The mood on Capitol Hill was somber as the government spiraled toward a shutdown on Tuesday night.
Lawmakers appeared to be bracing for the inevitable throughout the day as President Donald Trump and Democrats failed to reach a deal.
The Senate held two votes on Tuesday evening, including one for a Republican short-term spending bill to avert the shutdown, as well as another proposed by Democrats to keep the government funded while also addressing healthcare costs.
Neither bill had the necessary sixty votes to pass, with both sides digging in, showing just how dysfunctional Washington has become. The Republican bill failed to reach the 60 votes needed to pass, despite Democrats Catherine Cortez-Masto and John Fetterman and Independent Angus King voting in favor, bumping the total to 55. 45 opposed, including lone Republican Rand Paul. The Democratic proposition met the same ill fate with 47 in favor and 53 opposing.
The gridlock means the shutdown will commence starting on Wednesday morning, October 1. Millions of federal workers could see paychecks paused as government services, besides those deemed essential, are put on hold.
“We’ll probably have a shutdown,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday ahead of the votes while repeating inaccurate claims about what Democrats actually wanted.
Democrats have been calling for the spending bill to address the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits, which will lead to spikes in health insurance costs as well as a rollback of some provisions in the Trump tax law passed in July, which cut Medicaid.
Republicans in the House had already passed a short-term bill to keep the government funded through mid-November at its current levels before skipping town.
The move left the funding fight in the Senate’s hands, where the bill needed at least seven Democrats to vote in favor of it to pass.
“It’s up to Senate Democrats. That’s where we are, and if they decide to vote it down tonight, they’re going to be the ones that have to explain at midnight tonight why the government shut down,” a visibly frustrated Senate Majority Leader John Thune said before the votes.
Senate Republicans accused the Democratic Party of being hijacked by the far left and holding Congress hostage.
Thune indicated the time for negotiating was about to pass if the government shut down, but Democrats fired back that they were never included in negotiating the GOP House bill before it passed.
By Tuesday afternoon, the president had upped his threats to cut programs backed by Democrats ahead of the funding deadline.
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible and bad for them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things they like, cutting programs they like,” Trump said.
Trump’s threat to gut programs during the shutdown came after he signaled his administration was ready to carry out mass firings of federal employees earlier in the day. Last week, the White House budget office sent a memo telling agencies to prepare to do just that.
The president, speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, claimed they have to lay off workers if the government shuts down, but in past shutdowns, federal workers were furloughed, not fired.
However, Democrats, haunted by a brutal funding fight earlier this year in which some caved without extracting any demands, have refused to fold.
In an emotional plea, Senate Democrats warned that not addressing health care costs about to skyrocket would lead to a crisis and accused Republicans of lying about their proposal.
Democrats believe the American people are on their side when it comes to health care.
Apart from a few press conferences throughout Tuesday where lawmakers insisted they were not going to cave, Capitol Hill was unusually quiet.
The president finally met with Democratic congressional leaders for the first time on Monday, despite a pressing deadline and their request for a meeting that had been pending for more than a week. However, zero progress was made there.
Trump was uncharacteristically quiet about the sit-down on Monday, but he posted a racist deepfake video of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and with a handlebar mustache standing with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outside the White House.
“The next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video. When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face,” Jeffries fired back outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.
Schumer also said he called out Republicans for lying during their sit-down at the White House, and Speaker Mike Johnson “just smirked.”
He said the president’s deepfake video showed just how “unserious” the GOP was.
Neither side indicated how they planned to proceed should the funding run out. They were unwilling to set a timeline for how long the shutdown would continue.
House Democrats rallied outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, blasting House Republicans for not returning to town ahead of the shutdown.
“They’re on vacation because they’d rather shut the government down than protect the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said.
They also circulated images of the House floor where Democrats gathered Tuesday, which showed the Republican side of the chamber empty as they remained in their districts.
History has shown that the party making demands, in this case, Democrats, is not rewarded for its efforts if the government shuts down.
In late 2018, Trump’s demands for border funds led to a 34-day shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, before he eventually caved.
Both sides insist that the other party will take the blame for this shutdown, as recent polling has suggested that Republicans, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress, could take the heat when the government funding runs out at midnight.
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