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Tag: Obamacare subsidies

  • Congress leaves town until 2026, letting enhanced Obamacare tax credits expire in two weeks

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    Congressional Republicans have sent lawmakers home for the holidays without voting to address the Obamacare subsidies cliff that will hit millions of Americans on New Year’s Day — infuriating some of their own rank and file.“Here we are without a deal enacted, with the subsidies about to expire. I think it’s totally unacceptable. It’s a failure of leadership, honestly, on both sides,” GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California said of the enhanced premium subsidies, moments after the House’s final votes Thursday afternoon.Kiley is among dozens of GOP centrists in the House and Senate who have begged for weeks for their leaders to allow a bipartisan compromise to avert massive financial hardship for people across the country. Starting January 1, as many as 22 million people will see skyrocketing monthly premiums and some will be forced to forgo coverage altogether.These members have insisted that a GOP-Congress can’t simply let the COVID-era subsidies expire without helping to blunt the impact in some way. But plenty more Republicans argue that it is a Democratic health care program that has failed – and should not be bailed out with more taxpayer dollars.Internally, Republicans have been consumed by that battle for weeks, ending in no solution ahead of the deadline.Some House centrists have been particularly vocal — even agreeing to buck Johnson by signing onto a Democratic effort to force a vote on extending the subsidies.That dramatic move to defy GOP leadership has now set up a showdown when Congress returns from the holidays. By then, the issue may be even more contentious as millions of Americans feel the pain of higher premiums.That vote is expected to take place the first week of January. Across the Capitol, a group of Senate centrists have been quietly strategizing about how to use that House-passed bill to pass their own compromise measure early next year.Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a fierce critic of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire in two weeks, did not rule out that option, saying that “there could be a path forward” in the new year to extend them if Democrats are “willing to accept reforms” to that program and embrace other GOP health care policies they have been demanding for years.Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican who has called for the subsidies to be extended, said that House bill “could be an opportunity to work on something.”“It won’t pass the Senate as it is, but it could be a vehicle that you get on to do something,” Hawley said.Pressed again about his decision on Thursday, Johnson defended the move even as he faces enormous pressure from within the ranks of his conference.Asked by CNN if he was concerned about the potential of swing-district Republicans losing their seats in the midterms, Johnson said “absolutely not.”Johnson also defended his decision not to delay recess and vote on the extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies rather than dealing with the issue when they return in January.“The only way to do that is to go through the rules process and fast forward it. Everybody knows those rules. Everybody knew it all along, and they made the decisions that they made,” he said, rolling his eyes when asked about canceling recess.The House departed Washington a day earlier than expected, after Republicans successfully passed a narrow health care proposal — which involves reducing costs over coming years but does not address the subsidies cliff — as well as a major energy permitting bill.“They’re playing a political game,” Johnson added, speaking of the Democrats. “We’re solving problems, and you’ll see that demonstrated in the first part of next year, as well as continuing our affordability agenda. It is the Republican party that has solutions.”House Republicans hope their health care bill will help neutralize Democratic attacks over the expiring subsidies. That legislation allows small businesses — as well as self-employed people — to band together across industries to buy coverage through association health plans in an effort to lower premiums. It would also, once again, provide federal funding for the cost-sharing subsidies that lower-income Obamacare enrollees receive to reduce their deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for care.While considered a win for leadership, some Republicans complain it falls woefully short of tackling rising prices in 2026.The frustration among those GOP centrists has helped fuel a behind-the-scenes bipartisan effort to come up with a compromise bill that can pass both chambers. With enough momentum, they believe they can force Johnson to the table on a solution — even if it comes in January after the subsidies have officially expired.“To get this done, we need to keep up the pressure,” one Democratic lawmaker involved in the talks said.GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania, one of the members to defy Johnson and back Democrats’ bill, said it is part of a strategy to keep the conversation going in the House.“Speaker Johnson has committed to working with us, as everybody has seen. He said that publicly, that we will continue to work on health care in the new year,” he said. “I think that this effort, today and yesterday has actually generated more conversation keeping this alive for the new year.”

    WASHINGTON —

    Congressional Republicans have sent lawmakers home for the holidays without voting to address the Obamacare subsidies cliff that will hit millions of Americans on New Year’s Day — infuriating some of their own rank and file.

