{"id":14979,"date":"2025-10-29T12:16:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-thune-says-shutdown-talks-are-picking-up\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:16:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:16:40","slug":"capitol-agenda-thune-says-shutdown-talks-are-picking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-thune-says-shutdown-talks-are-picking-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Thune says shutdown talks are picking up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Nearly one month into the government shutdown, the vibes might finally be shifting.<\/p>\n

A looming cliff of crucial deadlines, plus fresh outside pressure, is adding new urgency into bipartisan conversations that have been sputtering for weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019ve picked up,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Blue Light News about the rank-and-file bipartisan talks. \u201cDeadlines have a way of doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several of Thune\u2019s senators, plus Speaker Mike Johnson and other House GOP leaders, appear increasingly convinced that enough centrist Democrats are getting ready to fold \u2014 potentially by early next week.<\/p>\n

The looming cutoff of food benefits, air travel delays and a new statement from the largest union of federal employees calling on lawmakers to end the shutdown are bearing down, they believe.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting: Democrats are not signaling publicly that they are ready to take an off-ramp. Asked what his plan was for ending the shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Tuesday that he believes after Nov. 1 Republicans will face \u201cincreased pressure to negotiate with us.\u201d But a growing number of Democrats, including liberal stalwarts like Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), have signaled support for stand-alone bills to ease shutdown impacts.<\/p>\n

Republican leaders are quietly ramping up their own internal conversations about what their next steps should be. So far, they\u2019re talking about a new stopgap, with dozens of iterations under discussion. Options include a funding punt to around Jan. 21 or later into March, according to five people familiar with the conversations.<\/p>\n

White House officials want a funding punt as long as possible, potentially all the way through December 2026. GOP hard-liners like that idea but appropriators and defense hawks don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery option is fraught with a ton of problems,\u201d one Republican told Blue Light News.<\/p>\n

Thune told Blue Light News that any stopgap expiring before the end of this year is a no-go.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, there\u2019s no way we can do that by December. I think that\u2019s the assessment just based on what the calendar looks like,\u201d Thune said. <\/p>\n

Republicans have privately offered to Democrats that once the government is reopened, bipartisan spending bills will start moving \u2014 first a package of bills including Agriculture funding, and then a second package of bills that would include Defense and Labor-HHS. So far, though, this hasn\u2019t been enough to get Democrats to bite.<\/p>\n

And none of this addresses Democrats\u2019 key shutdown concern: health care. But Thune dangled a fresh carrot Tuesday, telling reporters that President Donald Trump would be willing to meet with them as soon as next week to talk about expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies \u2014 if the government is reopened.<\/p>\n

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

\u2014 New record in Congress: <\/b>Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva has now waited to be sworn in longer than any other member in history. Wednesday marks day 36 since her special election victory on Sept. 23. The Arizona Democrat won\u2019t be seated as long as Johnson keeps the House out of session \u2014 and Johnson insists his hands are tied due to the shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Potential year-end health package: <\/b>House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has been discussing health care policy with the chairs of three critical House committees: Ways and Means\u2019 Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Education and Workforce\u2019s Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Energy and Commerce\u2019s Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.). According to a person familiar with the ongoing informal conversations, Scalise is soliciting legislative ideas that could be incorporated in a year-end health package.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Guggenheim and Calen Razor contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly one month into the government shutdown, the vibes might finally be shifting. A looming cliff of crucial deadlines, plus fresh outside pressure, is adding new urgency into bipartisan conversations that have been sputtering for weeks. \u201cI think they\u2019ve picked up,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Blue Light News about the rank-and-file bipartisan talks. […]<\/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-14979","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\/14979","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=14979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}