks until the shutdown ends.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the White House further complicated matters by sending a memo stating some federal workers might not receive backpay<\/a> after the shutdown\u2019s over. Republicans scrambled to refute that message. After all, Trump himself signed legislation in 2019 guaranteeing all federal workers would be paid following a shutdown \u2014 and many Republicans voted for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t not pay them for work they\u2019ve done,\u201d Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told Blue Light News. \u201cI don\u2019t think [Trump] seriously would. I think he\u2019s playing hardball the way he sometimes does: Negotiating on the one hand, flexing leverage on the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson and Thune have also found themselves occasionally out of sync. During a joint news conference Tuesday<\/a>, the speaker said he was \u201ccertainly open\u201d to having the House vote on emergency legislation to pay essential personnel, like military or air traffic controllers, during the shutdown. \u201cHonestly, you don\u2019t need that,\u201d Thune interjected, before reinforcing that Democrats could just vote to reopen the government.<\/p>\n

House Republicans are also freelancing their shutdown messaging back in their districts. Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania is rolling out new legislation to bar federal income taxes from being collected during the shutdown, per a release shared first with Inside Congress. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona has introduced a bill<\/a> that would repeal Obamacare completely. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called on the Senate to get rid of the 60-vote threshold<\/a> to reopen the government \u2014 a nonstarter for Thune.<\/p>\n

Some rank-and-file senators are taking matters into their own hands. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), leaving the Senate floor Tuesday, said she had just talked to New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, one of the lead Democrats facilitating bipartisan conversations. And a bipartisan group was scheduled to meet over Thai food last night, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.).<\/p>\n

Mullin has been tapped by the administration to serve as a conduit to Democrats amid government funding talks, according to one person close to the White House. Asked if he had been given an informal role, however, he shrugged: \u201cI don\u2019t have a badge.\u201d<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/b> Shutdown action for the day: <\/b>The Senate will vote for a sixth time on dueling stopgap funding bills at 11:20 a.m. Meanwhile, the House is out and its leaders plan to hold press events. Speaker Mike Johnson, joined by other GOP leaders and Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), will hold a news conference in the Rayburn Room at 10 a.m. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined by other Democratic leaders and the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, will host a forum at noon on health care.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/b> War powers vote: <\/b>Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia will force a vote Wednesday on a resolution that would terminate the use of the U.S. Armed Forces for hostilities in the Caribbean Sea.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/b> Government censorship hearing: <\/b>The Senate Commerce committee, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), will hold a hearing Wednesday morning on how the Biden administration allegedly pressured Big Tech into censoring speech protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Democrats on the panel plan to turn the tables on Republicans by drilling into \u201cthe censorship that happened the last few weeks\u201d under the Trump administration, according to ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).<\/p>\n

Dasha Burns and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One week into the shutdown, Republicans are trying to stay on message \u2014 but President Donald Trump is making that difficult. Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune want to show Democrats there\u2019s no daylight inside the GOP: Republicans will only negotiate a deal to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies once the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}