    “Here we are without a deal enacted, with the subsidies about to expire. I think it’s totally unacceptable. It’s a failure of leadership, honestly, on both sides,” GOP Rep. Kevin Kiley of California said of the enhanced premium subsidies, moments after the House’s final votes Thursday afternoon.

    Kiley is among dozens of GOP centrists in the House and Senate who have begged for weeks for their leaders to allow a bipartisan compromise to avert massive financial hardship for people across the country. Starting January 1, as many as 22 million people will see skyrocketing monthly premiums and some will be forced to forgo coverage altogether.

    These members have insisted that a GOP-Congress can’t simply let the COVID-era subsidies expire without helping to blunt the impact in some way. But plenty more Republicans argue that it is a Democratic health care program that has failed – and should not be bailed out with more taxpayer dollars.

    Internally, Republicans have been consumed by that battle for weeks, ending in no solution ahead of the deadline.

    Some House centrists have been particularly vocal — even agreeing to buck Johnson by signing onto a Democratic effort to force a vote on extending the subsidies.

    That dramatic move to defy GOP leadership has now set up a showdown when Congress returns from the holidays. By then, the issue may be even more contentious as millions of Americans feel the pain of higher premiums.

    That vote is expected to take place the first week of January. Across the Capitol, a group of Senate centrists have been quietly strategizing about how to use that House-passed bill to pass their own compromise measure early next year.

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a fierce critic of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire in two weeks, did not rule out that option, saying that “there could be a path forward” in the new year to extend them if Democrats are “willing to accept reforms” to that program and embrace other GOP health care policies they have been demanding for years.

    Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican who has called for the subsidies to be extended, said that House bill “could be an opportunity to work on something.”

    “It won’t pass the Senate as it is, but it could be a vehicle that you get on to do something,” Hawley said.

    Pressed again about his decision on Thursday, Johnson defended the move even as he faces enormous pressure from within the ranks of his conference.

    Asked by CNN if he was concerned about the potential of swing-district Republicans losing their seats in the midterms, Johnson said “absolutely not.”

    Johnson also defended his decision not to delay recess and vote on the extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies rather than dealing with the issue when they return in January.

    “The only way to do that is to go through the rules process and fast forward it. Everybody knows those rules. Everybody knew it all along, and they made the decisions that they made,” he said, rolling his eyes when asked about canceling recess.

    The House departed Washington a day earlier than expected, after Republicans successfully passed a narrow health care proposal — which involves reducing costs over coming years but does not address the subsidies cliff — as well as a major energy permitting bill.

    “They’re playing a political game,” Johnson added, speaking of the Democrats. “We’re solving problems, and you’ll see that demonstrated in the first part of next year, as well as continuing our affordability agenda. It is the Republican party that has solutions.”

    House Republicans hope their health care bill will help neutralize Democratic attacks over the expiring subsidies. That legislation allows small businesses — as well as self-employed people — to band together across industries to buy coverage through association health plans in an effort to lower premiums. It would also, once again, provide federal funding for the cost-sharing subsidies that lower-income Obamacare enrollees receive to reduce their deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for care.

    While considered a win for leadership, some Republicans complain it falls woefully short of tackling rising prices in 2026.

    The frustration among those GOP centrists has helped fuel a behind-the-scenes bipartisan effort to come up with a compromise bill that can pass both chambers. With enough momentum, they believe they can force Johnson to the table on a solution — even if it comes in January after the subsidies have officially expired.

    “To get this done, we need to keep up the pressure,” one Democratic lawmaker involved in the talks said.

    GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania, one of the members to defy Johnson and back Democrats’ bill, said it is part of a strategy to keep the conversation going in the House.

    “Speaker Johnson has committed to working with us, as everybody has seen. He said that publicly, that we will continue to work on health care in the new year,” he said. “I think that this effort, today and yesterday has actually generated more conversation keeping this alive for the new year.”

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  • Trump’s Healthcare Plan Is Just a Mirage

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    Is Mike Johnson really telling Trump what to do on health care policy? Probably not.
    Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    There was an enormous hullabaloo in Washington over the weekend when reports surfaced that Donald Trump was about to unveil a health-care deal without much in the way of advance consultation with his congressional Republican vassals. According to multiple accounts, the plan would include a two-year extension of the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies due to expire at the end of the year with new (and fairly minor) eligibility limits and a “skin in the game” requirement of minimum premium payments. There would have also been some sort of Health Savings Account option in a gesture to conservatives who want to get rid of health insurance and encourage people to pay health-care providers directly. But by and large, the proposal as presented was very much along the lines of what was being discussed behind the scenes by both Republican and Democratic senators and was politically feasible, recognizing that some lawmakers in both parties won’t support any deal at all.

