by Chris Brennan
Democrats in Congress might have finally found a viable political message to fight back against their Republican colleagues and President Donald Trump, after getting repeatedly steamrolled this year.
And it hinges on growing American anxiety about health care access, and whether Trump and his Republican allies in Congress shut down our federal government a week from now, when funding for the government expires at midnight Sept. 30.
I had a hunch this was coming earlier this month, when I wrote that Democrats in Congress should use the only power they currently hold – to do nothing – and just sit this one out if the Republicans didn’t offer something for their votes.
Since then, Trump has publicly instructed the Republicans, who control the House and Senate with slim majorities, to avoid negotiating with Democrats for votes on a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open.
And then U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who does whatever Trump tells him, took that a step further. Johnson pulled a fast one last week on U.S. Sen. John Thune, the South Dakota Republican and majority leader in the Senate.
What comes next in the shutdown showdown
The speaker, knowing that both the House and Senate were in recess for this entire week, squeaked by with a narrow vote in the House to approve a seven-week funding bill on Sept. 19. It was, by then, clear that Republicans in the Senate would likely not have the 60 votes necessary to sign off on that legislation.
And that’s just what happened, as the measure failed in a Senate vote just a few hours later that Friday.
So what did Johnson do? He jammed Thune and the Senate on his way out of Washington.
House members were scheduled to return to work next week on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 – the deadline to fund the government or shut it down. But Johnson canceled the House sessions for those two days, ensuring that our representatives will have no chance at finding a workable solution before the deadline.
The Senate is set to return to Washington on Monday with nobody in the House to work with. Thune can either find a way to pass the House bill, which already failed in his chamber last Friday, or shut down the government.
Those are the only options Johnson left him.
What comes next? Well, Johnson and Thune will try to cast a shutdown – the potential for now, the reality, if it happens – as the fault of obstinate Democrats who would not vote for the continuing resolution. The House speaker was working that messaging on social media last week, the day before he jammed the Senate Republican leader.
Trump, the politician who insisted the Democrats be boxed out of any effort to keep the government open, on Sept. 22 had his White House issue a statement accusing them of threatening a shutdown “over radical left insanity.” That’s not true, of course, but it is a strong signal that Trump is worried.
Democratic leaders in Congress, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, are offering an off-ramp to a shutdown.
Schumer and Jeffries, on Sept. 20, wrote a letter to Trump that comes out swinging with this: “We write to demand a meeting in connection with your decision to shut down the federal government because of the Republican desire to continue to gut the (health care) of the American people.”
Democrats might actually have a winning strategy
The Democrats want to negotiate a continuing resolution to fund the government that includes money to pay for subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. They also want to roll back some of the Medicaid cuts included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which he signed on July 4.
Here’s why that might work: Obamacare is popular among Americans, while Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is not. And advocating for Americans to have and keep health care services is not “radical left insanity.”
You know things are tough when Trump has to send Vice President JD Vance out on a rebranding tour for his signature legislation, which swaps short-term tax breaks for some American workers for Medicaid cuts and permanent tax cuts for some of the country’s wealthiest people.
Trump on Sept. 20 responded to the Schumer/Jeffries demand for a meeting like this: “I’d love to meet with them, but I don’t think it’s going to have any impact.” Translation: He doesn’t want a meeting. He wants them to fold.
There’s a solid reason for Democrats to hold firm and not fold, like they did when the last shutdown loomed in March.
Trump holds the record for the longest government shutdown, 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019, when he threw a tantrum during his first term after Democrats would not give him $5.7 billion to pay for more of his beloved border wall.
Trump backed down then, and he took the blame for the shutdown. Democrats should refuse to vote for any continuing resolution until Trump and his congressional allies negotiate in good faith.
This is Trump’s mess. He made it. Make him fix it.
Author is a USA TODAY columnist
