Republicans are attempting to keep pressure on Democrats, and away from their own party, as Washington lurches toward a politically risky government showdown.
With just hours until federal funding expires at midnight on Wednesday, Republicans are trying to minimize any missteps in a fight they believe is a political loser for Democrats, who won’t vote for a seven-week funding bill without an extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies.
House GOP leadership encouraged its members to stay on message during a Monday conference call and emphasize the economic damage that a shutdown would inflict while steering clear of healthcare, given its potency with voters.
At the same time, House Republicans were discouraged from holding any political event that could be viewed as bad optics, according to a member on the call. Senate Democrats have already gotten themselves in political hot water with a campaign retreat in Napa Valley that is slated to take place the second week of a possible shutdown.
There is still the possibility that a shutdown will be brief. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) broached with his caucus the idea of a funding extension that lasts a week or two, according to Axios, if Republicans verbally commit to negotiating the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
But congressional leaders appeared nowhere close to a deal after a Monday White House meeting hosted by Trump, and Schumer soon publicly ruled out a weeklong extension.
Republicans, for their part, reiterated that the only offer on the table was the GOP-drafted funding bill that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to bring to the floor again on Tuesday, hours before the shutdown deadline.
That bill passed the House earlier this month in a nearly party-line vote before failing in the Senate days later.
“I think we’re headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” Vice President JD Vance, appearing alongside GOP congressional leaders outside the White House, told reporters on Monday.
Minutes earlier, Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the top House Democrat, assessed that “significant and meaningful differences remain” in spending talks.
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Polling shows both parties sharing blame for a shutdown, with a Monday survey finding it would be Republicans, not Democrats, who would be viewed as most at fault. According to Morning Consult, 45% of voters are more likely to blame Republicans versus 32% for Democrats.
The current standoff nonetheless presents an unusual circumstance for Republicans, who have fought and lost repeated battles with the sort of “poison pill” demands Democrats are insisting on today.
In his first term, President Donald Trump demanded billions in border wall funding, only to relent after 35 days in what was the longest government shutdown to date.
For that reason, Republicans believe Democrats will ultimately cave and acquiesce to the bill, as Schumer did in March, and have modeled their legislation after the “clean” spending bills brought forward by Democrats in those fights.
But Schumer is under immense pressure not to hand Republicans the Democratic votes it would take to overcome a Senate filibuster. The liberal group Indivisible released a statement warning that Democrats would be “trading away leverage for a pinky promise” if Schumer went ahead with the offer of a weeklong funding extension.
Jeffries also expressed opposition to a verbal commitment at a press conference earlier in the day.
“No one can trust their word on healthcare. Are you kidding me?” Jeffries told reporters, alluding to past GOP attempts to roll back Obamacare. “The American people know that would be an unreasonable thing for us to do.”
So far, the two Democratic leaders insist they’re in lockstep and appeared together twice on Monday in a show of unity. In addition to the Obamacare subsidies, they want a rollback of the Medicaid changes in Trump’s tax law, as well as language to rein in the president’s attempt to claw back funding unilaterally.
Still, Republicans hope that the impact of a shutdown will put Democrats on politically shaky ground as federal services go dark and employees work without pay. While Senate Democratic leadership has dug in for a shutdown fight, other rank-and-file members could be open to a deal.
Sen. Angus King (I-ME), one of 10 senators to buck his caucus and vote for the March funding bill, told reporters on Monday that he would support a weeklong extension to buy time for Obamacare negotiations.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has also supported a “clean” extension of any length in the shutdown fight.
“I refuse to shut our government down, and that’s not going to change,” Fetterman said on Monday evening.
The Democratic argument is that Republicans have unified control of Washington, meaning it is ultimately their responsibility to fund the government.
“If the government shuts down, it’s because Republicans want to shut the government down,” Jeffries said at his press conference.
Schumer also claimed that Trump “admitted” that he would take blame for the shutdown at their White House meeting.
Republicans have rebuffed those arguments, pointing to past statements by Schumer and other leaders arguing against adding “extraneous issues” to otherwise bipartisan funding extensions.
Yet GOP leaders clearly see their party as vulnerable to political attacks, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) circulating a memo of “Democrat delusions” to House Republicans on Monday.
In the memo, Johnson urged his conference to note that the seven-week funding extension includes no healthcare provisions, as Democrats claim the GOP wants to “rip away” voters’ insurance.
He is also fielding some disagreement within the House GOP conference over his decision to keep the House on recess until next week, a fact Democrats are using to paint Republicans as derelict in the face of a shutdown.
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At the White House press conference, Johnson attempted to go on offense as he invoked the specter of troops missing paychecks and WIC, a food program for low-income mothers, lapsing.
Republicans writ large have also claimed that the rollback of Medicaid reforms proposed by Democrats amounts to allowing illegal immigrants to access federal healthcare. Those immigrants were already ineligible for the entitlement, but the tax law is geared toward further curbing their ability to access limited benefits, such as emergency services.
Christian Datoc contributed to this report.
