Tag Archive for: government shutdown

Trump Gives Democrats Deadline For When Permanent Government Firings Will Begin

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President Donald Trump gave Democrats a deadline for when he would start making cuts to federal workers and other federal programs.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the majority of his caucus again rejected a continuing resolution Monday, extending the government shutdown. Trump, who’s administration previously teased mass firings as a result of the shutdown, told reporters Tuesday that such could happen if the government shutdown continues for four to five days.

“How many permanent jobs are you talking about eliminating?” a reporter asked Trump.

“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days. If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,” Trump responded. “You’re going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget.”

The reporter also asked Trump if he had identified any programs he wanted to eliminate during the shutdown.

“Oh, sure. We have a lot, I’m not going to tell you, but we’ll be announcing it pretty soon. But we have a lot of things that we’re going to eliminate and permanently eliminate,” Trump said.

“You know, one of the things that we have as some advantage, you could say, but because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake, we’re able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse, and they’ve handed it, you know, to us on a silver platter,” the president continued.

Trump then told reporters he has been getting calls from Democrats who want to meet with him and are claiming to be the leader of the party. Some of the names he has never heard of, he said.

The shutdown battle has focused on healthcare, with Democrats demanding increased funding for Medicaid, such as reimbursements for state spending on illegal aliens, and Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Last week, Trump and his Office of Management and Budget Director met to discuss potential layoffs. Afterwards, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Caller that layoffs were “imminent,” though none have occurred since.

“Unfortunately, because the Democrats shut down the government, the president has directed his cabinet and the Office of Management and Budget is working with agencies across the board to identify where cuts can be made and we believe that layoffs are imminent,” Leavitt said.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House Correspondent

RELATED ARTICLE: Democrats Are Terrified Of Trump’s Shutdown Slasher — And They Should Be

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Mike Johnson Says Hakeem Jeffries Is ‘Terrified’ As ‘Marxists’ Jockey For More Power In Democratic Party

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House Speaker Mike Johnson sees growing leadership challenges on the horizon for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as the far-left flank of the Democratic Party jockeys for more power.

Jeffries and his counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, fully embraced a federal government shutdown following pressure from their party’s base, who have been demanding a prolonged fight with congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump. Johnson told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) in a recent interview Jeffries’s decision to align himself with the far-left forces in his party could ultimately prove untenable and risks turning off the handful of moderates who remain in the party’s coalition.

“He’s trying to appeal to the less-progressive, more-moderate people, the small handful of them that remain in the Democratic Party and in Congress while also trying to appease the radical Marxist progressive left, and that’s an impossible assignment,” Johnson told the DCNF. “So he finds himself in these terrible positions saying and doing things that he knows are not true, that he doesn’t personally believe, but he’s trying to lead a fractured caucus.”

“Hakeem is establishment and the Marxists are taking over the party,” Johnson continued. “It’s a tough, tough position to be in.”

Jeffries and the majority of his Democratic House colleagues have cheered a politically-risky government shutdown which, among other impacts, is forcing troops to temporarily report for duty without pay and potentially jeopardizing Americans’ access to federal nutrition programs and certain healthcare services.

This hardball strategy follows the lead of left-wing activist groups, who have waged a months-long campaign to urge Democratic lawmakers to fight Republicans over funding government programs.

Johnson told the DCNF he sees considerable irony in the current shutdown fight with Democrats — who support big government — effectively giving the Trump administration an opening to further cull the federal workforce and slash agency programs by keeping the government closed.

Republicans also called out the hypocrisy of House Democrats’ embrace of shutdown. Jeffries and other top Democrats previously railed against shutting down the government, predicting dire consequences for Americans that could occur with a funding lapse.

“Hakeem Jeffries has always said that shutting the government down is dangerous,” Johnson said. “He knows that, but he voted, and he led his entire caucus to vote against it [funding the government] two weeks ago, except for one who broke ranks.”

Maine Rep. Jared Golden was the lone House Democrat to vote for the GOP’s spending bill, which would fund the government at current levels and does not feature any partisan policy riders favored by Republicans.

Golden issued a veiled critique of Jeffries’s shutdown strategy, arguing top Democrats were currying favor with far-left activist groups “to put on a show of their opposition to President Donald Trump.”

Jeffries was asked Wednesday about Golden’s criticism during a press conference by a Fox News reporter. Jeffries did not directly respond to the question, but argued the Democrats’ demands to add $1.5 trillion in policy demands to any spending measure were not partisan.

“You must disagree with Mr. Golden?” the reporter followed up.

Jeffries immediately moved on to the next question.

Johnson also pointed to Jeffries’s apparent hesitancy to endorse avowed socialist and Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s campaign as a prime example of the difficult choices the minority leader is facing within a divided party.

