Democratic congressional leaders are dismissing a threat from the White House budget office to fire masses of federal workers during a government shutdown, saying they will not be intimidated into caving on their demands for talks on extending health care subsidies.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) brushed off the missive from Russell Vought, the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as a negotiating tactic that will not throw the party off its game.
“This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government,” Schumer said. “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.”
“We will not be intimidated by Russ Vought, who is completely and totally out of control,” Jeffries told reporters Thursday in the Capitol.
“The OMB has been illegally shutting down parts of the government throughout the entire year. … All he’s done is sent a message to voters in Virginia and across the country that Republicans are determined to hurt the American people,” he added.
“As a negotiating tactic, our response to Russ Vought is simple: Get lost.”
The sharp words from the Democratic leaders, with less than a week to prevent a shutdown, underscored just how far apart President Trump’s lieutenants and his rivals on Capitol Hill are from reaching an agreement.
If anything, the two sides seemed to be moving further apart with the memo from Vought, who has long sought to shrink the size of government, and the clear pressures from a Democratic base — eager to fight Trump — on Jeffries and Schumer to toe a hard line in the spending fight.
“Well, this is all caused by the Democrats,” Trump said Thursday in largely brushing off a question about the possible shutdown during an Oval Office event with Turkey’s president.
“They asked us to do something that’s totally unreasonable. They never change,” he said of Democrats — and apparently their request for talks on the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
The tough talk from Schumer and Jeffries was echoed by a number of rank-and-file Democrats whose outrage over Trump has been growing.
“President Trump is engaged in mafia-style blackmail, with his threats ultimately harming the American people,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a statement Thursday.
But that displeasure masked some signs of worry over whether walking into a shutdown is the best strategy for the party. The House has approved a “clean” stopgap measure that would keep the government funded for seven weeks. The measure almost certainly can win a majority in the Senate, but without Democratic help it cannot win the 60 votes necessary for passage.
Both sides have signaled they think their opponents will take the blame if there is a shutdown, but some Democrats have expressed a desire to find a compromise that would keep the government open.
“There are a number of ways to get this done that should satisfy both sides,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told Semafor on Wednesday. “I’m not going to draw a line in the sand and say it’s got to be this way or that way.”
Funding for fiscal 2025 expires Tuesday at midnight, giving negotiators only days to figure out a pathway to keep the government open. Little — if any — negotiating is happening.
Jeffries and Schumer had a meeting scheduled with Trump for Thursday, but the president nixed it earlier in the week at the behest of Republican leaders who have argued that there is no point in negotiating at this juncture.
Republicans say Democrats previously backed “clean” stopgap measures, which largely keeps funding at current levels, under President Biden.
Schumer also supported it back in March, warning at the time that a shutdown could help fuel the administration’s ongoing efforts to decimate the federal workforce.
That move enraged his Democratic base, which both weakened Schumer and makes it difficult to see how he could back a stopgap measure next week without significant movement by the GOP.
Democrats for weeks have been arguing that any funding agreement must deal with their priorities — namely, the extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end and the rollback of rescissions and Medicaid cuts that Republicans passed in recent months. The items were all included in a partisan spending bill that Democrats unveiled in response to the “clean” continuing resolution (CR) by Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have both insisted those provisions are all nonstarters in the current package, though some more moderate-leaning members have signaled openness to a discussion about the ACA tax credits before the end of the year.
Amid that back-and-forth, Thune and Schumer have still yet to meet about a potential funding package, with the GOP leader calling on Democrats to back the “clean” bill, as he has numerous times in the past.
Democrats believe it’s time for the two parties to sit down, even as they refuse to take the administration’s threat of layoffs at face value.
“Who is Trump trying to fire exactly? These geniuses have had to scramble to REHIRE thousands of workers ranging from nuclear scientists to food safety inspectors tracking bird flu,” said Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democratic appropriator.
“Intimidation tactics won’t work,” she added. “Behave like an adult — negotiate with Democrats.”
Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who also has large numbers of federal workers in his state, said Thursday, “Once again, Donald Trump, the president of chaos, is threatening our federal workforce. They’ve gone through hell and been terrorized by this administration.”
“The truth is, we can preserve our federal workforce, make sure we don’t put people further over the cliff on health care and keep the government open. Let’s sit down and work it out,” he added.
Even some Republicans have pushed back against Vought’s threat of mass firings as a negotiating tactic. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chair of the Appropriations Committee, is siding squarely with her party in pushing for a clean CR that avoids a shutdown and allows negotiators more time to craft a long-term spending compromise.
“[But] federal employees dedicate themselves to serving the public,” she added, “and they should not be treated as pawns amid a needlessly partisan impasse.”
The Affordable Care Act was also at the center of another partisan budget battle that led to a shutdown. That debate, in 2013, was propelled by conservatives demanding a full repeal of former President Obama’s signature health care law. It led to a 16-day shutdown, for which voters largely blamed Republicans.
Twelve years later, Democrats are betting voters will have similar sentiments if the government is forced to close its doors again.
“Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency. If the government shuts down, it’s because they want the government to shut down,” Jeffries said.
“We will not be intimidated by these threats coming from the most extreme parts of the Trump administration.”
But there are a number of differences between that battle and today’s, raising questions about whether Jeffries’s prediction will ring true.
“How many of their darlings are we holding? Where’s our leverage? Identify what’s our leverage point,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) asked.