{"id":167667,"date":"2025-10-11T15:50:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T15:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/democrats-refuse-to-fold-over-shutdown-as-republican-outrage-builds-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T15:50:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T15:50:46","slug":"democrats-refuse-to-fold-over-shutdown-as-republican-outrage-builds-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/democrats-refuse-to-fold-over-shutdown-as-republican-outrage-builds-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats refuse to fold over shutdown as Republican outrage builds – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Party sticks to its guns on healthcare and says it\u2019s willing to hold out \u2013 much to the delight of its progressive supporters
W<\/span>hen he sat down to talk about the US government shutdown with reporters from a closely read political newsletter this week, Chuck Schumer<\/a> sounded as if he was relishing his standoff with the Republicans.
\u201cEvery day gets better for us,\u201d he told Punchbowl News. As the shutdown got under way, Schumer explained, the Republicans<\/a> believed that Democrats would quickly fold and vote to reopen the government, but instead they had stuck to their guns for a week and a half, demanding an array of concessions on healthcare and other issues.
Outrage followed from Republicans, who printed out the Senate minority leader\u2019s remark on posters and condemned it before press conferences. The shutdown has prompted federal agencies to close or curtail operations nationwide, and forced hundreds of thousands of employees to stay home without immediate pay. Schumer, Republicans argued, was being callous.
\u201cI\u2019ve been asked many times in interviews the last couple days, \u2018You seem angry \u2013 you don\u2019t get angry a lot.\u2019 I don\u2019t, but this is beyond the pale,\u201d the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said at a press conference on Friday morning, the 10th day of the shutdown. \u201cWhat Chuck Schumer is doing right now, it\u2019s sickening.\u201d
Hours later, the White House took it upon itself to increase the misery for government employees when Russ Vought, the director of the office of management and budget, began following<\/a> through on his threat<\/a> to carry out layoffs. The budget office said that more than<\/a> 4,000 federal workers were being fired from a variety of agencies that had already shrunk in the second Trump administration, and the funding situation was \u201cfluid and rapidly evolving\u201d. Legal challenges are likely to follow, but still, now it was the Democrats\u2019 turn to accuse the GOP of brutality.
\u201cLet\u2019s be blunt: nobody\u2019s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,\u201d Schumer said in a statement. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to do it; they want to. They\u2019re callously choosing to hurt people \u2013 the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.\u201d
It was the latest salvo in a battle that began when government funding lapsed on 1 October and has since degenerated into legislative trench warfare. Seven Senate votes<\/a> have resulted in no breakthroughs, with lawmakers from both parties preventing the other\u2019s proposals from reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.
Democrats are maximizing the leverage they have in the upper chamber by refusing to reopen the government until premium tax credits<\/a> for Affordable Care Act health plans are extended into next year. They also want cuts to the Medicaid program for poor and disabled Americans reversed, funding to public media outlets such as PBS and NPR restored and Donald Trump\u2019s use of \u201cpocket rescissions<\/a>\u201d to slash spending curbed.
Most of those are non-starters for Republicans, who insist government funding be restarted before negotiations take place. They\u2019ve ascribed a variety of motivations for Democrats\u2019 intransigence, from the rise of Zohran Mamdani<\/a> as the Democratic nominee for New York mayor to the influence of a \u201cfar-left base\u201d that has the party\u2019s leaders in their thrall.
On Friday, Johnson posited that Democratic senators were holding out because they were concerned about a \u201cNo Kings\u201d protest<\/a> planned for 18 October \u2013 which he called a \u201chate America rally\u201d and where attendees might target party leaders if they decided to end the shutdown.
\u201cIt is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes, but the Democrats in the Senate have shown that they\u2019re afraid of that crowd,\u201d Johnson said, alleging that \u201cthe antifa<\/a> crowd, and the pro-Hamas crowd and the Marxists\u201d would be in attendance.
\u201cThey\u2019re willing to hold the American people hostage so that they don\u2019t have to face an angry mob \u2013 that\u2019s a big chunk of their base,\u201d he said.
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There are indeed outside influences pressuring Democrats<\/a> to stand firm on their demands, and so far they are happy with the results.
\u201cThe Democrats, I think, have taken in the blowback, have understood where their folks want them to go, and are actually taking it and fighting back. And it\u2019s a sight to see. It\u2019s a welcome strategic shift,\u201d Ezra Levin, co-executive director of progressive organizing group Indivisible, said.
In March, Schumer opted to work with Republicans on keeping the government open, prompting Indivisible to call for him to step aside as minority leader. Months later, Levin says his group is coordinating with Schumer\u2019s office on actions to support Democratic lawmakers as the shutdown wears on, and believes the party should not compromise on its demands.
Not only are Democrats\u2019 demands \u201cwildly popular\u201d, Republicans are not to be trusted to honor any agreement, he said. Trump and his allies in Congress have made clear their interest in rescissions packages, which can be passed on a party-line vote, to cut spending approved with bipartisan support. After passing one<\/a> in July that clawed back $9bn in funding for public media and foreign aid, Johnson said he is considering putting together another.
\u201cThis regime is treating the federal budget like a personal bank account for Donald Trump<\/a>, and we should stop that,\u201d Levin said. \u201cNo deal is a real deal unless you have rescission and payment language.
\u201cWe\u2019ve got the goods. We are fighting for popular things. The Republicans are closing rural hospitals, increasing costs, and giving a lawless administration more power to do what it wants. That\u2019s a losing hand, and we want to see Democrats fight back.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Party sticks to its guns on healthcare and says it\u2019s willing to hold out \u2013 much to the delight of its progressive supportersWhen he sat down to talk about the US government shutdown with reporters from a closely read political newsletter this week, Chuck Schumer sounded as if he was relishing his standoff with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}