Though Mamdani has notched recent endorsements from top New York Democrats, Jeffries has thus far declined to weigh in on the contest despite being asked about the race during nearly every press availability he holds in the Capitol. Jeffries’s silence on the race has led to a revolt from the left flank of the party, with Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez excoriating Jeffries and Schumer for dragging their feet on endorsing the party’s nominee.

Several New York Democrats notably went out of their way to distance themselves from Mamdani and blast the democratic socialist as “too extreme” to lead New York City.

“Both Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are running scared from AOC and the far-left in their party — they have outsize influence — and they’re terrified,” Johnson said.

It’s also not clear that Jeffries’s combative shutdown strategy will land with or appease intraparty critics — who torch his messaging as too scripted — as well as the party’s left-wing base.

House Democrats’ government shutdown livestream struggled to attract viewers — amounting to just a few dozen at certain hours — and was cut short in the eleventh hour after being widely mocked by the media and even some Democratic strategists. Conversely, a three-minute video released by Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders starring Ocasio-Cortez garnered 1.5 million views on X.

Jeffries also lashed out after Trump posted an AI-generated video depicting the minority leader in a sombrero with a mustache. Johnson told the DCNF the move played right into Trump’s hands.

“He’s making himself appear unserious when he’s arguing about a sombrero meme while the government is shut down and people are losing healthcare and vital services,” Johnson said. “They are doing this to themselves. This is not Republicans —  these are self-inflicted wounds.”

A spokesperson for Jeffries declined to comment.

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Democrats Box Themselves into a Shutdown America Blames Them for

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While the country keeps a weary eye on the latest spectacle on Capitol Hill, some D.C. establishments are trying to have a little fun with the government shutdown. On Wednesday, a local restaurant called Butterworth’s tried to lighten the mood by offering a themed drink menu, including a “furlough-rita” and a “continuing rye-solution.” It’s one of the few bright spots in an otherwise tense standoff that shows no signs of ending.

For Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), it’s a tricky spot to be in. Not only is the hypocrisy aspect dogging Democrats (Speaker Mike Johnson’s X feed has Democrat leaders on a loop decrying the stupidity of shutdowns), but no one is quite sure what Democrats expect to gain by grinding the government to a halt. Even the few brownie points Schumer might gain from supposedly “standing up to Donald Trump” are crumbs compared to the buzzsaw of public opinion, which even the liberals at The New York Times polled as bad news for the minority.

There was no sugar-coating it for the Left in the Gray Lady, which found that a full 65% of Americans objected to Democrats moving forward with a government shutdown. In “a further dagger” to the heart of Schumer’s party, even his own base is surprisingly split (47% for, 43% against).

Making matters worse, Democrats have no real case for pulling the plug on federal funding. As outraged as they may be over the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, trying to overturn President Trump’s signature legislation, after he won the popular vote, and in a Congress controlled by Republicans no less, is a fool’s errand.

Even Democrats like John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who’s sounding more reasonable by the day, recognize what a frightening precedent that would set. “I’ve at least been one [who] says, ‘Hey, now, I would love to restore a lot of those health care things.’ That’s the right outcome,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union,” “but that’s a dangerous tactic if you’re going to shut the government down for one of our policies. I condemned it when the Republicans threatened to do that thing. And it’s entirely wrong for us to do the same thing.”

Old soundbites are becoming increasingly stubborn things for his party, as footage from some of the most extreme Democrats echoes like bad campaign ads. “It’s not normal to shut down the government when we don’t get what we want,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has argued. “Families will be hurt. Farmers will be hurt,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is caught saying. “This shutdown — you know who’s going to feel the pain?” radical Democrat Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) asked last year. “You know who it hurts? You. Everyday people and the most vulnerable. Seniors, veterans, working families, hungry kids, y’all.”

Even the man who’s putting his party in this precarious position sang a very different tune almost one year ago. “If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans who suffer most. A government shutdown means seniors who rely on Social Security could be thrown into chaos,” Schumer claimed.

So what changed? For the minority leader, his grasp on power. After Schumer’s March decision to cooperate with Republicans and keep the government open, he was savaged by the radical fringe. How dare he engage in civil debate! How dare he give the appearance of bipartisanship! Resist Trump or step down!

As his Oklahoma colleague, Senator James Lankford (R), told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Tuesday evening, “This is all about Chuck Schumer’s personal politics, all about it. Multiple Democrat[ic] senators that I’ve talked to have said, ‘Hey, we should just keep it open. We should keep it going — except for Chuck Schumer and his politics that he’s in right now.’ So we’re there; I get it,” he shrugged. “We’ve got the socialists that [are] leading the mayoral race in New York City right now. The New York politics have shifted hard, hard, hard to the far, far, far Left. And Chuck Schumer is trying to be able to fight off the far-left socialists in his own party on it. And we’ll see where that goes.”

