Government shutdown primed to roll into next week after US Senate deadlocks again
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York speaks to reporters at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol during the third day of a federal government shutdown, on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — An agreement to reopen the federal government was nowhere in sight Friday after U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans failed Friday, for the fourth time, to move on a deal and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced he won’t bring his members back until the middle of the month.
Two Senate votes to advance funding bills flopped, as expected, as Senate Democrats remained almost unanimous in demanding Republicans extend health care subsidies amid steep insurance premium increases.
Republicans maintain they will not negotiate until the government reopens.
At the center of the argument are two separate government funding bills. One is a 91-page House-passed Republican bill that would keep the government open until Nov. 21.
The other is a 68-page Democrat counterproposal that aims to provide funding through October while restoring and permanently extending certain federal health funding and subsidies.
Republicans once again failed, 54-44, to gain enough Democratic support to reach the 60 votes needed — though Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania joined the GOP, as did Maine’s Sen. Angus King, an independent. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted no.
The Democrats’ plan also fell short in a 46-52 vote.
“It’s always wrong to shut the government down,” Fetterman said outside the Senate chamber after voting yes on both bills. “Why do this s–t?”
Sens. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, and Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, did not vote on either bill.
The Senate will not return to work until Monday, when two more votes on the same bills are planned.
Johnson said after the votes that the House will stay in recess until Oct. 14, which means the government shutdown could last until at least then, if not longer, if Democrats in the Senate continue their resistance to the House bill.
Nonstop messaging
Republican and Democratic leaders spent another day on Capitol Hill hammering their shutdown messages.
At a morning press conference in the middle of the Capitol’s grand Statuary Hall, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune doubled down on their claim that Democrats are blocking government funding over a policy that Republicans say would provide health care to immigrants without legal status.
“We challenge them to tell us why they’re not trying to give illegal aliens health care again when they put it in their own bill,” Johnson said, pointing to a poster of highlighted language from the Democrats’ proposal.
Democrats’ plan includes language reversing the GOP’s roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts that President Donald Trump signed into law as part of a tax and spending cuts package on July 4.
Johnson hailed a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finding in August that the new law would result in about 1.4 million immigrants losing health coverage.
“That’s exactly what we promised, and that’s what’s gonna be achieved,” the Louisiana Republican said.
The populations slated to lose the coverage comprise lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylees, according to analysis by the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF.
Longstanding federal policy prohibits immigrants without legal status in the U.S. from receiving government-funded health care.
Health care premium hikes
At their own set of afternoon press conferences, Democratic leaders slammed what they described as a “Republican health care crisis.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pointed to a poster showing health care premium increases for 2026 plans in Georgia, Idaho and Virginia.
“The crisis is having real impact on working-class Americans right now,” the New York Democrat said.
Jeffries questioned why Republicans extended numerous tax cuts in their July budget reconciliation law, otherwise known as the “one big beautiful bill,” but could not “be bothered” to extend the premium enhanced tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
“Republicans spent all year focused on their one big, ugly bill so they could permanently extend massive tax breaks for the wealthy,” Jeffries said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also came armed with a set of posters to his snap briefing after the funding bill failed yet again.
One showed a PolitiFact graphic arrow pointing to “FALSE” under the question of whether Democrats were threatening a government shutdown over health care for immigrants without legal status.
“They thought they could bludgeon us and threaten us and scare us. It ain’t working, because my caucus and Democrats are adamant that we must protect the health care of the American people,” Schumer said.
Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said of the news of the House members not returning next week: “There is not a clearer illustration of their lack of seriousness in terms of reopening the government and solving the health care crisis.”
‘It shifts the authority to the executive’
Johnson dismissed the Democrats’ fight over health care as “a political talking point.”
When asked about the Trump administration’s threats to permanently lay off thousands of federal workers and cancel funding for projects in blue states, Johnson said “when Congress decides to turn off the lights, shut the government down, it shifts the authority to the executive.”
“The president takes no pleasure in this, but if Chuck Schumer is gonna give Donald Trump the opportunity to determine what the priorities are, he’s gonna exercise that opportunity, and that’s where we are,” Johnson said.
When pressed by a reporter about the memes the White House has posted online in recent days, Johnson responded, “what they’re trying to have fun with, trying to make light of, is the absurdity of the Democrats’ position.”
On Tuesday the White House posted an AI deepfake video that depicted Jeffries in a sombrero and mustache as mariachi music played while Schumer talks in a fake voice about duping people who do not speak English.