    But Monday came and went without the expected presidential announcement, and next thing you knew Trump was headed to Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving. It’s possible that the rollout of what would have inevitably been labeled “Trumpcare” was simply delayed until next week. But all along, the prospects of a presidentially brokered health-care deal depended on speed, stealth, and a my-way-or-the-highway declaration from Trump that his plan had to be backed by virtually every congressional Republican, much like his One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It sure looked like that sort of Trump blitz was in the works, until it wasn’t.

    According to The Wall Street Journal, the mouse that roared in putting a hold on Trumpcare 2025 was none other than House Speaker Mike Johnson:

    Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) cautioned the White House that most House Republicans don’t have an appetite for extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, according to people familiar with the matter, showing how hard it will be politically to stave off sharp increases in healthcare costs next year for many Americans.

    The message from Johnson, in a phone call with administration officials, came as President Trump’s advisers were drafting a healthcare plan that extended the subsidies for two years.

    The warning underscores the hurdles facing any deal in coming weeks.

    The narrative all but writes itself: House Republicans, emboldened by their successful defiance of Trump over the Epstein Files Transparency Act, are refusing to take orders from Trump to bless the signature health-care initiative of the much-despised 44th president. And instead of going into a hate-rage and ordering purges, the newly chastened 47th president is going back to the drawing board.

    That’s one interpretation of what’s happening. Another is that this version of “Trumpcare” is largely a feint — or to be less charitable, a scam. The only reason Republicans have even considered an Obamacare-subsidy extension deal is that the huge premium spike on tap if nothing is done could become a big issue in midterm elections already prospectively dominated by affordability concerns. They could have nestled an extension into the OBBBA but didn’t, which is a pretty clear indication of their underlying wishes. But for purposes of midterm “messaging,” lofting trial balloons and agitating the air over health-care costs is nearly as valuable as actually doing something about the problem. It’s possible that’s what Trump is doing before he manages to blame the failure to act on the Radical Left Democrats.

    Even if Trump is serious about the issue and has a come-to-Jesus meeting with the allegedly rebellious Mike Johnson to force support for a Trumpcare proposal, there’s a very convenient poison pill he could put into the mix to sabotage any actual deal that might divide his own party. Despite safeguards placed in the original Affordable Care Act to ensure no direct federal payments for abortion services, the anti-abortion lobby has long demanded more extensive prohibitions to make sure states don’t pony up the money to provide abortion coverage in Obamacare policies. The debate over the extension of subsidies provides a fresh opportunity for these people — who have felt marginalized ever since Donald Trump rejected their call for a national abortion ban — to prove they are still an indispensable element of the GOP/MAGA coalition. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has promised Democrats a vote on Obamacare-subsidy extensions by mid-December, is also on record demanding tighter restrictions on abortion coverage. Rejecting such restrictions is a red line for many Democrats, who will already be under pressure to make minimal concessions to the GOP on an issue that could otherwise represent midterm dynamite for the opposition party.

    So perhaps Congress and the White House are significantly farther away from a health-care deal than it appeared just yesterday. But let’s not credit Mike Johnson for too much courage or clout. If Trump really wants a health-care deal based on Obamacare-subsidy extensions with the conservative bells and whistles, he can get it with the appropriate ham-handed ultimatums combined with take-it-or-leave-it blandishments to Democrats. He really ought to do so, because health-care costs aren’t going away as an issue and Trump has no better plan for coping with them than he did when he took office in 2017 and “Trumpcare” became a joke.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • GOP Can’t Stop Touching Hot Stove of Obamacare Repeal

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    We’ve seen this movie before.
    Photo: Sid Hastings/Alamy Stock Photo

    The big miscalculation Democrats made in handling the recent government shutdown was their belief that Donald Trump could be induced to force an extension of soon-to-expire Obamacare premium subsidies on congressional Republicans as part of a deal to reopen the government. He never even agreed to negotiate on the subject. So instead, the booby prize Democrats won was a guaranteed Senate vote on the Obamacare subsidies by the second week in December (huge premium spikes already announced by most insurers will go into effect on January 1 if no action is taken). The House promised nothing, and the Senate pledge is vague enough as to be potentially meaningless if a workable deal isn’t crafted in advance.