Vice President J.D. Vance also cut through the media’s noise to the heart of the issue. “The primary reason the government is shut down,” Vance claimed, is because “Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” in 2028. “Here you have a career politician who is more afraid of his reelection … than he is doing what’s right for the American people,” Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) agreed. “This is what happens when you have a career politician.”

In the meantime, any slim hopes that insiders had for a quick end to this standoff came to a predictable end on Wednesday when both parties offered their versions of a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the lights on. The Democrats’ bill, which essentially overturns Trump’s signature OBBB legislation, failed again 47 to 53. The seven-week extension from Republicans, which had the backing of two Democrats — Fetterman and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto — and one Independent, Angus King of Maine, also didn’t manage to attract any new cross-aisle support, striking out by a 55-45 vote.

Of course, the irony of the situation — and there are several — is that by keeping the government closed, Democrats are effectively handing the keys to Trump. “In a shutdown,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) reminded everyone on “This Week on Capitol Hill,” “the president gets the power of the purse. Donald Trump. [So] they’re not even going to achieve their goal,” he shook his head.

Worse than that, some argue, they’ve supercharged the White House to radically overhaul federal agencies. Under the executive branch, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has a “surprising amount of discretion” in deciding whether the furloughed employees come back at all. Employees whose work “is not consistent with the President’s priorities,” as OMB Chief Russell Vought put it, could pay personally for Schumer’s gamble. Vought has “the power to tell agency leaders to move past the usual furloughs — “temporary, nonduty, nonpay status” — to RIFs [Reductions in Force] — being permanently fired,” Donald Kettl warns.

“Vought could choose the programs that the administration has been wanting to eliminate and give a very big haircut to others,” he continued. “The result would be a dramatic, instantaneous shift in the separation of powers.” The reality is, “The Trump team could kill programs unilaterally without the inconvenience of going to Congress. To top it all,” he added, “this would all be perfectly legal.”

Trump himself has warned of the dire consequences of Democrats not cutting a deal to pass the CR. “We’re doing well as a country, so the last thing we want to do is shut it down,” the president explained, “but a lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want,” he said, referring to jobs and spending Republicans have been trying to eliminate.

That’s the trap Democrats find themselves in. “They could roll over and agree to all of the administration’s demands, as they did back in March,” Kettl points out. “That would weaken the party further as leaders try to right the ship. Or they could refuse to give in, trigger a shutdown — what the Republicans are already calling a ‘Schumer Shutdown’ — and then stand back to watch an awesome stripping away of their power. Either way, the Democrats lose. It’s like an old western, where cowboys ride into a box canyon with no way out.”

It’s a sad hill to die on, especially since there’s absolutely nothing controversial in the GOP’s short-term proposal. “I had a lot of colleagues who wanted us to load this up with our priorities, but the leaders decided we should do this in good faith,” Johnson reiterated to reporters. “… There is nothing we can pull out of this bill to make it any leaner and cleaner, it’s absolutely sparkling clean.” If anything, Democrats should be tickled pink that the government is being flooded with the same dollars it enjoyed under their own president.

And yet suddenly, the speaker told Perkins, “They want to throw in $1.5 trillion in new spending. That’s with a ‘T.’ They want to have American taxpayers give free health care to illegal aliens. … They want to give a half-billion dollars to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting so they can prop up left-wing media outlets. … We’re not doing that,” he vowed. “The American people did not vote for that stuff. And they’re playing games with very serious issues.”

Quena González, Family Research Council’s senior director for Government Affairs, has been talking both to congressional insiders who have seen this coming for months and to regular citizens who were surprised to read about the shutdown in the news. “Proverbs 29:2 says that when the rulers of the land are righteous, the people rejoice, but when the wicked are in authority the people groan,” he observed. “The current stand-off, in large part over subsidies to fund abortion under the guise of ‘health care,’ is an opportunity for Americans everywhere to pray for wisdom for those in authority.”

In a sign of how dire the political situation is becoming, the Senate (whose work week rarely begins before Monday night and which famously rushes to the airports on Thursday morning) is now toying around with coming back on Friday to vote, once again, on the clean CR. Wednesday at sundown to Thursday at sundown is Yom Kippur, the Jewish high holiday associated with personal reflection. “We can only hope,” González added, “that on reflection righteousness will prevail.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Soros-Backed Leftist Group Behind Campaign To Force Government Shutdown

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A left-wing activist group that received millions of dollars from the Soros family’s organization is spearheading a pressure campaign to push Democratic senators to vote against funding the government and force a partial shutdown.

Indivisible — the organization behind many of the recent “No Kings” protests and other demonstrations part of the so-called “resistance” against President Donald Trump — has embarked on a recent effort to goad Senate Democrats to not come to a bipartisan funding agreement with their Republican colleagues and the president. The group’s website currently hosts a form enabling people to easily contact their Democratic senators by phone, complete with a script of what to say.

