An eighth failed Senate vote Tuesday on the House-passed stopgap bill to fund the government through Nov. 21 will send the government shutdown into its third week.
Wednesday will mark day 15 of the shutdown with no clarity on how or when it will end.
Democrats want to extend a COVID-era expansion of Obamacare premium subsidies set to expire this year, among other health care and spending demands. Republicans refuse to hold negotiations while the government is shut down and are demanding Democrats stop filibustering their “clean” stopgap funding bill.
President Trump said how long the shutdown lasts is up to the Democrats, noting “all they have to do is just vote to extend” the previous fiscal year’s spending levels and policies.
He said the White House will release a list of government programs on Friday that it is canceling because of the shutdown.
“The Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we’re closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we were opposed to,” Mr. Trump said. “And they’re never going to come back, in many cases. So we’re able to do things that we were unable to do before.”
He added, “We’re not closing up Republican programs because we think they work.”
The president’s comments came before the failed Senate vote but did not shift any Democrats from the opposition bloc. Five more are needed to reopen the government.
“Democrats made it clear day in, day out, we want to open the government and have a serious negotiation to fix the health care premium price that is set to wallop the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.
The New York Democrat said if Republicans don’t change course and negotiate, they will be responsible for that “financial catastrophe.”
Tuesday’s Senate vote was unique from the prior seven in that Republicans did not first allow a vote on a Democratic counter proposal to fund the government through Oct. 31 with $1.5 trillion in health care and other added spending.
Republicans “haven’t put forward any demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said. “Only Democrats have made demands – and, by the way, very expensive demands.”
The White House Office of Management and Budget said earlier Tuesday that it was “making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence.
“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” OMB posted on its X account.
RIFs refer to reductions in force that OMB began implementing on Friday. Roughly 4,000 federal workers were laid off across multiple agencies.
“The fact that they are celebrating firing hard-working federal employees doesn’t strengthen their position with the American people, it weakens it,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said. “Because the American people don’t accept that kind of cruel and callous behavior.”
The Maryland and Virginia congressional delegations held a press conference Tuesday outside of OMB’s offices in Washington to push back against the mass layoffs.
“Shame on [OMB Director] Russ Vought and Donald Trump,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, said. “When they tell you that the shutdown is making them fire these federal employees, do not believe it for a moment. That is a big lie.”
“It is also illegal, and we will see them in court,” he added.
Democracy Forward, a left-leaning nonprofit that provides free legal representation, is fighting the latest round of layoffs in court. A hearing on its emergency motion for an injunction to halt the layoffs is scheduled for Wednesday.
“We are going to fight these illegal layoffs, to hold this administration accountable to the law and to make sure that whatever federal workers do once the government is again funded, there are people who have their backs,” said Rob Shriver, managing director of Democracy Forward’s civil service initiative. “We’re rooting and working for their success.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.