A weekend away from Washington did little to soften Senate Democrats’ resolve as they again blocked Republicans’ effort to reopen the government, ensuring the shutdown will last at least a week.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and most of his caucus are adamant that unless a deal is struck on expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits, commonly known as ObamaCare subsidies, they will not provide the votes needed to fund the government.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., needs at least eight Democrats to cross the aisle and support the GOP’s bill, which would reopen the government until Nov. 21.
However, only Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Angus King, I-Maine, have broken with their caucus to end the shutdown. Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., remains the lone Republican to buck his party.
Senate Democrats have remained steadfast in their demand that a deal must be reached to extend expiring ObamaCare subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year. They argue that unless Congress acts, Americans who rely on the tax credits will see their healthcare premiums skyrocket.
Both Senate leaders are encouraging talks among rank-and-file members to find a solution, but neither side can agree on when exactly the subsidies should be dealt with.
When asked what the appetite for tackling the expiring subsidies was within the Senate GOP, Thune said it was ‘a mixed bag.’
‘But like I said, you know, there may be a path forward,’ he said. ‘I think a lot of it would come down to what the White House lands on that, but certainly not without reforms. And we all know the program is broken, it needs to be fixed, so that would be certainly a starting place.’
Schumer wants an additional bulwark added to a deal: President Donald Trump has to sign off on it, given that there may be resistance among House Republicans to extending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.
‘Look, the bottom line on that is we need the president to be involved. [House Speaker Mike] Johnson and a whole lot of his caucus don’t like the ACA, don’t want to do the extensions,’ he said. ‘A lot of Republican senators in the Senate do, but they’re not enough. Good is not enough.’
‘You need Johnson and you need Trump to get it done,’ he continued. ‘So that’s the bottom line.’
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that ‘we’re talking to the Democrats.’ When asked if he would work to make a deal with them on ObamaCare subsidies to reopen the government, he said ‘Yeah.’
‘I’d like to see a deal made for great healthcare,’ Trump said. Ii want to see great healthcare, I’m a republican but I want to see healthcare much more so than the Democrats.’
Schumer fired back in a statement that Trump’s ‘claim isn’t true — but if he’s finally ready to work with Democrats, we’ll be at the table.’
And Fetterman, who has routinely voted against shutting the government down regardless of which party controlled the Senate, recognized that without Trump’s greenlight, a deal would go nowhere.
He gave the example of a bipartisan border deal negotiated between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate in 2023 that was sidelined under orders from Trump.
‘It got tanked. Trump tanked that, and he wasn’t the president, and he didn’t have to sign that thing,’ Fetterman said. ‘So what I’m saying, where’s the leverage? Because ultimately, doesn’t he have to sign off on any of it anyway?’