The group’s non-tax-deductible entity, Indivisible Project, has received a total of $7.6 million in grants from the Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) over the past eight years, according to Indivisible’s website. OSF is a grantmaking network which left-wing billionaire George Soros founded in 1993 and his son, Alexander Soros, currently chairs.

“Federal government funding runs out on September 30 — and Republicans need Democratic votes to clear the filibuster and avoid a government shutdown,” Indivisible’s form states. “Democrats have a strong hand to play. They must use it to deny Donald Trump the blank check Republicans want to hand him!”

The government will shut down if Congress does not pass a continuing resolution (CR) to fund it by the end of Tuesday. Senate Democrats led by embattled Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have thus far refused to support Republican-passed CRs that do not include a litany of left-wing policy proposals.

“But in the last big funding fight, Chuck Schumer and a handful of other Dems surrendered—rolling over and letting Trump weaponize federal funds to rob our services, militarize our cities, and terrorize our communities,” the left wing group’s form continues. “That cannot happen again.”

Schumer notably worked with Republicans to pass a spending bill to fund the government in March.

Indivisible’s form further tells constituents to remind Democratic senators “we cannot hand blank checks to a wannabe king,” referring to Trump. It further tells voters to ask their Senators “to keep publicly pressuring  Schumer to FIGHT LIKE HELL!”

After Schumer and nine other members of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted with Republicans to break the filibuster on the March spending bill, Indivisible publicly called for Schumer to step down as the caucus’ leader and even put together an event where people wrote retirement cards addressed to him.

Right after Schumer’s March decision to work with Republicans to keep the government open, Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on the record blasting him, fueling speculation she may challenge him in New York’s 2028 Senate election. A late March poll by left-leaning firm Data for Progress showed Ocasio-Cortez leading the longtime incumbent by nearly 20 points in a hypothetical matchup.

The House on Sept. 19 passed a GOP-backed clean CR to fund the government through Nov. 21 — with the support of only one Democrat. However, it fell well short of the 60 required votes to bypass a filibuster in the Senate on the same day.

Meanwhile, the Senate rejected a Schumer-backed counter-proposal along party lines, also on Sept. 19. This Democratic-backed CR would have reversed about $1 trillion in cost savings of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), nixed language preventing illegal immigrants from receiving healthcare subsidies and undid the OBBA’s new Medicaid work requirements.

“Senate Democrats must reject the Soros-funded pressure from the radical left and pass the clean CR,” a White House official told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “More than one trillion dollars in new spending, taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens, half a billion dollars for left-wing media, and the elimination of the rural health care fund are all nonstarters – completely out of touch with what the American people want and deserve from their government.”

“If Democrats cave to their extremist base, they will own this shutdown and put law enforcement at risk, cut WIC [Women, Infants, and Children] benefits for mothers and children, and threaten health care for seniors,” the official added.

Trump is reportedly planning to meet with Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday, one day before the partial shutdown deadline.

Indivisible did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

Anthony Iafrate

Associate Editor

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

White House Prepares for Potential Government Shutdown with Mass Firings Plan

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As the threat of a government shutdown looms, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has directed federal agencies to brace for significant workforce reductions in programs not legally mandated to continue.

The possibility of a government shutdown next week hinges on a heated dispute between Democrats and Republicans over federal funding. According to Politico, “The House passed a stopgap spending measure to float federal operations through Nov. 21,” but Democrats “refused to advance it, demanding that Republicans come to the table to negotiate a bipartisan package that could include an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.” This standoff centers on proposed revisions to President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” enacted in July, which has become a flashpoint in the negotiations.

Should Congress fail to reach an agreement, the OMB is poised to implement drastic measures outlined in a recent memo. The memo begins with a stark warning: “Over the past 10 fiscal years, Congress has consistently passed Continuing Resolutions (CRs) on or by September 30 on a bipartisan basis. Unfortunately, congressional Democrats are signaling that they intend to break this bipartisan trend and shut down the government in the coming days over a series of insane demands, including $1 trillion in new spending.”

The OMB memo then addressed the House-passed Continuing Resolution, which all but one House Democrat voted against, stating that “congressional Democrats are currently blocking this clean CR due to their partisan demands.” It underscored the urgency of preparation, noting, “it has never been more important for the Administration to be prepared for a shutdown if the Democrats choose to pursue one.” The plan directs agencies to take the following steps:

“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown, and we must continue our planning efforts in the event Democrats decide to shut down the government. If Congress successfully passes a clean CR prior to September 30, the additional steps outlined in this email will not be necessary.