    There is a possible deal that would combine a minimal (probably one-year) extension on the subsidies with so-called Republican reforms (e.g., cutting off benefits at some fixed income point, measures preventing fake beneficiaries, and perhaps some GOP policy baubles like enhanced health savings accounts). But as health-care-policy maven Jonathan Cohn observes, it’s unclear how much of an appetite there is for compromise:

    Compromise requires meeting somewhere in the middle and already some members of the GOP are doing the opposite — taking this new round of debate as a cue to dust off ideas that would roll back or repeal big pieces of Obamacare. And these efforts seem to have attracted the interest of Trump, who has been posting messages like “Obamacare Sucks” on social media.

    Any bill will need 60 votes, just like the measure to reopen the government. And it would have a prayer in the House only if it’s truly bipartisan and if Trump comes down hard on conservatives who would vote against the Second Coming of Christ if it were in any way connected with the 44th president and his legacy health-care program.

    Unfortunately for the roughly 42 million people who depend on Obamacare policies for their health insurance, the White House seems less interested in a compromise on subsidies than in replacing them and perhaps undermining the entire structure set up by the Affordable Care Act, as Politico reports:

    Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said Monday that he’d spent “a good part of the weekend with the White House” working on a plan to replace ACA subsidies with a new policy.

    “We have lots of great ideas,” Oz said on Fox News on Monday. “But I don’t want to show our cards. As the president often says, why would I telegraph to you what we are going to do? …”

    “We want a health care system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies and I tell you, we’re going to be working on that very hard over the next short period of time — where the people get the money,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday.

    As Cohn notes, this sort of talk is the kind of thing we heard from Trump and his party when they were unsuccessfully trying to kill Obamacare during the president’s first term:

    Conservatives have long argued the best way to reform health care is by giving people more control over their health care dollars, which typically means scaling back insurance so that it covers only catastrophic expenses, and then having people pay for everything else out of their own pockets using money they’ve put into private accounts that get some kind of government assistance.

    Past versions of these proposals have, upon inspection, looked more like vehicles to give wealthy people a tax break. They have diverted money into broker and management fees. And as a practical matter, they have threatened to do what many other conservative proposals would — namely, to break up insurance pools so that people who are in good health spend less, while those who need medical care spend more.

    In other words, Republicans would prefer to return to the days of widespread age and health-condition discrimination by insurers and then encourage people to rely less on insurance to begin with. Many health experts warn that this approach would encourage younger and healthier people to bail out of risk pools and leave their less fortunate fellow citizens with reduced coverage at higher costs.

    If this is the direction Trump and the GOP are headed, there won’t be any feasible bipartisan deal in Congress in December — or at the next pressure point, January 30, when the current government-reopening measure expires. That might be why some Republicans have talked about abandoning bipartisanship altogether and pursuing another budget-reconciliation bill (like the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Act) to “reform” health care and achieve some other GOP legislative priorities on simple party-line votes. Trump himself, of course, would prefer to just “nuke” the filibuster and let Senate Republicans do whatever they want on health care or anything else they choose to address. Since that seems unlikely, we could enter a time machine to go back to 2017, when Republicans tried and failed to use reconciliation to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” Indeed, in a recent interview with Laura Ingraham, the president himself referred to Trumpcare — the term used generally for his repeal-and-replace legislation — for his vision of an improved health-care system.

    You get the sense listening to the president and his supporters that they are mostly focused on finding some rhetoric to show interest in the affordability concerns that are depressing Trump’s job-approval ratings and threatening GOP plans for the midterms. If that’s all Republicans care about, it’s very bad news for people losing health coverage, because they can’t afford the insurance that’s been keeping them alive.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • The One Thing Republicans Will Deny Trump

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    Trump whooping it up with Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi.
    Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

    You know, it’s hard work being a historic president elevated by God himself to save America and then the whole world. So it’s understandable that Donald Trump is deeply annoyed, and even embarrassed, that while he was off cutting deals, ending wars, and accepting presents from grateful foreign leaders, his hirelings in Congress still can’t end the government shutdown. He fully vented his wrath at Truth Social:

    I just got back from Asia where I met the Leaders of many Countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and others. It was a Great Honor to meet them but, more particularly, to see that America is respected again — RESPECTED LIKE NEVER BEFORE! Great Trade Deals were made, Long Term relationships now exist, and money is pouring into our Country because of Tariffs and, frankly, the Landslide Results of the 2024 Presidential Election. The one question that kept coming up, however, was how did the Democrats SHUT DOWN the United States of America, and why did the powerful Republicans allow them to do it? The fact is, in flying back, I thought a great deal about that question, WHY?

