Salaries for hundreds of thousands of public sector employees are set to be withheld from Friday, while military personnel could miss their pay cheques from October 15.
And Trump has upped the ante by threatening to have large numbers of government employees fired, rather than just furloughed – placed on temporary unpaid leave – as is normally done during shutdowns.
Republicans are digging in their heels, with House Speaker Mike Johnson telling his members not even to report to Congress unless the Democrats cave, insisting any debate over healthcare be held after re-opening the Government.
Trump echoed the demand in a social media post Monday evening, but appeared to be more open to future negotiations.
“I am happy to work with the Democrats on their Failed Healthcare Policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our Government to re-open,” he said on his Truth Social platform.
Democrats demand an extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies before agreeing to reopen federal departments. Photo / Getty Images
Earlier, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer challenged Johnson to begin healthcare talks immediately.
“If he’s serious about lowering costs and protecting the health care of the American people, why wait?” he said in a post on X. “Democrats are ready to do it now.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which he signed into law on July 4, would strip 11 million Americans of health care coverage, mainly through cuts to the Medicaid programme for low-income families.
That figure would be in addition to the four million Americans Democrats say will lose health care next year if Obamacare health insurance subsidies are not extended – while another 24 million Americans will see their premiums double.
Republicans argue the expiring healthcare subsidies have nothing to do with keeping the Government open and can be dealt with separately before the end of the year.
As the shutdown begins to bite, the Environmental Protection Agency, space agency Nasa and the Education, Commerce and Labour departments have been the hardest hit by staff being furloughed – or placed on enforced leave – during the shutdown.
The Transport, Justice, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs Departments are among those that have seen the least effects so far, the contingency plans of each organisation show.
With members of Congress at home and no formal talks taking place in either chamber, a CBS News poll released on Sunday showed the public blaming Republicans by a narrow margin for the gridlock.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Sunday that layoffs would begin “if the President decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere”.
Trump has already sent a steamroller through Government since taking office for his second term in January.
Spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, 200,000 jobs had already been cut from the federal workforce before the shutdown, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.
– Agence France-Presse