Thune, Schumer trade blows over looming shutdown
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) traded shots at each other Tuesday over who would be to blame for a government shutdown, something that both leaders indicated is becoming more likely with each passing day.
“I’m sure you’re all asking the question, are we or are we not going to have a Schumer shutdown? It sounds like from what he is indicating, that very may well happen,” Thune told reporters after the weekly Republican policy lunch.
Thune said Republican leaders are going to stick to their plan of passing a seven-week clean stopgap funding measure through the House and then putting it on the Senate floor, daring Democrats to vote “no.”
“We’re going to give them every opportunity to vote for a clean CR, something that in the past Sen. Schumer and the Democrats have said they support,” he said.
Thune noted 96 percent of Senate Democrats voted for 13 short-term continuing resolutions during former President Biden’s presidency, when Schumer was the Senate majority leader.
“I’m hoping that notwithstanding what Sen. Schumer is saying that there are Democrats out there who think it’s a really bad idea, like they did last year, to shut down the government,” he said. “Hopefully they will deliver the votes that are necessary for us to keep the government open.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday unveiled a 91-page bill to fund the federal government through Nov. 21, which Thune said would give lawmakers more time to negotiate final deals on the annual spending bills.
He said the stopgap funding measure if passed would also give negotiators more time to craft legislation to extend enhanced health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, which are due to expire at the end of the year.
Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), meanwhile, released a statement Tuesday afternoon declaring their opposition to the House Republican continuing resolution and pointing the finger back at the GOP.
“Right now, we’re exactly 14 days away from a government funding deadline. Democrats do not want a government shutdown. We’ve asked Republican leadership multiple times to meet with us to start negotiating,” Schumer said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference, accusing the Speaker of “politicizing” the process by “refusing our multiple requests to sit down and talk and doing his own CR without a single conversation with Democrats.”
He highlighted Trump’s comments during an interview with Fox News urging fellow Republicans not to “bother dealing” with Democrats.
“When he says out loud he doesn’t need or want our votes, that means Donald Trump wants a shutdown. Full stop. Trump also said on ‘Fox & Friends’ all he needs are Republican votes. He’s wrong,” Schumer said.
Schumer said he’s been asking for six weeks for Thune and Johnson to sit down at the negotiating table with Democrats to discuss the cuts to domestic non-defense spending in the March continuing resolution and the deep cuts to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“By refusing to sit down with Democrats, Republicans are telling the American people they’re happy to help Donald Trump to burn this country down and they’re happy to let the government shutdown,” he said.