By Nia-Malika Henderson / Bloomberg Opinion
It’s been a week since the government shut down, and at some point, one side will have to cave and compromise. Republicans are betting that they can get five more Senate Democrats to back the House bill, while Democrats are betting that President Donald Trump will live up to his TACO nickname and start to negotiate around health care and bring other Republicans along. Trump seemed to telegraph as much on Monday, then backpedaled. The official GOP line is that there will be no negotiation until the government is open again.
But the incident revealed a Trump-led GOP that at times seems to be negotiating with itself. Either this is a great opportunity to lay off government employees, or its a dire situation caused by reckless Democrats. The script seems to change from day to day, with threats of mass firings, cuts to federal funding for blue states and the prospect of furloughed workers not getting back pay.
“The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you are talking about,” Trump said when asked Tuesday if federal workers would get back pay. “But for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
This selectively punitive approach didn’t land well among Republicans, who are trying to pass themselves off as the guardians of good government.
“I think that if you’re talking about my staff and other staff, that’s probably not a good message to send right now to people who are not being paid,” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said to reporters. “I’m not an attorney, but I think it’s bad strategy to even say that sort of stuff.”
Most federal workers will start to miss their first full paychecks on Oct. 10, with active duty military missing their full pay on Oct. 15. (A group of House Democrats is set to send a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson urging him to bring back the House so they can pass a bill to get troops their paychecks, according to Punchbowl News.) More broadly, the Federal Aviation Administration is dealing with staffing shortages, the very scenario that pushed Trump to end the 35-day government shutdown in 2019. Even with these looming deadlines, Democrats are holding firm, insisting on negotiations around Affordable Care Act premiums, which are set to rise when subsidies expire at the end of the year.
While Congressional Republicans have talked about the shutdown as a threat to necessary government programs, Trump has talked about it as an opportunity to punish Democrats.
But even that hasn’t gone as expected.
In canceling $8 billion in energy projects in blue states, Trump also hit projects in 28 Republican House districts, including half a dozen in the most competitive districts, according to the New York Times. Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, suggested that mass firings would happen at the end of last week. But that didn’t happen. So, Trump reiterated that threat Monday in advance of a fifth vote on the House bill to open the government. Democrats didn’t flinch, voting down the bill again.
The Trump administration has consistently labeled the shutdown as the fault of Democrats, even using that language on federal agency websites and out of office messages. But according to a CBS News/YouGov poll, Trump and Republicans get a larger share of the blame for the shutdown than Democrats, 39 percent to 30 percent. Roughly a third of the public blames both sides equally.
In staking their position around health care, Democrats have hit on an issue that is broadly popular and could help with branding.
According to data from KFF, a health policy nonprofit, 57 percent of MAGA supporters say that Congress should extend the ACA subsidies. KFF also found that more than half of the 24 million people who are enrolled in the Affordable Care Act marketplace live in districts represented by a Republican, a point echoed by a MAGA stalwart.
“I’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X. “Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!”
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, speaking from the Senate floor, agreed with Taylor Greene.
“I think this is the first time I’ve said this, but on this issue, Representative Greene said it perfectly.”
The conventional wisdom suggests that the side that brings policy demands to a shutdown fight always loses. But this particular shutdown is unfolding as millions of Americans are starting to get notices of price hikes for their health insurance, adding an unpredictable new dynamic. How and when the shutdown ends is anybody’s guess. What is certain is that Democrats have smartly positioned themselves as fighting for an issue that average Americans care about and are experiencing in real time. And that in and of itself is a win for a party that hasn’t had many.
Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.
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