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Epstein files put focus on divisions in Republican Party
The Epstein files are putting a greater focus on the recent divide within the Republican Party. Robert Jimison, congressional correspondent with the New York Times, joins CBS News to discuss.
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California Republicans are divided on Trump’s immigration enforcement policies, poll finds
Republicans in California have diverging opinions on President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies, according to a study published by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute on Monday.
The Trump administration has deployed a sweeping crackdown on immigration, launching ICE raids across the country and removing legal barriers in order to make deportations faster. The study found that while Democrats were largely consistent in their opposition to these immigration policies, Republican sentiment varied more, especially by age, gender and ethnicity.
“At least some subset of Republicans are seeing that these immigration strategies are a step too far,” said G. Cristina Mora, a sociology professor and co-director of the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which administered the poll. The polling data were collected from nearly 5,000 registered voters in mid-August. Just over 1,000 of those surveyed were registered Republicans.
Latino Republicans, with whom Trump made historic gains during the 2024 elections, showed the highest levels of disagreement with the party’s aggressive stance on immigration. Young people from 18 to 29 and moderate women in the Republican Party also more significantly diverged from Trump’s policies.
The majority of Republican respondents expressed approval of Trump’s immigration strategy overall. However, the study found respondents diverged more from Trump’s policies that ignore established legal processes, including due process, birthright citizenship and identification of federal agents.
“On these legalistic issues, this is where you see some of the bigger breaks,” Mora said.
Of those surveyed, 28% disapproved of the end of birthright citizenship, which Trump is pushing for, and 45% agreed that ICE agents should show clear identification. Four in 10 Republican respondents also support due process for detained immigrants.
Young people, who make up about 15% of the party in California, were on average also more likely to break from Trump’s policies than older Republicans.
The analysis also found that education level and region had almost no impact on respondents’ beliefs on immigration.
Latinos and women were more likely to disagree with Trump on humanitarian issues than their demographic counterparts.
Nearly 60% of moderate Republican women disagree with deporting longtime undocumented immigrants, compared with 47% of moderate men. 45% of women believe ICE raids unfairly target Latino communities.
The political party was most split across racial lines when it came to immigration enforcement being expanded into hospitals and schools. Forty-four percent of Latinos disagreed with the practice, compared with 26% of white respondents, while 46% of Latino respondents disagreed with deporting immigrants who have resided in the country for a long time, compared with just 30% of their white counterparts.
Trump had gained a significant Latino vote that helped him win reelection last year. Democratic candidates, however, made gains with Latino voters in elections earlier this month, indicating a possible shift away from the GOP.
The data could indicate Latino Republicans “are somewhat disillusioned” by the Trump administration’s handling of immigration, Mora said. “Latinos aren’t just disagreeing on the issues that we think are about process and American legal fairness. They’re also disagreeing on just the idea that this is cruel.”
Mora said the deluge of tense and sometimes violent encounters posted online could have an impact on Republican opinion surrounding immigration. A plainclothes agent pointed his gun at a female driver in Santa Ana last week, and two shootings involving ICE agents took place in Southern California late last month.
“You now have several months of Latinos being able to log on to their social media and see every kind of video of Latinos being targeted with or without papers,” Mora said. “I have to believe that that is doing something to everybody, not just Latino Republicans or Latino Democrats.”
Itzel Luna
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In reversal, Trump says House Republicans should vote to release Epstein files to move on from ‘hoax’
President Donald Trump said House Republicans should vote to release the files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, a startling reversal after previously fighting the proposal as a growing number of those in his own party supported it.
“We have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on social media late Sunday after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a weekend in Florida.
Trump’s statement followed a fierce fight within the GOP over the files, including an increasingly nasty split with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had long been one of his fiercest supporters.
The president’s shift is an implicit acknowledgement that supporters of the measure have enough votes to pass it the House, although it has an unclear future in the Senate.
It is a rare example of Trump backtracking because of opposition within the GOP. In his return to office and in his second term as president, Trump has largely consolidated power in the Republican Party.
“I DON’T CARE!” Trump wrote in his social media post. “All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.”
Lawmakers who support the bill have been predicting a big win in the House this week with a “deluge of Republicans” voting for it, bucking the GOP leadership and the president.
In his opposition to the proposal, Trump even reached out to two of the Republican lawmakers who signed it. One, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, met last week with administration officials in the White House Situation Room to discuss it.
The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. Information about Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations would be allowed to be redacted.
“There could be 100 or more” votes from Republicans, said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., among the lawmakers discussing the legislation on Sunday news show appearances. “I’m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote.”
Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced a discharge petition in July to force a vote on their bill. That is a rarely successful tool that allows a majority of members to bypass House leadership and force a floor vote.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had panned the discharge petition effort and sent members home early for their August recess when the GOP’s legislative agenda was upended in the clamoring for an Epstein vote. Democrats also contend the seating of Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., was stalled to delay her becoming the 218th member to sign the petition and gain the threshold needed to force a vote. She became the 218th signature moments after taking the oath of office last week.
Massie said Johnson, Trump and others who have been critical of his efforts would be “taking a big loss this week.”
“I’m not tired of winning yet, but we are winning,” Massie said.
The view from GOP leadership
Johnson seems to expect the House will decisively back the Epstein bill.
“We’ll just get this done and move it on. There’s nothing to hide,” adding that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been releasing “far more information than the discharge petition, their little gambit.”
The vote comes at a time when new documents are raising fresh questions about Epstein and his associates, including a 2019 email that Epstein wrote to a journalist that said Trump “knew about the girls.” The White House has accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the Republican president.
Johnson said Trump “has nothing to hide from this.”
“They’re doing this to go after President Trump on this theory that he has something to do with it. He does not,” Johnson said.
Trump’s association with Epstein is well-established and the president’s name was included in records that his own Justice Department released in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation.
Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent acquaintances in political and celebrity circles besides Trump.
Khanna voiced more modest expectations on the vote count than Massie. Still, Khanna said he was hoping for 40 or more Republicans to join the effort.
“I don’t even know how involved Trump was,” Khanna said. “There are a lot of other people involved who have to be held accountable.”
Khanna also asked Trump to meet with those who were abused. Some will be at the Capitol on Tuesday for a news conference, he said.
Massie said Republican lawmakers who fear losing Trump’s endorsement because of how they vote will have a mark on their record, if they vote “no,” that could hurt their political prospects in the long term.
“The record of this vote will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency,” Massie said.
A MAGA split
On the Republican side, three Republicans joined with Massie in signing the discharge petition: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Boebert.
Trump publicly called it quits with Greene last week and said he would endorse a challenger against her in 2026 “if the right person runs.”
Greene attributed the fallout with Trump as “unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files.” She said the country deserves transparency on the issue and that Trump’s criticism of her is confusing because the women she has talked to say he did nothing wrong.
“I have no idea what’s in the files. I can’t even guess. But that is the questions everyone is asking, is, why fight this so hard?” Greene said.
Trump’s feud with Greene escalated over the weekend, with Trump sending out one last social media post about her while still sitting in his helicopter on the White House lawn when he arrived home late Sunday, writing “The fact is, nobody cares about this Traitor to our Country!”
