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There are moments in Washington when everyone knows how the story ends. This will happen, that will happen, a so-called twist gets thrown in just as predicted, and the reel ends as intended.
This is not one of those moments.
Careening toward a government shutdown at midnight tonight, the players involved all seem to be occupying different realities. The White House is puffing up its chest like an inevitable victor when the clock reaches Zero Hour. The Republicans in Congress think Democrats are destined to blink given the costs to constituents. The Democrats? They’re digging in, knowing their GOP brethren cannot get even a stopgap resolution across the finish line without their complicity.
Put simply: the parties are speaking different languages and no one brought interpreters. The past is not predictive on this one.
The crossed wires played out in real time on Monday as lawmakers arrived at a White House to act out their assigned parts: a closed-door meeting, a standoff for the cameras, dueling readouts in the driveway. Still, zero progress and the players are already positioning themselves for what comes after the government turns out the lights.
The meeting was the first of Trump’s second term with the bipartisan leaders from the Hill—showing you how much he has cared about what Democrats think in the 36 weeks since his Inauguration. (It was also the first time he has ever met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.)
While past shutdowns would suggest Democrats are about to find themselves taking the blame, there are reasons to think this one may not follow the usual rules. Here’s how both sides see a path to winning the moment:
How Democrats Could ‘Win’ the Shutdown
For the moment, more of the American public shares Democrats’ view that Republicans, who control the House, the Senate, and the White House (and arguably the Supreme Court), will be left holding the bag. Polling released Monday from Morning Consult shows 45% of voters saying they would blame Republicans for a government shutdown; 33% say they’d blame Democrats. Independent voters—a leading indicator for elections—were just as frustrated with the GOP, with 41% of non-aligned voters ready to blame Republicans and just 24% of them blaming Democrats.
As a practical matter, Republicans do run Washington, but what they cannot accomplish by Senate rules is limited without some Democratic support. The Republicans used a procedural trick to get Trump’s massive tax-cuts-and-spending bill through but that loophole won’t help them this time around. Republicans have 53 of the 100 seats in the Upper Chamber but will need to get 60 yes votes to break a filibuster, and unlike the last shutdown standoff earlier this year, Senate Democrats are not ready to step in to help keep the government open. And there’s a good reason for this: about 4 million people are projected to lose health insurance if Congress does not intervene, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Millions of other Americans could see prices for health plans spike and could flee the coverage network established by Obamacare. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress expanded who qualified for subsidies. The thinking at the time was that the country was in the midst of a global crisis, so it probably made sense to have as many people covered as possible. But those subsidies are set to sunset this year. Republicans do not see the wisdom of keeping those benefits flowing for middle-income Americans who make too much to qualify for them under the original Obamacare parameters—but not enough to afford coverage without them, given surging costs. The subsidies translated to an extra $700 for most Americans’ premiums, meaning low-income folks could get covered for free and middle-income families qualified for subsidies for the first time.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that he “laid out to the President some of the consequences of what’s happening in health care and, by his face, he looked like he heard about them for the first time.” The leader of the Senate Democrats was suggesting Trump didn’t grasp the policy fight he was a major player in. “It seemed from his body language and some of the things he said that he was not aware of the ramifications,” Schumer said.
Democrats have reason to think this breaks their way. In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas led a shutdown over Obamacare, demanding Democrats and President Barack Obama undo that legislative legacy. What followed was a 16-day debacle that left Republicans deeply unpopular—and helped propel a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion in Virginia, a state where feds and military members are aplenty. (Voters in Virginia are again juggling a looming shutdown and a gubernatorial election, with early voting underway ahead of Election Day on Nov. 4.)
That helps explain why 12 House Republicans have signed onto a bill from Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia that would extend the subsidies for another year. In that, Democrats say those swing-district Republicans are catching on faster than the others in their caucus. In Democrats’ estimation, Republicans will eventually see their folly.
How Republicans—Including Trump—Could ‘Win’ the Shutdown
House Speaker Mike Johnson told his members to hold the line during a Monday call. His thesis is that if the GOP sticks together, Senate Democrats would have to climb down and accept House Republicans’ spending bill to get through the next seven weeks.
If Republicans are fretting about the consequences of a shutdown, they are not showing it. In fact, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune plan to hold a joint press conference on Wednesday—hours after the government would potentially shut down—to try to take the spotlight. Johnson is also weighing whether to keep his members out of Washington, further putting the onus on the Senate to accept his spending outlines without getting into the grit of health care coverage.
“Republicans in the House, the Senate, the White House are united,” Thune said outside the West Wing. “This is a hijacking,” he added, blaming Democrats.
Strategists close to Thune’s office argue that this fight over Obamacare is different than the Cruz crash of 2013 in an important way: this is a fight where Democrats can be cast as trying to expand a government program, not just protecting what has been. In the Republican reality, this is Democrats trying to tack on $1.5 trillion in new spending on—in their telling—$500 million to prop up liberal news outlets, free health care for those here illegally, and billions on DEI programs and climate change boondogles around the world. (In reality, extending the subsidies is expected to cost $350 billion over 10 years.) Republicans expect that their Big-Government-Liberal playbook will yield a sympathetic audience.
Republicans are already bracing for some pushback from some of the cuts included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill package—but most of that pain is delayed until after next year’s midterm elections. But the Obamacare subsidies? Those vanish at the end of this calendar year, meaning they’re the first sting. But Republicans are also hesitant to give into Democrats’ demands at this moment.
On top of this, Republicans in the mix say Democrats’ intransigence could open the door for a much larger aim: dramatically shrinking the government payroll. Trump and his management team have threatened to unilaterally implement a massive reduction in force—a.k.a. layoffs—if Democrats don’t help avoid a shutdown. Even as late as Sunday, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget was telling agencies that any such cuts may not be permanent. In other words, Trump could fire workers in a shutdown, and Congress could un-fire them as it reopens government. The implication is that all those jobs would also be on the bargaining table in a shutdown.
If the Democrats are cowed by that threat, their leaders are not showing it. “Democrats are fighting to protect the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said.
Two very different reads on a volatile situation. One very real deadline that is just hours away.
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The post The Fight to ‘Win’ the Shutdown: Why Both Sides Expect Public Will Be With Them appeared first on TIME.
