The US Senate failed on Thursday to re-open the government and to vote to fund the military during the federal government shutdown, ensuring that the standoff will stretch into next week.
The Senate vote on a short-term Republican funding bill failed for the 10th time with just 51 votes. A second vote on Pentagon funding in the afternoon similarly failed in a floor vote, meaning the process to begin fully funding military operations also becomes a non-starter. After the votes, senators are expected to leave Washington for the weekend, almost guaranteeing the shutdown lasts until at least Monday.
Thursday’s vote on defense spending exposed how deep the divisions go in the Senate, with only three Democratic senators – Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada – breaking ranks to support the measure. The $852bn bill had sailed through subcommittee in July, led by appropriations committee leaders Chris Coons, a Delaware senator, and Mitch McConnell, a senator from Kentucky, with broad Democratic backing. But the politics on it have fallen apart since then.
“I won’t vote just for the defense appropriations bill, even though that’s my bill,” Coons, the top Democrat on the appropriations panel overseeing military spending, told reporters.
The Senate majority leader, John Thune, made his clearest offer yet to Democrats on Thursday morning, telling MSNBC he would guarantee them a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies – the most crucial ask from the Democratic side – by a fixed date if they agree to reopen the government. “At some point, Democrats have to take yes for an answer,” Thune said.
On Wednesday evening, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pre-emptively rejected that kind of promise during a 90-minute CNN town hall, insisting they need actual legislation signed into law before they will budge.
“I don’t accept IOUs. I don’t accept pinky promises. That’s not the business that I’m in,” Ocasio-Cortez told the audience. When asked if a Trump pledge would be enough, Sanders replied mockingly: “Oh yeah, no doubt, because the president is a very honest man.”
The New York congresswoman and Vermont senator rejected any short-term fix, calling it an attempt to delay political pain until after next year’s midterm elections. “What we will not accept is for the ACA premiums to skyrocket on the American people,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez participate in a CNN town hall, moderated by Kaitlan Collins, in Washington DC on Wednesday. Photograph: Eric Lee for CNN
After the shutdown vote fail on Thursday, the White House put out a press release calling the town hall a “clown show”.
“Make no mistake: Chuck Schumer and his band of obstructionists – on orders from the Radical Left lunatics in control of the party – deliberately shuttered the government to extort their socialist agenda at the expense of hardworking Americans,” the White House statement read.
Meanwhile, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, has kept the chamber out of session for four weeks after Republicans passed their funding bill, with GOP leaders arguing that returning to Washington would only reduce pressure on Senate Democrats. Johnson and the Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, have traded barbs over the month, and have now agreed to debate on C-Span, though no date has been set.
Thune said he would support extending the healthcare subsidies if they included reforms such as income caps, but he would not commit to a one-year extension estimated to cost $35bn annually, and acknowledged he could not guarantee an outcome. He did not rule out the potential for the shutdown to run until Thanksgiving, over a month away: “I hope it doesn’t last through Thanksgiving,” he said.
The standoff has left federal workers without paychecks for weeks, with no end in sight. At the CNN town hall, one worker with four children asked how he was supposed to feed his family. Another woman said her housing was at risk because the shutdown had blocked her government-backed loan.
Ocasio-Cortez tried to reassure them while holding firm: “My hope is that we’re ready to resolve this as quickly as possible.”