Even if the bill passes the House, there is no guarantee that Senate Republicans will go along. Massie said he just hopes Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., “will do the right thing.”
“The pressure is going to be there if we get a big vote in the House,” Massie said, who thinks “we could have a deluge of Republicans.”
Massie appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” Johnson was on “Fox News Sunday,” Khanna spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Greene was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a conservative congresswoman from the state of Georgia. Here’s what to know about the conservative firebrand.
Kevin Freking and Chris Megerian | The Associated Press
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Trump ran on ‘America first.’ Now he views presidency as a ‘worldwide situation’
WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Donald Trump was unapologetic about putting America first. He promised to secure the nation’s borders, strengthen the domestic workforce and be tough on countries he thought were taking advantage of the United States.
Now, 10 months into his second term, the president is facing backlash from some conservatives who say he is too focused on matters abroad, whether it’s seeking regime change in Venezuela, brokering peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza or extending a $20-billion currency swap for Argentina. The criticism has grown in recent days after Trump expressed support for granting more visas to foreign students and skilled immigrant workers.
The cracks in the MAGA movement, which have been more pronounced in recent weeks, underscore how Trump’s once impenetrable political base is wavering as the president appears to embrace a more global approach to governing.
“I have to view the presidency as a worldwide situation, not locally,” Trump said this week when asked to address the criticism at an Oval Office event. “We could have a world that’s on fire where wars come to our shores very easily if you had a bad president.”
For backers of Trump’s MAGA movement, the conflict is forcing some to weigh loyalty to an “America first” ideology over a president they have long supported and who, in some cases, inspired them to get involved in the political process.
“I am against foreign aid, foreign wars, and sending a single dollar to foreign countries,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who in recent weeks has become more critical of Trump’s policies, said in a social media post Wednesday. “I am America First and America Only. This is my way and there is no other way to be.”
Beyond America-first concerns, some Trump supporters are frustrated with him for resisting the disclosures about the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his network of powerful friends — including Trump. A group of Republicans in the House, for instance, helped lead an effort to force a vote to demand further disclosures on the Epstein files from the Justice Department.
“When they are protecting pedophiles, when they are blowing our budget, when they are starting wars overseas, I’m sorry, I can’t go along with that,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a CNN interview. “And back home, people agree with me. They understand, even the most ardent Trump supporters understand.”
When asked to respond to the criticism Trump has faced in recent weeks, the White House said the president was focused on implementing “economic policies that are cutting costs, raising real wages, and securing trillions in investments to make and hire in America.”
Mike Madrid, a “never Trump” Republican consultant, believes the Epstein scandal has sped up a Republican backlash that has been brewing as a result of Trump deviating from his campaign promises.
“They are turning on him, and it’s a sign of the inviolable trust being gone,” Madrid said.
The MAGA movement was not led by a policy ideology, but rather “fealty to the leader,” Madrid said. Once the trust in Trump fades, “everything is gone.”
Criticism of Trump goes mainstream
The intraparty tension also has played out on conservative and mainstream news outlets, where the president has been challenged on his policies.
In a recent Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump was pressed on a plan to give student visas to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, a move that would mark a departure from actions taken by his administration this year to crack down on foreign students.
“I think it is good to have outside countries,” Trump said. “Look, I want to be able to get along with the world.”
In that same interview, Trump said he supports giving H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers because the U.S. doesn’t have workers with “certain talents.”
“You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles,’” Trump argued.
Trump in September imposed a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas for skilled workers, a move that led to confusion among businesses, immigration lawyers and H-1B visa holders. Before Trump’s order, the visa program had exposed a rift between the president’s supporters in the technology industry, which relies on the program, and immigration hard-liners who want to see the U.S. invest in an American workforce.
A day after Trump expressed support for the visa program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem added fuel to the immigration debate by saying the administration is fast-tracking immigrants’ pathway to citizenship.
“More people are becoming naturalized under this administration than ever before,” Noem told Fox News this week.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close ally of Trump, said the administration’s position was “disappointing.”
“How is that a good thing? We are supposed to be kicking foreigners out, not letting them stay,” Loomer said.
Polling adds on the heat
As polling shows Americans are growing frustrated with the economy, some conservatives increasingly blame Trump for not doing enough to create more jobs and lower the cost of living.
Greene, the Georgia Republican, said on “The Sean Spicer Show” Thursday that Trump and his administration are “gaslighting” people when they say prices are going down.
“It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store,” she said, while urging Republicans to “show we are in the trenches with them” rather than denying their experience.
While Trump has maintained that the economy is strong, administration officials have begun talking about pushing new economic policies. White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said this week that the administration would be working to provide consumers with more purchasing power, saying that “we’re going to fix it right away.”
“We understand that people understand, as people look at their pocketbooks to go to the grocery store, that there’s still work to do,” Hassett said.
The acknowledgment comes after this month’s elections in key states — in which Republicans were soundly defeated — made clear that rising prices were top of mind for many Americans. The results also showed Latino voters were turning away from the GOP amid growing concerns about the economy.
As Republicans try to refocus on addressing affordability, Trump has continued to blame the economic problems on former President Biden.
“Cost, and INFLATION, were higher under the Sleepy Joe Biden administration, than they are now,” Trump said in a social media post Friday. He insisted that under his administration costs are “tumbling down.”
Ana Ceballos
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The Epstein Scandal Is Now a Chronic Disease of the Trump Presidency
On Wednesday, more than twenty thousand pages of documents from Epstein’s files were released—not from the much-anticipated Justice Department trove but from a separate collection subpoenaed by Congress from Epstein’s estate—and, reading through them, it soon became clear how many new lines of inquiry could yet emerge. Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald writer who has pursued the Epstein story longer and more doggedly than anyone, reported that Trump’s name appears thousands of times in these documents. Within hours, there were reports about Epstein’s correspondence with Steve Bannon, Larry Summers, and Michael Wolff. One Epstein e-mail suggested, but offered no proof, that Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. Another missive from Epstein implied, mysteriously, that he had spent the first Thanksgiving of Trump’s Presidency in Palm Beach, in close proximity to him, years after the two had supposedly broken off all contact. Several other e-mails also hinted at ongoing ties.
In a twist that took me by surprise but I suppose shouldn’t have, the e-mails also revealed that Epstein corresponded with a wide network of international contacts about Trump in the years before he died, including attempting to pass along a message to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in advance of Trump’s 2018 Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin. It was, in effect, an invitation to get the scoop on the American President, relayed via Thorbjørn Jagland, a former Prime Minister of Norway who was then serving as head of the Council of Europe. “I think you might suggest to putin that lavrov can get insight on talking to me,” Epstein wrote. In the same e-mail exchange, he said that he had previously talked with Russia’s late Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, about Trump. “Churkin was great,” Epstein wrote. “He understood trump after our conversations. it is not complex. he must be seen to get something its that simple.” I was not the only one stunned by this. In response to Politico’s reporting, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, wrote, “All of the times I’ve wondered what Putin had on Trump, and now we find out Jeffrey Epstein was talking to Putin’s ambassador about Trump.”
