The federal government was hurtling toward a shutdown Tuesday with no sign of resolution, as President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats remained locked in an increasingly acrimonious standoff over spending and health care policy. With the midnight deadline fast approaching, both parties appeared increasingly resigned to the prospect of the first government closure in nearly seven years.
“We’ll probably have a shutdown,” Trump said in the Oval Office, casting blame for the looming funding lapse on Democrats who have refused to back off their demands.
The confrontation rested Tuesday evening in the Senate, where Republicans were pressing ahead with a last-ditch vote on a bill to extend current funding through Nov. 21 without major policy changes. But because the measure requires 60 votes to advance, at least eight Democrats would need to support it—an outcome that appeared increasingly unlikely after party leaders signaled they would hold the line.
Republican leaders, backed by the White House, argue that Democrats are holding the government “hostage” and that no policy negotiations can take place under those circumstances. Democrats insist that they cannot accept a short-term funding bill unless it includes an extension of pandemic-era subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, which lowered premiums for millions of Americans. Without congressional action, those subsidies will expire at the end of the year, raising costs for millions of families and stripping coverage from others.
The result is a political stalemate on the verge of shuttering vast portions of the federal government and furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers.
Read more: What Cuts to FEMA, Climate Agencies Mean During a Government Shutdown
The Senate’s Republican leader was making a last-ditch effort to avoid a shutdown Tuesday evening. The chamber was expected to vote on dueling proposals at 5:30 p.m. Senators were set to first vote on a Democratic proposal to extend government funding, and then take up the GOP’s proposal.
A shutdown could have a dramatic impact on the U.S. economy. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday estimated that a shutdown could furlough roughly 750,000 federal workers each day, depriving them of about $400 million in wages daily. Employees deemed essential, such as those in national security, law enforcement and air traffic control, would be required to report to work without pay until funding resumes. Past shutdowns have led to closed national parks, slowed passport processing, delayed small-business loans, and disruptions in food safety inspections. Even brief closures have cost the economy billions of dollars.
Trump has fueled additional uncertainty by suggesting that his administration could use the shutdown to impose permanent cuts to the federal workforce and social programs. “They’re taking a risk by having a shutdown,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “Because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people.” His remarks contradicted assurances from agency officials that mass firings were not permitted under law. Leaders at several agencies have sought to reassure their employees that layoffs would not take place.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development warned on its website on Tuesday that the “Radical Left are going to shut down the government,” spurring criticism from federal workers and others of agencies inappropriately using their platforms for political messaging, a potential violation of federal law.
For Democrats, the battle has become a defining moment to demonstrate unity after earlier funding fights in which they were accused of caving to Republican demands.
For Trump, who has sought to project toughness and disdain for compromise, the confrontation offers an opportunity to energize his base and potentially further hollow out the federal workforce.
The President and his allies have also repeatedly asserted in recent days that Democrats are threatening to shut down the government to secure public money for undocumented migrants, despite the claim being widely debunked. “They want to give health care to illegal immigrants, which will destroy health care for everybody else in our country,” Trump said on Tuesday. Undocumented immigrants are not legally eligible for the health subsidies Democrats are pushing for in the negotiations.
On Monday night, Trump escalated tensions by posting a doctored video on his social media platform that mocked House Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The manipulated clip superimposed a sombrero and mariachi music over Jeffries, while a distorted voice falsely attributed vulgar and disparaging remarks to Schumer. Democrats denounced the video as racist and juvenile. Jeffries responded by posting a photograph of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The spectacle underscored how far the fight had veered from policy substance into a broader clash of political cultures and personalities. “We have less than a day,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, “and Donald Trump is tweeting deepfakes.”
‘Release the hostage’
The legislative path forward is narrow. The stopgap spending bill Senate Republicans are trying to push through before midnight passed the House earlier this month largely along party lines. It was billed as a “clean” continuing resolution, or CR, because it maintained current spending levels without new provisions, though it added millions in security funds. Last week, the measure failed on its first test in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to advance.
A Democratic counterproposal would extend government funding and permanently extend Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, reverse hundreds of billions in Medicaid cuts enacted in the GOP’s Big, Beautiful Bill, restore foreign aid and public broadcasting money clawed back by the Trump Administration, and provide $326 million for heightened security of public officials—nearly four times what Republicans have proposed.
Republicans are grappling with a slim majority in the Senate and at least one of their own— Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky—has already announced his opposition. That means Republicans will need at least eight Democrats to join them. As of Tuesday evening, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to publicly express support for the Republican bill.
Health care remains the central sticking point. The Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats are pressing to extend were first enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The assistance, which significantly lowered premiums for people purchasing insurance through federal or state marketplaces, is set to expire at the end of this year. According to Democratic leaders, allowing the subsidies to lapse would cause about four million people to lose coverage immediately and increase premiums for another 20 million. The CBO has warned that, combined with cuts included in the Republicans’ summer tax law, the expiration could eventually lead to 10 million more Americans uninsured by 2034.
In addition to extending subsidies, Democrats want to reverse Medicaid reductions embedded in the Republican tax-and-spending law known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which they say would strain state budgets and harm low-income families. Schumer has argued that the White House was insufficiently aware of the scope of these consequences when Democrats raised them in a Monday meeting with Trump, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “There is a real division between the president and Republican leaders on this,” Schumer said afterward.
Republicans have maintained that they are open to discussing health care policy in separate negotiations. Thune has acknowledged that extending subsidies could be a politically prudent move, especially for Republicans facing re-election next year, but he has bristled at the notion of including the provisions in a stopgap bill. “Release the hostage, and we will have that conversation,” he said.
While many Republicans view the ACA subsidies as a temporary pandemic-era measure that should now lapse, a handful of GOP moderates in Congress have broken ranks. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a swing vote for Republicans, has floated a two-year extension of the subsidies, while a dozen House Republicans from competitive districts have signed onto a measure to extend the subsidies by one year. Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, by contrast, have pledged to vote against any funding package that includes an extension of ACA tax credits.
“Republican leadership must not cut a ‘deal’ at the 11th hour to extend the very Covid-era inflationary subsidies crushing working families with unaffordable ‘insurance,’” Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, wrote on X.
But Democrats view health care as a defining issue ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. By linking the shutdown fight to health care, they are seeking to frame Republicans as indifferent to rising costs for ordinary families.
Democrats are also facing pressure from their progressive wing to hold firm after what many saw as a surrender earlier this year, when centrist Democrats joined Republicans to pass a funding extension without concessions. “We need to put up a real fight here, not a fake fight,” Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, told TIME last week. “Democrats can’t settle for crumbs here.”
Public opinion has historically played a decisive role in shutdown fights, with voters often blaming the party seen as most intransigent. A Morning Consult poll released on Monday found that 45% of voters are more likely to blame Republicans if there’s a shutdown, compared to 32% blaming Democrats.
If no agreement is reached by midnight, the government will begin the arduous process of winding down operations, sending furlough notices, and notifying contractors. The economic and political consequences could linger long after agencies reopen. The last government shutdown, which took place during Trump’s first term in 2018, lasted 34 days and cost the U.S. economy roughly $3 billion, according to the CBO.
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