“With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out. Therefore, consistent with applicable law, including the requirements of 5 C.F.R. part 351, agencies are directed to use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force (RIF) notices for all employees in programs, projects, or activities (PPAs) that satisfy all three of the following conditions: (1) discretionary funding lapses on October 1, 2025; (2) another source of funding, such as H.R. 1 (Public Law 119-21) is not currently available; and (3) the PPA is not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

The memo concluded: “We remain hopeful that Democrats in Congress will not trigger a shutdown and the steps outlined above will not be necessary. The President supports enactment of a clean CR to ensure no discretionary spending lapse after September 30, 2025, and OMB hopes the Democrats will agree.”

The plan has drawn sharp criticism from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) denounced the move, stating, “Trump is lawless,” and argued that such actions would persist “with or without [a shutdown].” He further claimed, “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) took to X with a more fiery response, writing, “Donald Trump and MAGA extremists are plotting mass firings of federal workers starting October 1. Their goal is to ruin your life and punish hardworking families already struggling with Trump Tariffs and inflation.” However, many Republicans are joining the dialogue. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote on X how “the problem is that Democrats only want to meet to repeat their demands that we include FREE healthcare to illegal aliens, half a billion dollars to prop up liberal news outlets, other leftist priorities, and a MASSIVE $1.5 TRILLION spending HIKE in a simple 7-week funding bill. They are holding government funding hostage.”

Democrats are claiming that, should the government shut down, the blame would fall on Republicans. Johnson addressed this, stating, “House Republicans are doing our job and restoring regular order to the appropriations process. If Democrats fail to pass our clean, nonpartisan, 24-page CR to keep the government open the American People will know where the blame lies.”

Efforts to negotiate have hit a wall. President Trump had planned a meeting with top congressional Democrats late this week to discuss funding and avert a shutdown, but on Tuesday, he canceled it, labeling the Democrats’ demands “unserious and ridiculous.” He emphasized, “We must keep the Government open, and legislate like true Patriots rather than hold American Citizens hostage,” warning that failure to do so would lead to “another long and brutal slog through their radicalized quicksand.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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ROOKE: Democrats Seem To Be Setting Themselves Up For More Chaos And Division

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President Donald Trump and Republicans could have a short-lived victory in passing their One Big Beautiful Bill. In just ten weeks, Republicans will face another funding battle to avoid a government shutdown. But, fortunately for them, Democrats are still undecided on how to respond.

There are open discussions about Democrats’ limited options when fighting against Republicans, Politico reported Monday. Rather than come up with a plan to find leverage to get what they want, Democrats, such as Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, blame Republicans for following Trump’s lead and complain that Republicans are unwilling to include Democrats in the budget decision-making process.

“They’re just throwing stuff against the wall because they’re losing this fight,” Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy told Politico.

Democrats don’t seem to understand why they were defeated in November or how to gain back voter confidence in the new Trump era. While Democrats are “furious with the Trump administration and their Republican counterparts for undercutting government funding negotiations,” there is no “unified strategy” in place for the next major funding bill, set to be voted on before the government shutdown Oct. 1, according to Politico.

“To be blunt, I don’t think there’s one tactic or approach that is going to solve this from any individual Democrat,” Schatz told the outlet. “The Republicans have to decide whether they want to be totally lobotomized or not.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to work with Republicans on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, but received significant pushback from his fellow party members.

“‘He’s done a great deal of damage to the party,’ said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the liberal group Indivisible, which has scheduled an emergency call with its New York chapter and other local leaders to “seriously consider if the current [Democratic] leadership is equipped to handle the moment we’re in,’” Politico reported.

This puts any Democrat looking to side with Republicans in a terrible position. If they cross the aisle, they risk the Schumer treatment, but if they don’t, they get blamed for shutting down the federal government and all that entails.

Of course, Republicans have a few stragglers who seem to sympathize with the Democratic Party’s position against slashing funding for abortion and DEI hiring practices for the federal government.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the lone two votes against Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package, which ended funding for some of the establishment’s favorite projects, including foreign aid, PBS, and NPR. As Appropriations Committee chair, Collins told her fellow members that countering Trump and his White House budget chief, Russ Vought, is “to continue to work in a bipartisan way.”

One faction of the Democratic Party aims to persuade more Republicans to join their side during these budget negotiations. The other seems to think the only way to stop the “Trump train” is to derail it using their favorite weapon: lawfare.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top-ranking Democrat appropriator, appears to strike a balance between both sides. She told reporters that Democrats need “to make sure that there are several others on the other side of the aisle who have the stomach and the strength and the spine to stand up” to Trump and Republicans. Still, she added that her party needs to boost the number of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Democrats have one major card in their pocket to play before it is all over. With their slim majority in both chambers of Congress, Republicans need Democratic votes to pass their budget bill and avoid a government shutdown. However, despite that obvious strategy, Democrats have been reluctant to use it against Republicans.

I guess they realize that some money is better than no money.

