WASHINGTON (AP) — The government shutdown is poised to become the longest ever this week as the impasse between Democrats and Republicans has dragged into a new month. Millions of people could lose food aid benefits, health care subsidies are set to expire and there are few real talks between the parties over how to end it.
President Donald Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday that he “won’t be extorted” by Democrats who are demanding negotiations to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year for millions of Americans. Echoing congressional Republicans, the president said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he will only negotiate when the government is reopened.
Trump’s comments signal that the shutdown could continue to drag on for some time as federal workers, including air traffic controllers, are set to miss additional paychecks and there is uncertainty over whether 42 million Americans who receive federal food aid will be able to access the assistance. Senate Democrats have now voted 13 times against reopening the government, insisting that they need Trump and Republicans to negotiate with them first.
The president said that Democrats “have lost their way” and predicted that they will eventually capitulate to Republicans.
“I think they have to,” Trump said. “And if they don’t vote, it’s their problem.”
He also reiterated his pleas to Republican leaders to change Senate rules and scrap the filibuster. Senate Republicans have repeatedly rejected that idea since Trump’s first term, arguing that the rule requiring 60 votes to overcome any objections in the Senate is vital to the institution and has allowed them to stop Democratic policies when they are in the minority.
“Republicans have to get tougher,” Trump said in the CBS interview. “If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want.”
With the two parties at a standstill, the shutdown, now in its 33rd day and approaching its sixth week, appears likely to become the longest in history. The previous record was set in 2019, when Trump demanded that Congress give him money for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
A potentially decisive week
Trump’s push on the filibuster could prove a distraction for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Republican senators who have opted instead to stay the course as the consequences of the shutdown have become more acute.
Republicans are hoping that at least some Democrats will eventually give them the votes they need as moderates have been in weekslong talks with rank-and-file Republicans about potential compromises that could guarantee votes on health care in exchange for reopening the government. Republicans need five additional Democrats to pass their bill.
“We need five with a backbone to say we care more about the lives of the American people than about gaining some political leverage,” Thune said on the Senate floor as the Senate left Washington for the weekend on Thursday.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that there is a group of people talking about ”a path to fix the health care debacle” and a commitment from Republicans not to fire more federal workers. But it’s still unclear if those talks could produce a meaningful compromise.
Far apart on Obamacare subsidies
Trump said in the “60 Minutes” interview that the Affordable Care Act — often known as Obamacare because it was signed and championed by former President Barack Obama — is “terrible” and that if the Democrats vote to reopen the government, “we will work on fixing the bad health care that we have right now.”
Democrats feel differently, arguing that the marketplaces set up by the ACA are working as record numbers of Americans have signed up for the coverage. But they want to extend subsidies first enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic so that premiums won’t go up for millions of people on Jan. 1.
“We want to sit down with Thune, with (House Speaker Mike) Johnson, with Trump, and negotiate a way to address this horrible health care crisis,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said last week.
No appetite for bipartisanship
As Democrats have pushed Trump and Republicans to negotiate, Trump has showed little interest in doing so. He immediately called for an end to the Senate filibuster after a trip to Asia while the government was shut down.
White House Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News that the president has spoken directly to both Thune and Johnson about the filibuster. But a spokesman for Thune said Friday that his position hasn’t changed, and Johnson said on Sunday that Republicans traditionally have resisted calling for an end to the filibuster because it protects them from “the worst impulses of the far-left Democrat Party.”
Trump said on “60 Minutes” that “I like John Thune, I think he’s terrific. But I disagree with him on this point.”
The president has spent much of the shutdown mocking Democrats, posting videos of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a Mexican sombrero. The White House website has a satirical “My Space” page for Democrats, a parody based on the social media site that was popular in the early 2000s. “We just love playing politics with people’s livelihoods,” the page reads.
Democrats have repeatedly said that they need Trump to get serious and weigh in. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said that he hopes the shutdown could end “this week” because Trump is back in Washington.
Republicans “can’t move on anything without a Trump sign off,” Warner said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Record-breaking shutdown
The 35-day shutdown that lasted from December 2018 to January 2019 ended when Trump retreated from his demands over a border wall. That came amid intensifying delays at the nation’s airports and multiple missed paydays for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on ABC’s “This Week” that there have already been delays at several airports “and it’s only going to get worse.”
Many of the workers are “confronted with a decision,” he said. “Do I put food on my kids’ table, do I put gas in the car, do I pay my rent or do I go to work and not get paid?”
As flight delays around the country increased, New York City’s emergency management department posted on Sunday that Newark Airport was under a ground delay because of “staffing shortages in the control tower” and that they were limiting arrivals to the airport.
“The average delay is about 2 hours, and some flights are more than 3 hours late,” the account posted. “FAA planning notes show a possibility of a full ground stop later if staffing shortages or demand increases.”
SNAP crisis
Also in the crossfire are the 42 million Americans who receive SNAP benefits. The Department of Agriculture planned to withhold $8 billion needed for payments to the food program starting on Saturday until two federal judges ordered the administration to fund it.
House Democratic leader Jeffries, D-N.Y., accused Trump and Republicans of attempting to “weaponize hunger.” He said that the administration has managed to find ways for funding other priorities during the shutdown, but is slow-walking pushing out SNAP benefits despite the court orders.
“But somehow they can’t find money to make sure that Americans don’t go hungry,” Jeffries said in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in his own CNN appearance Sunday, said the administration continues to await direction from the courts.
“The best way for SNAP benefits to get paid is for Democrats — for five Democrats to cross the aisle and reopen the government,” Bessent said.
___
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