The e-mails—unverified, typo-ridden assertions from a man who is not around to testify about them—do not constitute specific proof of anything, it should be underscored, just fodder for endless new rounds of questions now that politicians in Trump’s own party have chosen to release them. Who knows what else is lurking in there?
At the White House, the attempts at damage control thus far have only fuelled the story. Trump, who now labels this the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” to distinguish it from all the other alleged hoaxes to which his various tormentors over the years have previously subjected him, certainly did not dispel concerns by summoning a Republican congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, to the White House Situation Room in the unsuccessful effort to dissuade her from signing on to the discharge petition. The Situation Room is where Presidents are supposed to discuss urgent national-security matters, not Jeffrey Epstein’s e-mails. Yikes. Smoke, meet fire.
At a briefing on Wednesday dominated by questions about the e-mails, meanwhile, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, noted that they “prove absolutely nothing.” She then added, in Trump’s defense, that “Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep.” But in 2019, when Trump was asked by a reporter at a White House press conference if he had “any suspicions” that Epstein “was molesting . . . underage women,” the President replied, “No, I had no idea. I had no idea. I haven’t spoken to him in many, many years.” The question naturally arises: If he had no suspicions about Epstein’s behavior with girls then how could he have kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago for being a pedophile?
By Thursday, Leavitt was complaining that the latest Epstein flareup was all “another Democrat + Mainstream Media hoax, fueled by fake outrage, to distract from the President’s wins.” The distraction lament is one I’ve heard many times over the years from embattled press secretaries. But it seems to me that it’s the Trump White House as much as Trump’s enemies who might want to distract from the news these days. At least, that’s usually how it works for unpopular Presidents whose poll numbers are sinking to record lows amid persistent inflation, at a time when his party is losing elections by big margins and fighting among itself over whether one of its leading propagandists should have given respectful airtime to a notorious white supremacist. But this is Trump, so who knows? ♦
Susan B. Glasser
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President Trump signs government funding bill, ending shutdown after a record 43-day disruption
President Donald Trump signed a government funding bill Wednesday night, ending a record 43-day shutdown that caused financial stress for federal workers who went without paychecks, stranded scores of travelers at airports and generated long lines at some food banks.The shutdown magnified partisan divisions in Washington as Trump took unprecedented unilateral actions — including canceling projects and trying to fire federal workers — to pressure Democrats into relenting on their demands.The Republican president blamed the situation on Democrats and suggested voters shouldn’t reward the party during next year’s midterm elections.“So I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this,” Trump said. “When we come up to midterms and other things, don’t forget what they’ve done to our country.”The signing ceremony came just hours after the House passed the measure on a mostly party-line vote of 222-209. The Senate had already passed the measure Monday.Democrats wanted to extend an enhanced tax credit expiring at the end of the year that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They refused to go along with a short-term spending bill that did not include that priority. But Republicans said that was a separate policy fight to be held at another time.“We told you 43 days ago from bitter experience that government shutdowns don’t work,” said Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “They never achieve the objective that you announce. And guess what? You haven’t achieved that objective yet, and you’re not going to.”The frustration and pressures generated by the shutdown were reflected when lawmakers debated the spending measure on the House floor.Republicans said Democrats sought to use the pain generated by the shutdown to prevail in a policy dispute.”They knew it would cause pain and they did it anyway,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.Democrats said Republicans raced to pass tax breaks earlier this year that they say mostly will benefit the wealthy. But the bill before the House Wednesday “leaves families twisting in the wind with zero guarantee there will ever, ever be a vote to extend tax credits to help everyday people pay for their health care,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats would not give up on the subsidy extension even if the vote did not go their way.”This fight is not over,” Jeffries said. “We’re just getting started.”The House had not been in legislative session since Sept. 19, when it passed a short-term measure to keep the government open when the new budget year began in October. Johnson sent lawmakers home after that vote and put the onus on the Senate to act, saying House Republicans had done their job.What’s in the bill to end the shutdownThe legislation is the result of a deal reached by eight senators who broke ranks with the Democrats after reaching the conclusion that Republicans would not bend on using a government funding to bill to extend the health care tax credits.The compromise funds three annual spending bills and extends the rest of government funding through Jan. 30. Republicans promised to hold a vote by mid-December to extend the health care subsidies, but there is no guarantee of success.The bill includes a reversal of the firing of federal workers by the Trump administration since the shutdown began. It also protects federal workers against further layoffs through January and guarantees they are paid once the shutdown is over. The bill for the Agriculture Department means people who rely on key food assistance programs will see those benefits funded without threat of interruption through the rest of the budget year.The package includes $203.5 million to boost security for lawmakers and an additional $28 million for the security of Supreme Court justices.Democrats also decried language in the bill that would give senators the opportunity to sue when a federal agency or employee searches their electronic records without notifying them, allowing for up to $500,000 in potential damages for each violation.The language seems aimed at helping Republican senators pursue damages if their phone records were analyzed by the FBI as part of an investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The provisions drew criticism from Republicans as well. Johnson said he was “very angry about it.””That was dropped in at the last minute, and I did not appreciate that, nor did most of the House members,” Johnson said, promising a vote on the matter as early as next week.The biggest point of contention, though, was the fate of the expiring enhanced tax credit that makes health insurance more affordable through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.”It’s a subsidy on top of a subsidy. Our friends added it during COVID,” Cole said. “COVID is over. They set a date certain that the subsidies would run out. They chose the date.”Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the enhanced tax credit was designed to give more people access to health care and no Republican voted for it.”All they have done is try to eliminate access to health care in our country. The country is catching on to them,” Pelosi said.Without the enhanced tax credit, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.Health care debate aheadIt’s unclear whether the parties will find any common ground on health care before the December vote in the Senate. Johnson has said he will not commit to bringing it up in his chamber.Some Republicans have said they are open to extending the COVID-19 pandemic-era tax credits as premiums will soar for millions of people, but they also want new limits on who can receive the subsidies. Some argue that the tax dollars for the plans should be routed through individuals rather than go directly to insurance companies.Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Monday that she was supportive of extending the tax credits with changes, such as new income caps. Some Democrats have signaled they could be open to that idea.House Democrats expressed great skepticism that the Senate effort would lead to a breakthrough.Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Republicans have wanted to repeal the health overhaul for the past 15 years. “That’s where they’re trying to go,” she said.When could things return to normal?While the shutdown will end tonight, the return to pre-shutdown status will not be immediate. Air travel is expected to experience lingering impacts, as the transportation secretary noted that the speed of recovery will depend on how quickly air traffic controllers return to work, with many having retired during the shutdown. The FAA administrator stated that air traffic controllers will receive their full back pay within a week, but it remains unclear how quickly other federal workers will be compensated. In previous shutdowns, it took up to eight weeks for some workers to receive back pay.Regarding SNAP benefits, the American Public Human Services Association anticipates that most states will issue full benefits within three days after the shutdown ends, though some states may take about a week due to complications from issuing partial benefits during the shutdown. The Small Business Administration has indicated that once the government reopens, it will immediately begin processing and approving loans for small businesses. ___Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON —President Donald Trump signed a government funding bill Wednesday night, ending a record 43-day shutdown that caused financial stress for federal workers who went without paychecks, stranded scores of travelers at airports and generated long lines at some food banks.