Democrats are increasingly becoming a neutered party with no real message to win, except that “Trump is bad.” But outside of its hardcore base, the rest of American voters are looking for someone who will answer questions on how to fix the issues that directly affect them, like the economy and illegal immigration.

Democrats are so far unable to determine the path to victory in the new Trump era, let alone take any action to help Americans, leaving them in a difficult position as they enter what will be a challenging midterm battle against a more unified Republican opponent.

AUTHOR

Mary Rooke

Commentary and Analysis Writer. Follow Mary Rooke on X: @MaryRooke

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Chuck Schumer Lays Groundwork For Government Shutdown

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Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is signaling he could plunge the country into a partial government shutdown if Republicans move forward with rescinding just a fraction of a percent of government spending.

The Senate is expected to vote on a request from the White House to claw back $1.1 billion in public broadcasting funding and $8.3 billion in foreign aid next week. Schumer has threatened that Democrats will reject a government funding deal for the upcoming fiscal year if Republicans pass President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion rescission package, which could trigger a partial government shutdown at the end of September.

“Ask the Republicans why they are heading on this path,” Schumer said at a Senate Democratic leadership press conference Wednesday in response to a question citing his previous warnings about the alleged harmful effects of letting government funding lapse. “We are doing everything we can to keep the bipartisan appropriations process going. And they’re undermining it with rescissions, with pocket rescissions, with impoundment and every other way.”

Schumer’s implicit shutdown threat is a noticeable departure from his decision to avert a lapse in government funding in March by supplying the votes to pass a Trump-backed stopgap spending bill. The Democratic leader’s decision to avoid a government shutdown earlier in the year infuriated the party’s base, leading Schumer to postpone a scheduled book tour. Elected Democrats across the country criticized his leadership.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune criticized Schumer’s recent remarks appearing to use the rescissions package as leverage in the anticipated government funding showdown later this year. Schumer wrote a “Dear Colleague” letter Tuesday warning of “consequences that will be felt far beyond the halls of power” if Republicans claw back funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid.

“I was disappointed to see the Democrat leader … implicitly threaten to shut down the government,” Thune said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “But I’m hopeful that that is not the position of the Democrat Party, the Democrat conference here in the Senate, and that we can work together in the coming weeks to pass bipartisan appropriations bills.”

“Funding the government is our chief priority before October, but that won’t stop us from considering additional measures,” Thune said, in an implicit reference to the rescissions package.

Thune is up against a July 18 deadline to pass the rescissions package, which is subject to a simple majority vote. Failure to approve the clawback request by that timeline would force the president to spend the money as originally directed by lawmakers.

The House cleared the clawback measure 214 to 212 in June with four GOP lawmakers joining Democrats in opposing the rescissions package.

Though several moderate Senate Republicans have voiced concerns about rescinding some of the proposed DOGE cuts, some in the conference are warning that failure is not an option and that Senate Republicans must meet the July 18 deadline. The $9.4 billion rescissions request would be the first DOGE cuts codified by Congress out of the roughly $175 billion identified by the president’s cost-cutting commission.

“I think if the Republicans in the United States Senate do not pass the rescission package, after all the rhetoric about reducing spending, then they should hide their head in the bag,” Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told reporters Tuesday. “And I think the White House will provide the bag.”

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Reporter

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Johnson on Schumer’s Surrender: ‘Buckle Up … [We’re] Building Muscle Memory for Winning’

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Apart from Donald Trump, no one is more unpopular among Democrats right now than the Senate’s Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The longtime leader infuriated his party Friday, surrendering on the government shutdown and handing Republicans a victory that can only be described as miraculous. Not only was his decision to cave after days of tough talk a shock, it’s also making Schumer the target of “volcanic anger” in his own party. As one Democratic aide put it after the vote, “I’ve never seen anything like it in the time I’ve been in the Senate …” And as far as conservatives are concerned, Schumer had it coming.

This is exactly what the minority leader did to Republicans when the shoe was on the other foot, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins reminded people after the vote. For once, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and the rest of his party gave Senate Democrats a “dose and a half of their own medicine,” he tweeted, referring to all the times Schumer jammed conservatives with legislation they didn’t want. “Congressional Republicans are now doing what conservatives have wanted to see — going toe to toe with the Left and winning.”

To be fair, Schumer’s hype about shutting down the government was just that: hype. After the House passed a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the lights on and got out of dodge, the Senate minority leader’s fate was sealed. His options, Perkins pointed out, were to either shut down the government and let President Trump decide what parts of the government got funded (think DOGE on steroids) or support a continuing resolution that cut billions of discretionary spending. From the Left’s perspective, it was a lose-lose proposition.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t calls for Schumer’s head. On CNN, shortly after the minority leader folded, host Erin Burnett asked former Obama advisor Van Jones, “How angry are Democrats at Leader Schumer?” He replied bluntly, “I’ve never seen this level of volcanic anger at a Democrat, ever.” “Ever,” she said in astonishment. “Wow.”

