This morning the House passed a clean CR designed to fund the government through November, thereby avoiding the possibility of a shutdown at the end of this month. Democrats how vowed not to support it in the Senate.
The vote was 217-212, with one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, joining Republicans in voting yes. Two Republicans — conservative Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Victoria Spartz of Indiana — and all other Democrats voted against the bill.
The short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, now heads to the Senate, where Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats have vowed to defeat it and have offered their own competing funding plan.
The competing plan offered by Democrats includes a bunch of spending they know Republicans won’t support, such as restoring funding for public broadcasting.
It would permanently extend Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, as well as reverse Medicaid cuts enacted in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
It also addresses Trump funding cuts that have infuriated Democrats in recent months: It would lift the freeze on foreign aid funding that the White House is withholding through “pocket rescissions” and restore funding for public broadcasting.
Speaker Mike Johnson has been making the case that Republicans just want a little time to finish the budget through regular order. That’s why they passed a clean CR. He says Schumer’s counter offer is full of poison pills designed to force a government shutdown.
🚨 BREAKING: It’s just been exposed that Chuck Schumer and Democrats in Congress are demanding free health insurance for illegal aliens, half a billion dollars for NPR, and a $1.5 trillion spending increase in exchange for averting a government shutdown. NO WAY. STAND STRONG. pic.twitter.com/z4IsdmLj8t
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 19, 2025
So it seems pretty clear Democrats are committed to forcing a shutdown. The obvious question is what is their endgame? Yesterday, Politico reported it’s not clear that they have one. Put another way, what would a win look like in this situation? No one seems to know.
…under tremendous pressure from their base to show that they are willing to fight President Donald Trump, Democrats are flirting with a politically risky shutdown without a firm exit plan or even an idea of what victory might look like.
“We may not have the luxury of a victory scenario,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “I think what we’re trying to do is avoid things getting worse. I don’t think victory is in anyone’s hopes and dreams in this moment.”…
Unlike in March, when Schumer flinched in a similar standoff, party leaders are now betting they’re on firmer political ground for a fight. But it’s still not clear just how comfortable Democrats, who have generally tried to portray themselves as Capitol Hill’s “adults in the room,” will feel as a possible Oct. 1 shutdown grows nearer — or after one comes to pass.
Another sign of how shaky the ground is on which Democrats are standing comes in the form of this MSNBC columnist warning Democrats this probably won’t end well for them.
Under pressure from their loudest supporters to stand up to President Donald Trump, they are laying the groundwork to shut down the government at the end of this month. But while there are reasonable arguments in support of a shutdown, it’s a fight that Democrats would most likely lose, and they should do everything to avoid it….
Democrats will undoubtedly convince themselves they while they most likely can’t force Trump’s hand, they can win the battle of public opinion. According to reporting this week by Axios, they plan to do it this time by making the shutdown “about health care, which they bet will win over voters.”
That’s a lousy wager. As Matt Glassman, a political scientist at Georgetown University and expert on congressional procedure, points out, the party responsible for a government shutdown always loses the public opinion battle — and the policy fight that sparked the shutdown in the first place…
A shutdown fight might bring an “emotional catharsis” to Democrats, but it would be unlikely to bring victory.
The reality here is that Democrats know this is a bad idea. Chuck Schumer in particular figured this out last time we nearly had a shutdown. But the reaction to that on the left was calls for his resignation. So this time around he really doesn’t have much of a choice. The base of the party thinks they aren’t fighting hard enough so they are going to march into this disaster because anything else would be seen as compromising with the enemy.
There seems to be a consensus right now that this is going to end badly, but I don’t think Republicans can afford to get complacent. Why? Because who gets blamed for this ultimately comes down to how the media covers it. If they cover this shutdown the same way they do when Republicans force a shutdown, then Democrats are in trouble. But the national media is full of partisan hacks who knows a lot is at stake here. I wouldn’t put it past them to come up with a completely new approach to their coverage to protect team blue from the consequences of their own actions.
Here’s what to watch for. In prior shutdown scenarios, the media focuses on the regular people losing paychecks as a result of the shutdown. All of those government workers and military families will face difficult circumstances in a shutdown. If the media covers that angle this time, Democrats are cooked. But they could instead take the path Democrats are laying out for them and focus on how Dems are fighting to save healthcare. They can paint the instigators as heroes rather than villans.
Is that fair? No of course not. It’s complete partisan hackery, but it’s really the only hope Democrats have. And everyone reading this site knows that when it really counts, the left-wingers in the media are not above putting a finger on the scale. This could be one of those big moments so keep a close eye on the media coverage in the next week. This week the coverage hasn’t been positive, but next week could be a whole different ballgame.
Join Hot Air VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