The shutdown magnified partisan divisions in Washington as Trump took unprecedented unilateral actions — including canceling projects and trying to fire federal workers — to pressure Democrats into relenting on their demands.
The Republican president blamed the situation on Democrats and suggested voters shouldn’t reward the party during next year’s midterm elections.
“So I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this,” Trump said. “When we come up to midterms and other things, don’t forget what they’ve done to our country.”
The signing ceremony came just hours after the House passed the measure on a mostly party-line vote of 222-209. The Senate had already passed the measure Monday.
Democrats wanted to extend an enhanced tax credit expiring at the end of the year that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They refused to go along with a short-term spending bill that did not include that priority. But Republicans said that was a separate policy fight to be held at another time.
“We told you 43 days ago from bitter experience that government shutdowns don’t work,” said Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “They never achieve the objective that you announce. And guess what? You haven’t achieved that objective yet, and you’re not going to.”
The frustration and pressures generated by the shutdown were reflected when lawmakers debated the spending measure on the House floor.
Republicans said Democrats sought to use the pain generated by the shutdown to prevail in a policy dispute.
“They knew it would cause pain and they did it anyway,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Democrats said Republicans raced to pass tax breaks earlier this year that they say mostly will benefit the wealthy. But the bill before the House Wednesday “leaves families twisting in the wind with zero guarantee there will ever, ever be a vote to extend tax credits to help everyday people pay for their health care,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats would not give up on the subsidy extension even if the vote did not go their way.
“This fight is not over,” Jeffries said. “We’re just getting started.”
The House had not been in legislative session since Sept. 19, when it passed a short-term measure to keep the government open when the new budget year began in October. Johnson sent lawmakers home after that vote and put the onus on the Senate to act, saying House Republicans had done their job.
What’s in the bill to end the shutdown
The legislation is the result of a deal reached by eight senators who broke ranks with the Democrats after reaching the conclusion that Republicans would not bend on using a government funding to bill to extend the health care tax credits.
The compromise funds three annual spending bills and extends the rest of government funding through Jan. 30. Republicans promised to hold a vote by mid-December to extend the health care subsidies, but there is no guarantee of success.
The bill includes a reversal of the firing of federal workers by the Trump administration since the shutdown began. It also protects federal workers against further layoffs through January and guarantees they are paid once the shutdown is over. The bill for the Agriculture Department means people who rely on key food assistance programs will see those benefits funded without threat of interruption through the rest of the budget year.
The package includes $203.5 million to boost security for lawmakers and an additional $28 million for the security of Supreme Court justices.
Democrats also decried language in the bill that would give senators the opportunity to sue when a federal agency or employee searches their electronic records without notifying them, allowing for up to $500,000 in potential damages for each violation.
The language seems aimed at helping Republican senators pursue damages if their phone records were analyzed by the FBI as part of an investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The provisions drew criticism from Republicans as well. Johnson said he was “very angry about it.”
“That was dropped in at the last minute, and I did not appreciate that, nor did most of the House members,” Johnson said, promising a vote on the matter as early as next week.
The biggest point of contention, though, was the fate of the expiring enhanced tax credit that makes health insurance more affordable through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
“It’s a subsidy on top of a subsidy. Our friends added it during COVID,” Cole said. “COVID is over. They set a date certain that the subsidies would run out. They chose the date.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the enhanced tax credit was designed to give more people access to health care and no Republican voted for it.
“All they have done is try to eliminate access to health care in our country. The country is catching on to them,” Pelosi said.
Without the enhanced tax credit, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.
Health care debate ahead
It’s unclear whether the parties will find any common ground on health care before the December vote in the Senate. Johnson has said he will not commit to bringing it up in his chamber.
Some Republicans have said they are open to extending the COVID-19 pandemic-era tax credits as premiums will soar for millions of people, but they also want new limits on who can receive the subsidies. Some argue that the tax dollars for the plans should be routed through individuals rather than go directly to insurance companies.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Monday that she was supportive of extending the tax credits with changes, such as new income caps. Some Democrats have signaled they could be open to that idea.
House Democrats expressed great skepticism that the Senate effort would lead to a breakthrough.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Republicans have wanted to repeal the health overhaul for the past 15 years. “That’s where they’re trying to go,” she said.
When could things return to normal?
While the shutdown will end tonight, the return to pre-shutdown status will not be immediate. Air travel is expected to experience lingering impacts, as the transportation secretary noted that the speed of recovery will depend on how quickly air traffic controllers return to work, with many having retired during the shutdown.
The FAA administrator stated that air traffic controllers will receive their full back pay within a week, but it remains unclear how quickly other federal workers will be compensated. In previous shutdowns, it took up to eight weeks for some workers to receive back pay.
Regarding SNAP benefits, the American Public Human Services Association anticipates that most states will issue full benefits within three days after the shutdown ends, though some states may take about a week due to complications from issuing partial benefits during the shutdown.
The Small Business Administration has indicated that once the government reopens, it will immediately begin processing and approving loans for small businesses.