Making matters worse for the longtime Democrat, President Trump went on Truth Social to poke the bear. “Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage!” Trump wrote, trolling the opposition. An angry Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) could only shake his head. “When Donald Trump wakes up in the morning and says, ‘You’re doing the right thing, Senate Democrats,’ we don’t feel that is the right place to be.”

Ultimately, 10 Democrats voted to move forward with the bill to keep the government open through September of this year — cementing a political masterstroke by Speaker Johnson at exactly the right time. “I knew when I made this decision, I’d get a lot of criticism from a lot of quarters,” Schumer insisted to reporters. “We had hoped that maybe Johnson couldn’t get the votes,” Schumer said. “But when he did … it put us in a very, very tough place.”

The speaker celebrated the hard-fought win on Saturday’s “This Week on Capitol Hill.” “I’ll tell you what,” he reflected with Perkins, “it’s been a lot of hard work. We kept the team together. The House Republicans are building muscle memory now for winning,” he declared. “We have a string of wins under our belt, and it’s good to be underestimated. You know,” he smiled, “the Hill press corps and the Democratic Party and the mainstream media every day write my eulogy, write our eulogy. They say we’re going to go to loggerheads against one another. And the Republicans can’t stand together. But we have, and we will continue to do that, because we are going to deliver the America First agenda for the American people.”

Asked how he pulled off such a coup and kept the members together, the Louisianan admitted that it took “a lot of time [and] a lot of patience.” It required a painstaking string of meetings, sorting through people’s priorities. And at the end of the day, he concluded, “We all have the same priorities. We want to make the federal government smaller, more efficient, and more effective for the people.” Of course, he pointed out, a lot of conservatives are impatient. “Some of my colleagues want to do everything all at once. They want to cut $8 trillion in federal spending. It’s just not possible to do that.”

Johnson says he likes to use the metaphor of an aircraft carrier. “It took us many decades to get into the financial situation that we’re in,” he remarked. “You don’t turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It takes miles of open ocean, but you have to begin to turn it. And that’s what we’re doing. This CR is a step in that direction. It freezes funding.” He paused, “Think of this,” he said. “We’re actually going to spend less money year over year for the first time maybe in history. … At least in many decades. That’s an important course correction. And then, for the FY 26 budgeting, we’re going to make a much larger part of that turn. So it’s going to be a gradual, gradual, incremental thing to fix the mess we’re in. But we’re on that trajectory now.”

That’s music to conservatives’ ears after decades of rolling over and accepting runaway spending. “The passage of this continuing resolution is a major win for President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson,” FRC’s Quena Gonzalez told The Washington Stand, “and all the more so because it is improbable. Just a few weeks ago, it was accepted wisdom in Washington that Speaker Johnson would probably fail to shepherd it through the narrowest possible partisan margin in the House — never mind what its fate might be in a Senate where many Republicans favored a different, two-pronged approach and Democrats were united in opposing anything endorsed by President Donald Trump.” Just a day earlier, Gonzalez pointed out, “Leader Schumer was bragging that Republicans didn’t have the votes to pass the CR and vowed to tank it on the Senate floor.”

What’s even more amazing, he reiterated, is that “a continuing resolution is often a sign of failed governance and kicking the fiscal can down the road.” Not so in this case. “Most conservative leaders in Washington have believed President Trump and Speaker Johnson, who said that this CR is a step toward, not away from, fiscal sanity.” This CR should give the Trump administration time “to staff up and continue cutting government” and, Gonzalez said, “give the House and Senate time to pass a budget and make appropriations.” In other words, he underscored, “Congress has acted to make space for fiscal sanity and good governance to be restored. The proof will be in the pudding.”

For now, Johnson, who’s never had the luxury of operating with any margin for error, thinks that governing with a small majority has helped to bring “a lot of clarity” to his party. “And that clarity is helpful and important to us. And we’re going to continue to do the right thing. So just buckle up and watch,” he urged. “It’s going to be a rocky road, but we’re going to achieve these objectives in the end.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Mike Johnson’s Broken Promises On CR May Have Just Cost Him The Speakership

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is facing serious blowback from those in his own party for trying to push through a continuing resolution filled with unnecessary spending. Sources on Capitol Hill, including both lawmakers and their staff, told the Caller Johnson may have cost himself the Speaker’s job with the poorly-received gambit right before Christmas.

“Mike Johnson spent a lot of time fundraising off of selfies with President Trump, and then betrayed him right before the inauguration. He’ll have to answer for that in January,” a senior House Republican staffer told the Caller.