    After repeating some lies about illegal immigrants being the principal beneficiaries of the Democratic health-care demands that congressional Republicans have refused to consider, the president cut to the chase: “It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!”

    In other words: “This isn’t my problem, it’s yours, so go fix it!”

    It’s certainly an unwelcome message to his loyal congressional troops. Along with their Democratic opponents, they have been waiting for Trump to cut some sort of deal to end the shutdown. Having deferred to the administration to an embarrassing degree from the moment his second term began, Republicans in Congress will be understandably chagrined to be told they are on their own. The one thing, perhaps the only thing, that they are likely to deny him in this demand (and not for the first time) is a complete end to the Senate filibuster. Yes, it would rob Democrats of the one bit of leverage they have in 2025, which they’ve used to bring Trump’s legislative agenda to a halt and to advance their own priorities. But it would also expose Republicans to the future wrath of a Democratic trifecta regime long after Trump has left Washington for good. You can’t really expect the narcissist-in-chief to care about what happens when he’s gone, but Republicans will be loathe to disarm future Senate minorities.

    They are certainly making that clear today in extremely rare rebukes to Trump, as Politico reports:

    [John] Thune has defended the filibuster multiple times during the shutdown, calling it a “bad idea” to suggest eliminating it. “The 60-vote threshold has protected this country,” he said earlier this month.

    Ryan Wrasse, a spokesperson for the South Dakota Republican, said in a statement on Friday that “Leader Thune’s position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged.”

    Kate Noyes — a spokesperson for Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 GOP leader — said on Friday his position in support of the legislative filibuster also hasn’t changed….

    Prior to Trump’s postings Thursday, more than a dozen GOP senators had rejected chatter about changing Senate rules as the shutdown dragged on in recent weeks. 

    As so the government shutdown will drag on for the time being, with the man who considers himself the greatest deal-maker in human history on the sidelines, pouting. Perhaps he’ll get back on Air Force One and seek more congenial surroundings somewhere, anywhere, other than the ungrateful country over which he grudgingly presides. Or maybe he’ll get over it and do his job. Tens of millions of Americans who are about to lose SNAP benefits this weekend, along with tens of millions more who will receive notices their health-insurance costs are about to skyrocket, are counting on him to help resolve the crisis. Having said for years about every problem that “Only I can fix it,” it’s no time for him to just walk away.

    This piece has been updated.

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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Government shutdown threatens to drag on through weekend with lawmakers deadlocked

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    As the Senate meets Friday for another vote to reopen the federal government, Democrats are refusing to yield without a deal from President Donald Trump — likely extending the government shutdown into next week.Democrats say not even the threat of mass firings and canceled federal projects will force them to accept the GOP short-term funding proposal without major policy concessions on health care.A top White House official warned Thursday that the number of federal workers who could be fired because of the shutdown is “likely going to be in the thousands.” Trump hasn’t made public his exact targets yet, though he met with White House budget chief Russ Vought on Thursday to discuss the plan.The White House already has a list – put together by Vought’s Office of Management and Budget in coordination with federal agencies – of the agencies they are targeting with the firings, according to two White House officials. While details are still being sorted, according to the officials, announcements could come in the coming days on which are on the chopping block for not aligning with the president’s priorities.Speaking on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries skewered the president and his team for what he called their “retribution effort” against Democrats, but made clear his party would not relent. He added that neither he nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have received a call from Trump or GOP leaders for negotiations since the group met at the White House Monday.“Democrats are in this fight until we win this fight,” Jeffries said when asked if Democrats could accept a deal without an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that his party has been seeking. “This is the first week of the shutdown but we’ve had months of chaos and cruelty unleashed on the American people.”With the two parties still bitterly divided, the deadlocked Senate is expected to leave town for the weekend, which means neither chamber will vote again until at least Monday. With no ongoing talks between the two parties, many Senate Republicans plan to decamp to Sea Island, Georgia, this weekend for a major weekend fundraiser. The National Republican Senatorial Committee informed attendees in an email this week that the event was non-refundable and contracted years in advance — long before the current organization’s leadership, according to two people familiar with the matter.Democrats, too, have a scheduled fundraiser later this month. That event in Napa, California, is set to take place on Oct. 13. A spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said they did not have information about whether the event was still on, though one of the featured attendees, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, has already informed organizers that she won’t be attending if there is a shutdown, according to a person familiar with the planning.Inside the Capitol, lawmakers and their staff are bracing for a lapse that could last into mid-October, with fears rising that government workers will miss a paycheck next week.GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota described Friday’s vote as “crucial,” warning that “things go south real quick” if the government isn’t reopened before the weekend.Rounds is one of the few Republicans publicly anxious about the potential harms of an extended shutdown on the federal workforce, and has worked behind the scenes with some Democrats to find a way out of it. The end needs to come as quickly as possible, he warned, suggesting that Democrats could soon see the White House take an ax to programs that they heavily favor if the shutdown doesn’t end.“I think it’s gonna bite them harder than it does us,” Rounds told reporters Thursday. “There’s a whole lot of things out there that the Democrats care about that are not consistent with the president’s policies, and those are the first things at risk.”Senate Majority Leader John Thune remained firm Thursday when asked about how the shutdown would end. He said Democrats would have a fourth chance on Friday to vote to open the government: “If that fails, then they can have the weekend to think about it, we’ll come back, we’ll vote again on Monday.”“My Democrat colleagues are facing pressure from members of their far-left base, but they’re playing a losing game here,” he added.