___
Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
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A historic shutdown is nearly over. It leaves no winners and much frustration
The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as today, Day 43, with almost no one happy with the final result.Democrats didn’t get the health insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them.The fallout of the shutdown landed on millions of Americans, including federal workers who went without paychecks and airline passengers who had their trips delayed or canceled. An interruption in nutrition assistance programs contributed to long lines at food banks and added emotional distress going into the holiday season.The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills.Here’s a look at how the shutdown started and is likely to end.What led to the shutdownDemocrats made several demands to win their support for a short-term funding bill, but the central one was an extension of an enhanced tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.The tax credit was boosted during the COVID response, again through Joe Biden’s big energy and health care bill, and it’s set to expire at the end of December. Without it, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.“Never have American families faced a situation where their health care costs are set to double — double in the blink of an eye,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.While Democrats called for negotiations on the matter, Republicans said a funding bill would need to be passed first.“Republicans are ready to sit down with Democrats just as soon as they stop holding the government hostage to their partisan demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said.Thune eventually promised Democrats a December vote on the tax credit extension to help resolve the standoff, but many Democrats demanded a guaranteed fix, not just a vote that is likely to fail.Thune’s position was much the same as the one Schumer took back in October 2013, when Republicans unsuccessfully sought to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for funding the government. “Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion,” Schumer said then.Democratic leaders under pressureThe first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has seen more than 200,000 federal workers leave their job through firings, forced relocations or the administration’s deferred resignation program, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Whole agencies that don’t align with the administration’s priorities have been dismantled. And billions of dollars previously approved by Congress have been frozen or canceled.Democrats have had to rely on the courts to block some of Trump’s efforts, but they have been unable to do it through legislation. They were also powerless to stop Trump’s big tax cut and immigration crackdown bill that Republicans helped pay for by cutting future spending on safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.The Democrats’ struggles to blunt the Trump administration’s priorities has prompted calls for the party’s congressional leadership to take a more forceful response.Schumer experienced that firsthand after announcing in March that he would support moving ahead with a funding bill for the 2025 budget year. There was a protest at his office, calls from progressives that he be primaried in 2028 and suggestions that the Democratic Party would soon be looking for new leaders.This time around, Schumer demanded that Republicans negotiate with Democrats to get their votes on a spending bill. The Senate rules, he noted, requires bipartisan support to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance a spending bill.But those negotiations did not occur, at least not with Schumer. Republicans instead worked with a small group of eight Democrats to tee up a short-term bill to fund the government generally at current levels and accused Schumer of catering to the party’s left flank when he refused to go along.“The Senate Democrats are afraid that the radicals in their party will say that they caved,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at one of his many daily press conferences.The blame gameThe political stakes in the shutdown are huge, which is why leaders in both parties have held nearly daily press briefings to shape public opinion.Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.At least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one was successfully evading responsibility.Both parties looked to the Nov. 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere for signs of how the shutdown was influencing public opinion. Democrats took comfort in their overwhelming successes. Trump called it a “big factor, negative” for Republicans. But it did not change the GOP’s stance on negotiating. Instead, Trump ramped up calls for Republicans to end the filibuster in the Senate, which would pretty much eliminate the need for the majority party to ever negotiate with the minority.Damage of the shutdownThe Congressional Budget Office says that the negative impact on the economy will be mostly recovered once the shutdown ends, but not entirely. It estimated the permanent economic loss at about $11 billion for a six-week shutdown.Beyond the numbers, though, the shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Federal workers missed paychecks, causing financial and emotional stress. Travelers had their flights delayed and at times canceled. People who rely on safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program saw their benefits stopped, and Americans throughout the country lined up for meals at food banks.”This dysfunction is damaging enough to our constituents and economy here at home, but it also sends a dangerous message to the watching world,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “It demonstrates to our allies that we are an unreliable partner, and it signals to our adversaries that we can’t work together to meet even the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress.”
WASHINGTON —The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as today, Day 43, with almost no one happy with the final result.
Democrats didn’t get the health insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them.
The fallout of the shutdown landed on millions of Americans, including federal workers who went without paychecks and airline passengers who had their trips delayed or canceled. An interruption in nutrition assistance programs contributed to long lines at food banks and added emotional distress going into the holiday season.
The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills.
Here’s a look at how the shutdown started and is likely to end.
What led to the shutdown
Democrats made several demands to win their support for a short-term funding bill, but the central one was an extension of an enhanced tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
The tax credit was boosted during the COVID response, again through Joe Biden’s big energy and health care bill, and it’s set to expire at the end of December. Without it, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.
“Never have American families faced a situation where their health care costs are set to double — double in the blink of an eye,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
While Democrats called for negotiations on the matter, Republicans said a funding bill would need to be passed first.
“Republicans are ready to sit down with Democrats just as soon as they stop holding the government hostage to their partisan demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said.
Thune eventually promised Democrats a December vote on the tax credit extension to help resolve the standoff, but many Democrats demanded a guaranteed fix, not just a vote that is likely to fail.
Thune’s position was much the same as the one Schumer took back in October 2013, when Republicans unsuccessfully sought to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for funding the government. “Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion,” Schumer said then.
Democratic leaders under pressure
The first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has seen more than 200,000 federal workers leave their job through firings, forced relocations or the administration’s deferred resignation program, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Whole agencies that don’t align with the administration’s priorities have been dismantled. And billions of dollars previously approved by Congress have been frozen or canceled.
Democrats have had to rely on the courts to block some of Trump’s efforts, but they have been unable to do it through legislation. They were also powerless to stop Trump’s big tax cut and immigration crackdown bill that Republicans helped pay for by cutting future spending on safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.
The Democrats’ struggles to blunt the Trump administration’s priorities has prompted calls for the party’s congressional leadership to take a more forceful response.
Schumer experienced that firsthand after announcing in March that he would support moving ahead with a funding bill for the 2025 budget year. There was a protest at his office, calls from progressives that he be primaried in 2028 and suggestions that the Democratic Party would soon be looking for new leaders.
This time around, Schumer demanded that Republicans negotiate with Democrats to get their votes on a spending bill. The Senate rules, he noted, requires bipartisan support to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance a spending bill.
But those negotiations did not occur, at least not with Schumer. Republicans instead worked with a small group of eight Democrats to tee up a short-term bill to fund the government generally at current levels and accused Schumer of catering to the party’s left flank when he refused to go along.
“The Senate Democrats are afraid that the radicals in their party will say that they caved,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at one of his many daily press conferences.
The blame game
The political stakes in the shutdown are huge, which is why leaders in both parties have held nearly daily press briefings to shape public opinion.
Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
At least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one was successfully evading responsibility.
Both parties looked to the Nov. 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere for signs of how the shutdown was influencing public opinion. Democrats took comfort in their overwhelming successes. Trump called it a “big factor, negative” for Republicans. But it did not change the GOP’s stance on negotiating. Instead, Trump ramped up calls for Republicans to end the filibuster in the Senate, which would pretty much eliminate the need for the majority party to ever negotiate with the minority.
Damage of the shutdown
The Congressional Budget Office says that the negative impact on the economy will be mostly recovered once the shutdown ends, but not entirely. It estimated the permanent economic loss at about $11 billion for a six-week shutdown.
Beyond the numbers, though, the shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Federal workers missed paychecks, causing financial and emotional stress. Travelers had their flights delayed and at times canceled. People who rely on safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program saw their benefits stopped, and Americans throughout the country lined up for meals at food banks.
“This dysfunction is damaging enough to our constituents and economy here at home, but it also sends a dangerous message to the watching world,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “It demonstrates to our allies that we are an unreliable partner, and it signals to our adversaries that we can’t work together to meet even the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress.”
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Op-Ed: Preventing Mass Layoffs in the Rust Belt, a Popular and Possible Initiative – Cleveland Scene
As the Democrats have lost ground to the Republicans with noncollege educated and working-class voters, particularly among white and Latino populations, researchers have wondered how Democrats might regain these voters’ support. While some have proposed a more socially conservative platform and others have advocated an “abundance” agenda, the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP), in collaboration with the Labor Institute and Rutgers University, recently released a report looking at the possibility that economic populist appeals might win back voters, particularly in working-class heavy Rust Belt states.
The study surveyed 3,000 Rust Belt residents, including 750 individuals from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Overall, the report finds that economically populist appeals, such as those targeting economic elites and corporate greed, are broadly and deeply popular among Rust Belt voters. Economic populism played well with both Democrats and independents—and with Republicans when delivered by an independent, rather than a Democratic candidate. In addition, the survey tested specific messaging and proposals that might garner broad support among voters.
