President Donald Trump had his fun, with red carpet welcomes, impromptu dances, the gift of a golden crown and a yet another Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
But the trophies from his Asia tour won’t count for much when he arrives home Thursday just as the monthlong government shutdown takes its bitterest turn yet amid the worst domestic political crisis of his second term.
His return and a confluence of suddenly harsher consequences for millions of Americans mean the next few days may represent the only way out of the increasingly damaging impasse before the run-up to Thanksgiving.
“We’re pretending that everything is OK,” Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said this week, berating her colleagues in both parties for failing to act. “We’re pretending that people are not being impacted by this shutdown.”
Senate Democrats triggered the showdown, withholding support for a temporary government funding bill last month in an attempt to force Republicans to guarantee extensions for expanded subsidies for millions of Affordable Care Act health plans.
But Republican leaders are standing firm. They’re offering to discuss extending the credits, but only when Democrats agree to open the government.
A pitiful lack of trust between the parties, the unwillingness of either side to accept the political cost of a climbdown and Trump’s stunning indifference to his own shuttered government led to this stalemate.
And the ramifications of the shutdown are getting quickly worse as the political duel becomes a test of which unfortunate Americans can bear the most pain.
In one of the most critical developments, tens of millions of Americans, including children, elderly citizens and those with a disability are set to lose vital food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The blow of soaring health care premiums is also being laid bare. Millions are getting notices showing Obamacare costs shooting up by an average of 26% and in some cases much higher, in the absence of the expiring enhanced subsidies.
The pressure on government workers — those forced to work without pay and colleagues who are locked out of their jobs — is also worsening.
Flight disruptions are mounting as staff shortages emerge among air traffic controllers, who already operate under acute stress. The controllers’ mental and emotional challenges are rising since they are working without pay — but still face housing, transport and childcare costs.
A new crisis speed bump looms over paying military personnel. Trump accepted a $130 million donation from a fellow billionaire to fill the gap left by drained federal funds after reallocating Pentagon funds to meet a first wave of salary payments. But the gift won’t come close to paying wages for 1.3 million military members.
Federal employees, who are spread throughout the 50 states, are getting increasingly desperate. Their mortgages and other obligations don’t just go on hold because the government can’t pay them.
Conditions are therefore dropping into place for the spiking of pain that normally translates into political pressure that causes one party to flinch.
The food stamps expiration could be a catalyst. Democrats accuse the administration of refusing to divert available funding to meet the shortfall. But the Agriculture Department insists it can’t tap a $6 billion contingency fund to pay the benefits.
The disagreement set up a callous scenario as lawmakers squabble over what is more important — feeding the nation’s neediest people or ensuring that millions of families can continue to get health care. It’s a shameful spectacle that epitomizes a political system rendered inoperable by years of polarization and cynicism in both parties and a government that fails in its basic function to help citizens.
As misery multiplies, the question becomes which party changes its calculus first.
► Will Democrats, who have stayed remarkably united during the drama, begin to see cracks, especially among moderate lawmakers, those who have competitive reelection races, or others who are retiring and can buck their party’s activists?
► Can Republican leaders keep their lawmakers, especially the often-fractious House GOP conference, in line? Will they risk political fallout from all this misery inflicted on voters already hit by rising inflation and grocery prices, given they have a monopoly on power in Washington?
► And will Trump, who has managed to defray some of the traditional pressure points during a shutdown, finally discover a political or moral imperative to end it?
A glimmer of hope shone late on Wednesday when details emerged of a dual-track negotiation between frustrated Democratic and Republican senators. One goal would be to resolve the health-care impasse and reopen the government for a few weeks. The group also hopes to reach a separate long-term agreement to fund certain key departments — including the Department of Agriculture, which funds food stamps — through next year.
Disagreements in Congress often end with creative fudges and concurrent steps that allow both sides to argue they didn’t fold. But there is no guarantee this approach will work. Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office told CNN he remains unwilling to discuss Obamacare policy changes until the government is open.
A few weeks ago, the closure of the federal government lacked the sweeping impact that helped earlier shutdowns seize the nation’s attention. But that’s beginning to change. The normally unruffled Thune erupted on the Senate floor Wednesday at Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján, who complained about SNAP benefits potentially expiring. “This isn’t a political game,” Thune snapped. “These are real people’s lives that we’re talking about. And you all just figured out, 29 days in, that, oh, there might be some consequences.”
Democratic rhetoric is just as harsh.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tried Wednesday to exact a political price from Trump. “Every single president was not so cruel and heartless to hold those hungry children, hungry elderly, and hungry veterans as hostages,” Schumer said. “Donald Trump is picking politics over the lives of hungry kids. He is weaponizing hunger.”
The vitriol may offer an opening for the president because the shutdown — now just a week out from a new record — won’t end until he gets involved. He could turn his absence for most of the last week to his advantage by inserting himself into the bitterness between Democrats and Republicans to broker a resolution. After all, Trump is often more tempted more by the chance to make a deal and declare victory than by any rigid ideology. And he’s already signaled willingness to talk about expiring health-care subsidies. He could pose as the president who fed the hungry, paid the troops and made the skies safe again. This, however, would mean breaking with some of the harder-line elements in his own administration and offering Democrats a face-saving off-ramp.
The conundrum for Democrats is how they engineer a way out of the crisis that they can present as a victory to base voters desperate to hit back at Trump.
Early in the shutdown, the party succeeded in making Obamacare subsidies a national issue. And after nearly a year of internal mourning over the disastrous 2024 congressional and presidential elections, they found surprising unity in the shutdown. Sometimes, just picking a fight can give a party definition.
But as the pain for millions of Americans mounted, the political clarity over health care blurred. And competing claims emerged. Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees union that represents a wide swath of federal workers, who always opposed a shutdown, warned that it was time for the government to reopen. “I think that it’s vitally important to have health care for everyone … However, I don’t think that this should be built on the backs of federal employees,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Democrats are also increasingly wrestling with the possibility that blame for the shutdown could blow back against them. After all, when they held the power in government, they faulted Republicans for using federal funding as a political lever. CNN’s Kasie Hunt pointed out the inconsistency to Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona on Tuesday. “That’s an easy answer. It’s Donald Trump. You’re talking about norms in the time of Donald Trump. It’s also normal not to tear down the East Wing,” Gallego said. He added: “It’s all out the window. When you’re dealing time with Donald Trump, this is the man that is extorting people. … We’re not going to go back and play by the norms when we know what’s on the line.”
Republicans face their own risks.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to bring the House back to Washington looks like weakness. And he hasn’t been able to silence dissent in his conference, including from Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who keeps accusing her party of negligence over the health care issue. The political equation could shift for Republicans next week if Trump is rebuked in bellwether elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
And leaving kids hungry could be a disaster. That’s one reason Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill to fund SNAP benefits until the end of the shutdown. Schumer said his party would vote for it. But Republican leaders will be loath to make a move that could alleviate pressure on Democrats.
If millions of Americans going hungry doesn’t break open the deadlock, the shutdown could drag on even longer. The next potential off-ramp may come in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving with the horrible prospect of an air travel nightmare at the busiest time of the year.