    WASHINGTON —

    As the Senate meets Friday for another vote to reopen the federal government, Democrats are refusing to yield without a deal from President Donald Trump — likely extending the government shutdown into next week.

    Democrats say not even the threat of mass firings and canceled federal projects will force them to accept the GOP short-term funding proposal without major policy concessions on health care.

    A top White House official warned Thursday that the number of federal workers who could be fired because of the shutdown is “likely going to be in the thousands.” Trump hasn’t made public his exact targets yet, though he met with White House budget chief Russ Vought on Thursday to discuss the plan.

    The White House already has a list – put together by Vought’s Office of Management and Budget in coordination with federal agencies – of the agencies they are targeting with the firings, according to two White House officials. While details are still being sorted, according to the officials, announcements could come in the coming days on which are on the chopping block for not aligning with the president’s priorities.

    Speaking on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries skewered the president and his team for what he called their “retribution effort” against Democrats, but made clear his party would not relent. He added that neither he nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have received a call from Trump or GOP leaders for negotiations since the group met at the White House Monday.

    “Democrats are in this fight until we win this fight,” Jeffries said when asked if Democrats could accept a deal without an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that his party has been seeking. “This is the first week of the shutdown but we’ve had months of chaos and cruelty unleashed on the American people.”

    With the two parties still bitterly divided, the deadlocked Senate is expected to leave town for the weekend, which means neither chamber will vote again until at least Monday. With no ongoing talks between the two parties, many Senate Republicans plan to decamp to Sea Island, Georgia, this weekend for a major weekend fundraiser. The National Republican Senatorial Committee informed attendees in an email this week that the event was non-refundable and contracted years in advance — long before the current organization’s leadership, according to two people familiar with the matter.

    Democrats, too, have a scheduled fundraiser later this month. That event in Napa, California, is set to take place on Oct. 13. A spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said they did not have information about whether the event was still on, though one of the featured attendees, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, has already informed organizers that she won’t be attending if there is a shutdown, according to a person familiar with the planning.

    Inside the Capitol, lawmakers and their staff are bracing for a lapse that could last into mid-October, with fears rising that government workers will miss a paycheck next week.

    GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota described Friday’s vote as “crucial,” warning that “things go south real quick” if the government isn’t reopened before the weekend.

    Rounds is one of the few Republicans publicly anxious about the potential harms of an extended shutdown on the federal workforce, and has worked behind the scenes with some Democrats to find a way out of it. The end needs to come as quickly as possible, he warned, suggesting that Democrats could soon see the White House take an ax to programs that they heavily favor if the shutdown doesn’t end.

    “I think it’s gonna bite them harder than it does us,” Rounds told reporters Thursday. “There’s a whole lot of things out there that the Democrats care about that are not consistent with the president’s policies, and those are the first things at risk.”

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune remained firm Thursday when asked about how the shutdown would end. He said Democrats would have a fourth chance on Friday to vote to open the government: “If that fails, then they can have the weekend to think about it, we’ll come back, we’ll vote again on Monday.”

    “My Democrat colleagues are facing pressure from members of their far-left base, but they’re playing a losing game here,” he added.

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