One proposal that we think might appeal to Rust Belt voters is an initiative to stop involuntary mass layoffs by companies that receive federal tax dollars. Our perspective is that if companies are receiving taxpayer funding than they have a responsibility to ensure stability for those very same individuals who fund them. Over the past half century, mass layoffs have disproportionately affected the Rust Belt. For instance, from 1996 to 2012, mass layoffs affected 16% of the Ohio workforce, particularly around Northeast Ohio and the state’s river towns.
While this might seem like a radical proposal, a comparative look at how Siemens layoffs simultaneously affected the U.S. and Germany is telling of how such a policy might play out. When the technological giant pursued mass layoffs in 2020, all American workers lost their jobs. In Germany, however, where workers have strong representation on the board of directors and unions have more influence, no one was involuntarily laid off. Instead, workers were offered buyouts. While American workers don’t have the same sort of influence, we believe that federal contracts and taxpayer dollars could provide the hook needed to ensure that mass layoffs do not ensue.
To test the popularity of this idea, we surveyed voters asking them about their preference for 25 policy proposals. Among those proposals, stopping mass layoffs was tied for the 5th most popular proposal. Indeed, this proposal was more popular than tariffs and raising the minimum wage. More specifically, it was highly popular among manual workers, noncollege graduates, independents, Democrats, and families making under $50k per year.
Despite this policy’s popularity, however, the report finds that support diminishes substantially when the proposal is delivered by Democratic politicians rather than independents. To address this partisan penalty, the survey also tested how such a proposal would fare as a non-partisan ballot initiative, which allows voters to show support for specific policies without getting bogged down in partisan polarization. Overall, support for the initiative substantially outpaced opposition, even after survey takers were shown counter-messages that critiqued the proposal in different ways.
Over the past several decades, working-class populations have increasingly moved away from the Democrats and towards GOP candidates. Despite its historic reputation as the party of the working-class, the Democrats have now become a party of the college educated. To win back working-class voters, the CWCP report demonstrates that Democrats should embrace an economically populist agenda that confronts corporate greed and economic elites. Otherwise, we should not expect this trend to reverse any time soon.
Tim Gill is a native Clevelander, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, and a Research Associate at the Center for Working-Class Politics.
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Schumer is pressured to step aside as Senate Democratic leader after shutdown vote
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is facing mounting pressure to step aside as leader of the Senate Democratic caucus after eight members voted against his wishes Sunday, joining Republicans in a bid to end the longest government shutdown in history.
The vote was just the latest development in a troubling week for the 74-year-old Schumer, who, after eight years as the top Senate Democrat, has faced growing calls from within the party to make way for a new generation of leadership.
Elections last week revealed the emergence of a growing progressive movement in Schumer’s hometown, where the longtime senator declined to endorse Zohran Mamdani in his successful bid for New York City mayor.
National progressive organizations on Monday urged him to step down and have encouraged a popular congresswoman in the state, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to run for his Senate seat in 2029. Polls show Schumer faces the lowest approval numbers of any national leader in Washington.
His leadership troubles come on the heels of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the first female speaker of the House, announcing her retirement, a decision that generated praise across the political aisle last week reflecting on her shrewd ability to control a sprawling House Democratic caucus during high-stakes votes.
“Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) wrote on X after the Sunday night vote. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the House, told reporters Monday that he strongly disapproved of the emerging deal in the Senate, where seven Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the party voted to proceed with government funding.
For seven weeks, House and Senate Democrats said they would not vote for legislation to reopen the government unless they were able to secure an extension of health insurance subsidies. But the deal reached in the Senate indicated how some Democrats gave in on that bottom-line negotiation.
Schumer reiterated his disapproval of the spending deal in a speech from the floor Monday. He criticized the compromise as a “Republican bill” even though members of his party helped broker the deal.
“Republicans now own this healthcare crisis,” Schumer said. “They knew it was coming. We wanted to fix it and they said no, and now it is on them.”
As Schumer delivered his speech, Jeffries spoke to reporters at a news conference on the other side of the Capitol.
Asked whether he thought Schumer remained an effective leader and should remain in his position, Jeffries replied, “yes and yes.”
When pressed to elaborate, Jeffries said “the overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer waged a valiant fight,” and turned his disapproval to the Democrats who voted with Republicans on the bill.
“I am not going to explain what a handful of Senate Democrats have decided to do,” Jeffries said. “That’s their explanation to offer to the American people.”
Now that the effort turns to the House, Jeffries said Democrats in the chamber will try to block a deal that does not address healthcare costs.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom offered harsh criticism of Senate Democrats on Monday, who he said had “rolled over.”
After speaking at the Milken Institute’s Global Investors’ Symposium in São Paulo, Newsom told The Times that the move blunted the momentum his party was experiencing following a string of victories last week.
“You don’t start something unless you’re going to finish,” said Newsom, who next heads to the climate summit known as COP30 in Belém, Brazil. “Why the hell did we do this in the first place? We could have gotten this deal in 20 minutes. … Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on with my party.”
Zach Wahls, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Iowa, said Schumer had “failed to lead this party in one of its most critical moments,” calling for him to step down. And Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, wrote that an effective leader would have been able to keep party members in line.
“Tonight is another example of why we need new leadership,” Moulton wrote on X.
The eight members who voted to reopen the government — 15% of the Senate Democratic caucus — voted directly against Schumer, who voted against the measure.
Wahls speculated that the moderate members who voted with Republicans were privately given Schumer’s blessing to do so.
“The fact that he voted against this deal, while he clearly gave it his blessing in private, is a perfect illustration of why people no longer trust the Democratic Party,” Wahls said, “and as long as he stays in a leadership role, it is going to be impossible for anybody — whether it’s in Iowa or any other swing state — to win a majority.”
Times staff writers Wilner and Ceballos reported from Washington, and Gutierrez contributed from São Paulo.
Michael Wilner, Ana Ceballos, Melody Gutierrez
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Commentary: Democrats crumble like cookies. Is this really the best they can do?
Democrats just crumbled like soft-bake cookies.
The so-called resistance party has given up the shutdown fight, ensuring that millions of Americans will face Republican-created skyrocketing healthcare costs, and millions more will bury any hope that the minority party will find the substance and leadership to run a viable defense against President Trump.
Sunday night, eight turncoat Democrats sold out every American who pays for their own health insurance through the affordable marketplaces set up by President Obama.
As has been thoroughly reported in past weeks, Republicans are dead set on making sure that insurance is entirely out of financial reach for many Americans by refusing to help them pay for the premiums with subsidies that are part of current law, offered to both low- and middle-income families.
Republicans — for reasons hard to fathom other than they hate Obama, and apparently basics such as flu shots — have long desired to kill the Affordable Care Act and now are on the brink of doing so, in spirit if not actuality, thanks to Democrats.
Trump must be doing his old-man jig in the Oval Office.
The pain this craven cave-in will cause is already evident. Rates for 2026 without the government subsidies have been announced, and premiums have doubled on average, according to nonpartisan health policy researcher KFF. Doubled.
Insurance companies are planning on raising their rates by about 18%, already devastating and symptomatic of the need for a total overhaul of our messed-up system. That increase, coupled with the loss of the subsidies beginning at the start of next year, means a 114% jump in costs for the folks dependent on this insurance. Premiums that cost on average $888 in 2025 will jump to $1,904 in 2026, according to KFF.