The 1,574-page spending measure will receive votes from both Democrats and Republicans, but Johnson broke several promises in the process of putting forth the bill. Johnson said in September that he has “no intention of going back” to the “terrible tradition” of a Christmas omnibus.

A senior house aide told the Caller that House Republicans have lost trust in Johnson and that it will be hard to recover from.

“It’s not a competence or leadership question for some folks now. It’s a trust question. That’s gonna be tough to come back from,” the senior house aide said.

The speaker says by passing the CR, “we’re clearing the decks and we are setting up for Trump to come in roaring back with the America First agenda.” However, it is being opposed by Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk, who will be running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as well as President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance themselves.

Johnson also promised that the spending bill would be written by committee leaders in an open process and members would have at least 72 hours to read it before voting, but in reality, the new CR was negotiated behind closed doors by leadership.

“On every important issue this majority has faced, the Speaker has shown himself to be inapt and outsmarted by Biden and Schumer and is too easily willing to surrender,” one House Republican lawmaker told the Caller.

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie was the first House Republican to say he would oppose Johnson’s bid for Speaker, saying Wednesday: “I’ll vote for somebody else.” When asked who he would vote for instead he said: “I’ve got a few in mind. I’m not going to say yet.”

“There’s a cognitive disconnect among my colleagues who hated Speaker Johnson’s CR, but still plan to vote for Speaker Johnson in 2 weeks. That 1557 page bill was a product of the swamp that uniparty Johnson was happy to facilitate. He couldn’t understand why we didn’t lap it up,” Massie tweeted Thursday morning.

No other House Republicans have said they plan to challenge Johnson for the Speakership. Notably, Republicans’ razor-thin House majority in the next Congress would give even a small anti-Johnson group significant leverage over who becomes the next Speaker.

Johnson’s office declined to comment for this piece.

AUTHOR

Henry Rodgers

Chief national correspondent. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter.

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Only Obama Can Shut Down the Government

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The inclination many establishment Republicans have shown for premature legislative and ideological surrender is, at times, only matched by their eagerness to surrender the messaging battle as well.

Committed conservatives are already fighting a difficult messaging battle. They face committed liberal activists, far-left elected officials at the local, state, and federal level, an entrenched federal bureaucracy, an ideologically blinded media, an influential entertainment community, and an insulated, left-leaning academic community. We do not need to waste precious resources fighting against our own party. But the establishment has backed us into a corner by integrating the language of the Left into its own messaging.

I witnessed this recently at a Republican debate I attended for Florida’s 18th congressional district. The moderator of the debate asked the candidates a question about a vote for or against a debt ceiling hike, and insinuated via the wording of the question that a “no” vote would be a vote for shutting down the government. I was hoping the candidates would see through the messaging magic trick the debate moderator was playing on them, but many did not. By answering this “question,” without challenging the inaccurate premise of the question, many of the candidates lent credence to the premise that the GOP is responsible for “shutting down the government.” This is complete garbage and no activist, candidate, elected official, or responsible member of the GOP with a media voice should make room for this nonsensical idea.

Democrats, and their ideologically-aligned media friends, invented the false narrative that the GOP is responsible for any government shutdown as a tool to force the GOP to forfeit the constitutional congressional power of the purse, which the GOP-led House of Representatives rightfully holds.

Now that the narrative has been firmly implanted in the American public conscience, with the assistance of many in the GOP, and with Republican leadership afraid to tell the truth about how the government “shuts down,” the GOP insider class has effectively disempowered itself, along with the voters who busted their butts to get them elected and millions of conservative Americans who are pleading for their lawmakers to fight back against President Obama’s “fundamental transformation.”

Here are the very simple, and indisputable facts, about government “shutdowns.” The Republican-led House of Representatives has the constitutional duty to put forth, and pass, a federal budget. When a compromise budget is accepted by both the House and the Senate, it is then passed on to President Obama who can choose whether to sign the budget. If the president refuses to sign the budget and the government “shuts down”—a misnomer in itself because the government’s essential functions continue unabated during a “shutdown”— it is the exclusive result of presidential inaction. This requires no leap in logic or world-class imagination to figure out.

With this said, I am pleading with Republicans across the grassroots and elected spectrum to please stop saying, “We shouldn’t shut down the government.” Of course we shouldn’t shut down the government because we can’t shut down the government. Only the president can do that.

Do you really think that if the roles were reversed, and the Republicans held the White House and the Democrats held the House and Senate, that the media narrative would be the same? Of course not. The media would be blaming the Republican President for “shutting down the government” if he refused to sign the Democratic congress’ budget.

So please stop playing along like media lapdogs and carrying their messaging water for them. Just gather yourselves together and commit to doing the right thing and not the easy thing, and tell the people the truth. We deserve it.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The featured image of President Obama is by Pablo Martinez Monsivais | AP Photo.