What to know on Day 27 of the government shutdown:
- Democrats and Republicans continue to trade blame over the government shutdown, the second-longest funding lapse in history at 27 days, with the Senate back in session on Monday.
- The largest union representing federal government employees said that “it’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today,” increasing pressure on Democrats to back down. Federal employees missed their first full paycheck at the end of last week. At the Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he wasn’t “100% sure” whether members of the military would get paid this week.
- Federal food aid will not go out on Nov. 1, the Department of Agriculture said, warning that “the well has run dry” for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. More than 40 million Americans rely on SNAP benefits to help buy food.
- The Senate reconvened in the afternoon but is not scheduled to vote on a House-passed measure to fund the government. The bill failed to advance for a 12th time last week.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor that President Trump is “manufacturing a SNAP crisis instead of working with the Democrats” to end the shutdown.
“The very same administration that sent $40 [b]illion to Argentina at the drop of a hat, to help Trump’s MAGA ally, is now telling hungry families in America they can’t have nutrition funding. What gall,” Schumer said, referring to loan guarantees and a currency swap the administration is arranging to bolster the South American country’s libertarian president, Javier Milei.
“The administration’s decision to let SNAP freeze is callous, cynical and entirely unnecessary. Donald Trump says there’s no money to pay hungry kids … but he’s spending $40 billion to bail out Argentina, $300 [m]illion on his vanity ballroom, $172 million on two luxury jets for Kristi Noem. Hundreds of millions for outfitting his foreign jet. But nothing, nothing, nothing to help hungry kids,” Schumer continued. “What warped priorities. What a bubble this president lives in, apart, away and not caring about the trauma the American people are facing when it comes to health care.”
The New York Democrat said the administration “is making an intentional choice not to fund SNAP this weekend.”
“The emergency funding is there. The administration is just choosing not to use it. And for those who say the money can’t be moved around so easily, that’s a load of bunk,” he said. “If the administration can cough up $40 billion for Argentina, they can find money for SNAP by this Saturday.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune railed against Democrats for their position in the shutdown fight in floor remarks as the Senate convened Monday, saying that the chamber will try again to reopen the government with a 13th vote later this week.
“Democrats once passionately opposed shutdown, or so they said, in large part because of the impact they would have on American citizens and American workers,” Thune said. “Now, government workers and every other American have become nothing more than pawns in the Democrats’ political games.”
Thune noted that federal workers missed paychecks last week, that the next paycheck for U.S. service members are “in jeopardy,” and more than 40 million Americans could lose access to food aid if the shutdown continues.
“The party that once decried the impact of shutdowns on Americans in need is now apparently content to see 40 million Americans go without food,” Thune said.
The South Dakota Republican said “Democrats’ victims are piling up,” and that Democrats “don’t look likely to spare anyone anytime soon.”
Thune said that “while some Democrats may be privately uncomfortable about all the damage a four-week shutdown is doing, so far they’re too scared of their base to do anything about it.” And he argued that if Democrats were really focused on addressing the health insurance issues, they would be “voting to reopen the government so that we could actually engage in a serious discussion about rising health care costs and how Obamacare has failed to address them.”
“But they’re not,” Thune said. “Because at the end of the day, Democrats don’t want a solution — they want a political issue.”