But it’s the middle-income people who will really be hit.
“On average, a 60-year-old couple making $85,000 … would see yearly premium payments rise by over $22,600 in 2026,” KFF warns, meaning that instead of paying 8.5% of their income toward health insurance, it will now jump to about 25%.
Merry Christmas, America.
Although the eight Democrats who broke from their party to allow this to happen are directly responsible (thankfully our California senators are not among them), Democratic leadership should also be held accountable.
A party that can’t keep itself together on the really big votes isn’t a party. It’s a bunch of people who occasionally have lunch together. Literally, they had one job: Stick together.
The failure of Democratic leadership to make sure its Senate votes didn’t shatter in this intense moment isn’t just shameful, it’s depressing. For all of the condemnation of the Republican members of Congress for failing to uphold their duty to be a check on the power of the presidency, here’s the opposition party rolling over belly up on the pivotal issue of healthcare.
As Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) put it on social media, “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
If the recent elections had any lessons in them, it’s that Democrats — and voters in general — want courage. Love or hate Zohran Mamdani, his win as New York City mayor was due in no small part to his daring to forge his own path. Ditto on Gov. Gavin Newsom and Proposition 50.
Mamdani put that sentiment best in his victory speech, promising an age when people can “expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt.”
Before you start angry-emailing me, yes, I do understand how much pain the shutdown in causing, especially for furloughed workers and people facing disruptions in their SNAP benefits. I feel for every person who doesn’t know how they will pay their bills.
But here are the facts that we can’t forget. Republicans have purposefully made that pain intense in order to break Democrats. Trump has found ways to pay his deportation agents, while simultaneously not paying critical workers such as airport screeners and air traffic controllers, where the chaos created by their absence is both visible and disruptive. He has also threatened to not give back pay to some of those folks when this does end.
And on the give-in-or-don’t-eat front, he’s actually been ordered by courts to pay those Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and is fighting it. Republicans could easily band together and demand that money goes out while the rest is hashed out, but they don’t want to. They want people to go hungry so that Democrats will break, and it worked.
But at what cost?
About 24 million people will be hit by these premium increases, leaving up to 4 million unable to keep their insurance. Unable to go to the doctor for routine care. Unable to pay for cancer treatments. Unable to have that lump, that pain, the broken bone looked at. Unable to get their kid a flu shot.
In many ways, this isn’t a California problem. The majority of these folks are in Southern, Republican states that refused to expand Medicaid when they had the chance. About 6 in 10 subsidy recipients are represented by Republicans, according to KFF, led by those living in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. But Americans have been clear that we want access to care for all of us, as a right, not an expensive privilege.
Which makes it all the more mystifying that Democrats are so eager to give up, on an issue that unites voters across parties, across demographics, across our seemingly endless divides.
But I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles.
Anita Chabria
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Republicans turn their attention to bashing Obamacare as shutdown enters day 39
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Amid a 39-day government shutdown, Republican after Republican took to the Senate floor on Saturday to blast the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, calling the program a failed approach to addressing the country’s health care needs.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., went as far as to say the current system might need replacing.
“You were promised when Obamacare passed in 2010, President Obama said, that every family in America who participated in this thing would have a $2,500 savings in premium reductions. It’s been like a 100% increase. This thing is unsustainable,” Graham said.
FLASHBACK: TED CRUZ PREDICTS BALLOONING OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES NOW AT CENTER OF SHUTDOWN FIGHT
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham speaks during a press conference on Saint Michael’s Square in the city center on May 30, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine. A bipartisan delegation from the USA, including Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, arrived in Kyiv for a visit (Viktor Kovalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
“We’re going to replace this broken system with something that is actually better for the consumer to meet the goal of lowering health care costs,” Graham added.
Graham wasn’t the only Republican voice to speak out against Obamacare.
“I hate to report that folks on the other side refused to acknowledge the very obvious damage being done across the board by Obamacare,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said. “The problem we have in healthcare is we’ve largely driven free-market principles out of healthcare. That’s because of the faulty design of Obamacare. It’s got to be fixed.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a former health care executive and longtime critic of the program, joined in.
“It’s all caused by Obamacare. When the government gets involved in things, they often go up in price,” Scott said.
Notably, Republican criticisms of Obamacare on Saturday went beyond the front-and-center issue holding up consideration of government funding.
Where Republicans have advanced a short-term spending package meant to keep the government open through Nov. 21, Democrats have rejected it 14 times, demanding that lawmakers first consider extending COVD-era emergency tax subsidies for Obamacare plan holders.
Republicans, who maintain the temporary subsidies and their expiration have nothing to do with government spending, have largely focused their attention on the shutdown itself instead of engaging in a debate over the COVID-era assistance. They’ve said they will negotiate on the subsidies when the government reopens.
But President Donald Trump changed the picture on Saturday morning in a post to Truth Social by arguing that lawmakers should re-structure the enhanced subsidies so that they go directly to the policyholders instead of insurance companies who currently receive the tax credit payments.
President Donald Trump speaks during a breakfast with Senate and House Republicans in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)
In the wake of Trump’s suggestion, lawmakers began blasting Obamacare’s structure.
“Obamacare costs the federal government closer to $150 billion a year. That’s right. We’re spending $150 billion of your tax-earned dollars supplementing other people’s health care,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said.
“When they sold this to the American people, they said it would cost $40 or $50 billion, but we’re triple that. That’s $400 million a day,” he added.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, echoed those comments, arguing that Obamacare had missed the mark on its original design.
“It’s clear that Obamacare has failed to deliver on its promises,” Ernst said. “The answer isn’t throwing more money into a broken system. What we need to do is fix what’s broken. We can end that waste.”
HOUSE REPUBLICANS DIVIDED OVER OBAMACARE AS GOP EYES FIX AFTER SHUTDOWN
Ernst is chairwoman of the DOGE caucus. (Reuters)
Like Ernst and Marshall, Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio., also took to the floor, calling for Congress to evaluate the source of climbing health care costs.
“So, I hope we want to get at the costs and the cause of what’s affecting the unaffordability of health care in this country. Health care has increased since Obamacare started by 6% a year while overall inflation has been 3% or less,” Husted said.
“I hope we will reopen the government and begin serving the American people while we continue the very important conversation of how we make health care more affordable,” he added.
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Although Sen. Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has kept the Senate in session over the weekend while lawmakers attempt to break the gridlock, it’s unclear when lawmakers will next consider spending legislation.
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Social Security Employees Grill Management During Tense Shutdown Meeting
On the call, SSA managers spoke about how difficult it was to keep employees motivated, especially when they knew that their work would have to ramp up after the shutdown concludes. “It’s hard to keep morale going with the way the staff is going and they also know that as soon as this shutdown is over, we’re going to hit ’em hard with [more work],” said one employee. “It’s very frustrating when we have to keep those staff motivated and we need ’em for the long haul, not just for this fiscal year.”
