Sunday shows preview: Shutdown stretches into third week; Trump turns focus to Russia-Ukraine war
Congressional Democrats and Republicans have not come to an agreement to reopen the federal government, stretching the shutdown into its third week.
As it carried on into another week, it became one of the three longest shutdowns in U.S. history on Friday. Should it continue through the end of October, more federal employees, including military service members, will miss their next full paychecks.
By Nov. 1, Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment starts. Democrats have argued for allowing health care tax credits to continue after they are due to expire at the end of the year. Their goal has been to pressure Republicans into negotiating on enhanced ObamaCare subsidies before open enrollment starts.
Without Congress’s intervention, premiums will increase, and between 3 million and nearly 5 million people will lose their insurance should the tax credits expire.
“The American people are facing one of the most devastating crises they have faced in terms of cost, and we still have not heard crickets out of any negotiation with [Speaker Mike Johnson] or with [Senate Majority Leader John Thune],” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a press event on Thursday. “The Republicans are on the defensive, they keep changing their stories and changing their arguments, but we are on the side of the American people.”
Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) will likely make their parties’ respective cases for reopening the government. Both have agreed to a debate on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire” show after the shutdown ends. In the meantime, Johnson and Jeffries will appear on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
Both could also be asked about the swearing-in of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who won a special election Sept. 23 to replace her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), after he spent more than two decades in Congress until his death in March.
Johnson has argued that she won’t be sworn in until the House is called back to Washington for a traditional swearing-in ceremony. Grijalva said she would be the 218th signature on a discharge petition forcing a vote on legislation designed to compel the Justice Department (DOJ) to release the government files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Grijalva feels “essentially [like] a tourist in D.C.,” she told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday.
Also expected to appear on the Sunday shows are President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Both leaders gathered together at the White House on Friday, after Zelensky met with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and several military and electric company leaders.
The Ukrainian leader met with executives and CEOs of Bechtel, GE Vernova, Westinghouse Electric Company, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, among others. Zelensky sought resources for Ukraine’s power grid and military equipment to use in his country’s war with Russia.
The meetings came before his push for Tomahawk missiles from the U.S., but Trump told reporters prior to the meeting that the missiles are “not easy for us to give.” Trump later said on the social media platform Truth Social that their meeting was “interesting” and “cordial,” but pushed for a ceasefire between the two countries.
“I think we have to stop where we are; the president is right,” Zelensky told reporters outside the White House after the meeting.
Trump will appear on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” while Zelensky will appear on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Trump, Johnson, Jeffries and several other Sunday show guests will also likely talk about the “No Kings Day” protests held across the country on Saturday. Johnson and other Republicans have dismissed the protest as a “hate America rally,” while Democrats have urged people to protest peacefully.
“The theory we have right now [is] they have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for Oct. 18 on the National Mall,” Johnson interview on Fox News on Oct. 10. “It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people, they’re all coming out.”
Jeffries previously said that these protests, meant to be critical of the Trump administration, are as “American as motherhood, baseball and apple pie.”
NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday”: Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R)
NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen Tim Kaine (D-Va.)
CBS News’s “Face the Nation”: Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.)
CNN’s “State of the Union”: Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), former White House Chief Strategist Paul Begala, founder of More Perfect Union Faiz Shakir
Fox News’s “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.); New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli (R); Grace and Bill Drexel, daughter and son-in-law of Zion Church founder and pastor Ezra Jin, who was recently arrested in China
Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures”: President Donald Trump
ABC’s “This Week”: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)