At midnight on Wednesday, the federal government shut down. Democrats made good on their promise to vote against a continuing resolution if Republicans didn’t extend expiring Obamacare tax credits, and funding expired. Now, both sides are digging in to play the blame game.
Democrats argue that Republicans are to blame for refusing to budge on health care, while Republicans blame Democrats for refusing to provide the votes to keep the government open. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is making an unprecedented threat to not just furlough federal workers — normal for a shutdown — but lay them off outright and go after programs Democrats support.
To try and make sense of how we got here and what’s happening now, Today Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the party’s leading voices on the shut down fight.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
The government is shut down. The Democrats shut it down. I wonder who you think people will blame, you guys or the Republicans?
Let’s back up just a tiny little bit. What happened in July was that the Republicans said, “Yeah, yeah, we know the budget’s out there, but we want to make this change to the budget. We want to roll back healthcare coverage for 15 million Americans, because we want to use that money for tax breaks for a handful of billionaires and billionaire corporations.”
And Democrats said, “You can’t do that, we already had a budget, we already allocated that money.” And Republicans said, “Oh, yes we can.” And they voted it through. Only Republicans voted for it. And the Democrats just stood by, because it was a special device that only took 50 votes.
Now, they come back and they say, “Okay, now we’re ready for the budget” — the part that takes 60 votes, the part where government has to be funded for the whole year. And we are saying, “Hey, we want to talk about that health care part. We wanna make it part of the negotiations that if you want to pass a budget right now, you gotta roll back those cuts on health care.”
This is about seniors who are gonna get pushed out of nursing homes. This is about brand-new babies and their mamas who are going to lose their health care. This is about your neighbor who needs a home health aide or a wheelchair so that she can live independently. It’s about losing that.
I want to ask you about the optics of the shut down here, because you’re clearly setting up how you guys are framing this fight. And then, you’ve got the Republicans who are framing it very differently. They’re saying that you guys want to give health care to illegal immigrants, in their words.
Can we just stop right there? This is just a lie. They can also stand up and say, “The sky is green.” They can say it. It is not true. The law is clear. There is no one who is an undocumented immigrant who is entitled to any help from Medicaid, from the Affordable Care Act. Zero. None.
I wonder if you think it’s an issue that these cuts to Medicare that you’ve referenced a couple of times now haven’t gone into effect yet. Americans aren’t feeling that particular pinch, but Democrats in Congress are framing this fight because of those cuts.
It’s a fair point about what’s happening. We don’t want to wait on this but do understand the effects are beginning to be felt. For example, a couple of rural hospitals in Virginia just closed last week, and they said it’s because our books just don’t add up. We cannot afford to take on uncompensated care from people who’ve lost their health care coverage. And starting today, we’re in the period when people will start getting notices about their health insurance coverage and how much it’s going to cost next year.
Have you been to the website for the Department of Housing this morning?
No, I haven’t seen it yet.
There’s a red banner on it right now that says, “The radical left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.” And then, if you’re on the website for about five seconds, a pop-up pops up and says the exact same thing. I don’t think we’ve seen something quite like this before during a government shut down. Do you feel like we’re going to see some new territory here in this particular fight?
First of all, we know that is wrong, using federal resources in order to play politics here. But Donald Trump and the Republicans will do anything to change the subject. This is going to hurt people. It’s already hurting people. And I think there just comes a time, you gotta be willing to stand up and push back against that.
President Trump is saying that this government shut down could lead to thousands of federal workers losing their jobs, perhaps permanently in this case. Are you worried that he may be more willing this time around than he was during previous shut downs to take this out on federal workers?
You have exactly the right phrase here: He will punish people who do important work in the government. This is just plain old hostage-taking.
He’s saying, “We think that Democrats care about the federal workers, care about the people who are doing your food inspection, care about the people who keep planes flying in the air, care about those people. And the threat is, we will fire them.” Why? Out of spite.
I just gotta stop and say on this one, what kind of person does that? What kind of person says that he is president of the United States, and his plan to run government is to take people who are doing the work and punish them for his own political reasons? That’s not someone who’s looking out for America.
If he does such a thing, are the Democrats going to hold the line? Because if you guys have a few people who ditch the front, you essentially lose the fight in the shut down. Do you know if the front is united on this one for the long haul?
I can only speak for myself, but I gotta tell you, people understand that Donald Trump has broken the law over and over. He has already fired tens of thousands of federal workers, and he’s using federal workers as hostages and claiming he will fire even more.
What’s he going to do? Is he permanently going to shut down the national parks? Is he permanently going to shut down the air traffic control system? Is he permanently going to shut down food inspections across this country? Is he that vindictive? If he is, then he doesn’t need an excuse. He will do what he wants to do, because it fits his narrative. The real question is, when are Republicans in Congress going to grow a spine and put a stop to it?
We spoke to your colleague, Sen. Van Hollen from Maryland, and one of the things we discussed on that show was whether Democrats would run the risk of tempting congressional Republicans to get rid of the filibuster by shutting the government down. Are you at all worried that, if this drags on for weeks or even months, you guys could lose this tool?
The Republicans will get rid of the filibuster the minute they think it’s to their advantage. And that’s been true all along. There’s not any, “Well, if you do this, they’ll do that.” They make the decision that they will do what works best for the Republicans. And where they have been ever since Donald Trump got elected is that they believe what works best for the Republicans is whatever it is Donald Trump wants. And the Republicans in the United States Senate, spineless Republicans, have nothing to say about it.
Democrats are historically unpopular right now. How do you think a government shutdown may factor into Democrats’ fortunes in the midterms?
The way I see this is we should do what we believe is right. And what I believe is right is we make the fight to lower costs on behalf of the American people. We don’t take away health care from millions of people. We don’t take an already broken, creaky health care system and smash it to the ground. We do what we can to make this government work for people.
That is true now. It is true in 2026. It is true in 2027. It is true in 2028. And we tell the American people, that’s what we’re doing. That’s all I know to do in a democracy. I think it is the right thing to do, and it’s what I’m going to keep on doing.
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