Employees also described the specific toll the shutdown was taking on Social Security beneficiaries. In one instance, recounted on the call, an office lost half their team. “Now my public is waiting two hours in [the] reception area, hour and hour and a half on phones,” said the same employee, who noted there used to be around a half hour wait time.
The SSA has been embroiled in chaos throughout president Donald Trump’s second term. WIRED reported in March that almost a dozen operatives from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency had been deployed to SSA, including big-name early operatives, including Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, and Akash Bobba.
According to a court filing from the SSA in federal court and accompanying sworn statements, a number of the DOGE operatives had access to a number of sensitive data sets, including Numident, which contains detailed information about anyone with a social security number. DOGE claimed they required this kind of access in order to detect “fraud.” However, many of DOGE’s claims about the agency were untrue and inaccurate, including the claim that 150-year-olds were collecting social security benefits.
In August, SSA’s chief data officer, Chuck Borges, submitted a whistleblower complaint that claimed DOGE had mishandled sensitive data and uploaded the confidential information of millions of Americans to an insecure server. When Borges sent an email to agency staff stating that he was involuntarily resigning, following his whistleblower complaint, the email mysteriously disappeared from inboxes, employees told WIRED at the time.
“I’m invested in this organization. I love what we do, but I feel like it’s not going in the right direction and we’re not really serving the public like we should or even our employees,” said one employee during Thursday’s management call. “We’re not trying to beat people up, it’s just that we are so invested.”
Zoë Schiffer, Leah Feiger
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Republicans, including ‘cowardly’ Schwarzenegger, take heat for lopsided loss on Prop. 50
Republican infighting crescendoed in the aftermath of California voters overwhelmingly approving a Democratic-friendly redistricting plan this week that may undercut the GOP’s control of Congress and derail President Trump’s polarizing agenda.
The state GOP chairwoman was urged to resign and former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of the state’s independent redistricting commission, was called “cowardly” by one top GOP leader for not being more involved in the campaign.
Leaders of the Republican-backed committees opposing the ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, were questioned about how they spent nearly $58 million in the special election after such a dismal outcome.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the once-prodigious Republican fundraiser, reportedly had vowed that he could raise $100 million for the opposition but ended up delivering a small fraction of that amount.
Assemblyman Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), a conservative firebrand, called on state GOP Chair Corrin Rankin to step down and faulted other Republican leaders and longtime party operatives for their failure to defeat the measure, calling them “derelict of duty and untrustworthy and incompetent.”
“Unless serious changes are made at the party, the midterms are going to be a complete disaster,” DeMaio said, also faulting the other groups opposing the effort. “We need accountability. There needs to be a reckoning because otherwise the lessons won’t be learned. The old guard needs to go. The old guard has failed us too many times. This is the latest failure.”
Rankin pushed back against the criticism, saying the state party was the most active GOP force in the final stretch of the election. Raising $11 million during the final three weeks of the campaign, the party spent it on mailers, digital ads and text messages, as well as organizing phone banks and precinct walking, she said.
Former Speaker of the House and California Republican Kevin McCarthy speaks to the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19, 2023.
(Samuel Corum / AFP via Getty Images)
“We left it all on the field,” Rankin said Wednesday morning at a Sacramento news conference about a federal lawsuit California Republicans filed arguing that Proposition 50 is unconstitutional. “We were the last man standing … to reach out to Republicans and make sure they turned out.”
Responding to criticism that their effort was disorganized, including opposition campaign mailers being sent to voters who had already cast ballots, Rankin said the party would conduct a review of its efforts. But she added that she was extremely proud of the work her team did in the “rushed special election.”
Barring successful legal challenges, the new California congressional districts enacted under Proposition 50 will go into effect before the 2026 election. The new district maps favor Democratic candidates and were crafted to unseat five Republican incumbents, which could erase Republicans’ narrow edge in the the U.S. House of Representatives.
If Democrats win control of the body, Trump’s policy agenda will probably be stymied and the president and members of his administration could face multiple congressional investigations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats proposed Proposition 50 in response to Trump urging elected officials in Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to increase the number of Republicans elected to the House next year.
The new California congressional boundaries voters approved Tuesday could give Democrats the opportunity to pick up five seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.
Proposition 50 will change how California determines the boundaries of congressional districts. The measure asked voters to approve congressional district lines designed to favor Democrats for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections, overriding the map drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission.
Some Republicans lamented that Schwarzenegger was not more involved in the election. The movie star championed the creation of the independent commission in 2010, his final year in office. He campaigned for the creation of similar bodies to fight partisan drawing of district lines across the nation after leaving office.
Shawn Steel, one of California’s three representatives on the Republican National Committee, called Schwarzenegger “a cowardly politician.”
“Arnold decided to sit it out,” Steel said. “Arnold just kind of raised the flag and immediately went under the desk.”
Steel said that the former governor failed to follow through on the messages he repeatedly delivered about the importance of independent redistricting.
“He could have had his name on the ballot as a ballot opponent,” Steel said. “He turned it down. So I’d say, with Arnold, just disappointing but not surprised. That’s his political legacy.”
Schwarzenegger’s team pushed back at this criticism as misinformed.
“We were clear from the beginning that he was not going to be a part of the campaign and was going to speak his mind,” said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for the former governor. “His message was very clear and nonpartisan. When one campaign couldn’t even criticize gerrymandering in Texas, it was probably hard for voters to believe they actually cared about fairness.”
Schwarzenegger spoke out against Proposition 50 a handful of times, including at an appearance at USC that was turned into a television ad by one of the anti-Proposition 50 committees that appeared to go dark before election day.
On election day, he emailed followers about gut health, electrolytes, protein bars, fitness and conversations to increase happiness. There was no apparent mention of the Tuesday election.
The Democratic-led California Legislature in August voted to place Proposition 50 on the November ballot, costing nearly $300 million, and setting off a sprint to Tuesday’s special election.
The opponents were vastly outspent by the ballot measure’s supporters, who contributed nearly $136 million to various efforts. That financial advantage, combined with Democrats’ overwhelming edge in voter registration in California, were main contributors to the ballot measure’s success. When introduced in August, Proposition 50 had tepid support and its prospects appeared uncertain.
Nearly 64% of the nearly 8.3 million voters who cast ballots supported Proposition 50, while 36% opposed it as of Wednesday night, according to the California secretary of state’s office.
In addition to the state Republican Party, two main campaign committees opposed Proposition 50, including the one backed by McCarthy. A separate group was funded by more than $32 million from major GOP donor Charles Munger Jr., the son of a billionaire who was Warren Buffet’s right-hand man; he bankrolled the creation of the independent congressional redistricting commission in 2010.
Representatives of the two committees — who defended their work Tuesday night after the election was called moments after the polls closed, saying that they could not overcome the vast financial disadvantage and that the proposition’s supporters must be held to their promises to voters such as pushing for national redistricting reform — did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Wednesday.
Newsom’s committee supporting Proposition 50 had prominent Democrats stumping for the effort, including former President Obama starring in ads.
That’s in stark contrast to the opposition efforts. Trump was largely absent, possibly because he is deeply unpopular among Californians and the president does not like to be associated with losing causes.
Seema Mehta
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