{"id":173984,"date":"2025-10-02T00:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T00:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/173984\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T00:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T00:12:07","slug":"a-righteous-fight-democrats-hold-fast-on-healthcare-but-also-use-shutdown-to-pummel-trump-us-federal-government-shutdown-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/173984\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A righteous fight\u2019: Democrats hold fast on healthcare but also use shutdown to pummel Trump | US federal government shutdown 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finally, after nine months of Donald Trump<\/a> running rampant over much in the government they hold dear, Democrats<\/a> in Congress<\/a> have found the ground on which to fight.<\/p>\n

Pressed to vote for a Republican plan to keep the government open through mid-November, Democrats<\/a> balked, and instead laid out a series of demands that amounted to the undoing of much of what the GOP has accomplished over the past year.<\/p>\n

It was a nonstarter for Republicans and, after days of bluster<\/a> and fruitless<\/a> voting<\/a>, the government tipped into a shutdown just after midnight on Wednesday. For Democrats, that may have been the point \u2013 pummeled by voters last November, the party has been looking for opportunities to remake its case to Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a righteous fight. There is no fight better than this fight right now,\u201d said Massachusetts\u2019s Elizabeth Warren on a live stream with other Democratic senators convened shortly before the chamber\u2019s final, futile votes<\/a> on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

On the surface, Democrats are waging a battle over healthcare, long a signature cause for the party. They want cuts to Medicaid that Republicans approved earlier this year reversed, along with premium tax credits for health plans under the Affordable Care Act \u2013 the signature Barack Obama achievement and constant Republican target \u2013 extended, funding to public media outlets<\/a> like PBS and NPR restored, and a prohibition on Trump\u2019s backdoor attempts<\/a> to cut foreign aid.<\/p>\n

But it is also about standing up to a president whom they see as uniquely dangerous, at a time when he may be especially vulnerable. Trump\u2019s approval ratings are well underwater, lower than even Joe Biden\u2019s at this point in his term. Inflation has not been quelled<\/a> in the way the president promised it would, while the job market is looking shaky<\/a>. And the issue of free speech<\/a> \u2013 dominated in recent years<\/a> by Republicans who have railed against \u201ccancel culture\u201d \u2013 appears up for grabs by Democrats, after Trump and his officials demonized those who did not toe their line on Charlie Kirk, the murdered conservative activist.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are going to get hurt by a shutdown, but they\u2019re also going to get hurt if their premiums go up by 75% when everything else is going up, the cost of car repairs, the cost of food, the cost of school supplies,\u201d the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy said. \u201cAnd people are going to get hurt by a government that\u2019s \u2026 lawless, because if you can\u2019t speak your mind in this country without repercussions, that comes with a cost as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernie Sanders, the progressive independent senator who caucuses with the Democrats and convened the live stream, reminded viewers: \u201cYou have a president who doesn\u2019t believe in the constitution, doesn\u2019t believe in the rule of law, lies all of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate is the arena for this fight because the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation to advance gives Democrats leverage they lack in the House of Representatives. The party could have made this stand in March, when government funding last expired, but the Democratic leader Chuck Schumer balked, leading to a substantial backlash<\/a> from its base.<\/p>\n

Schumer is onboard this time, and so are the groups that rally his voters \u2013 a fact noted with some bitterness by Republicans<\/a> on Tuesday night, after the parties blocked each other\u2019s plans to continue funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenate Democrats have sacrificed the American people to Democrats\u2019s partisan interests. I hope it will be some comfort for Americans dealing with shuttered government services to know that MoveOn.org and other far-left organizations are happy with this vote,\u201d the Senate majority leader, John Thune, said.<\/p>\n

Previous shutdowns have seen federal workers go unpaid and services the public relies on \u2013 such as government offices and national parks \u2013 close down.<\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s bureaucrat-averse office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, has vowed to make this shutdown even more damaging by using it as an opportunity to fire government employees \u2013 something the administration has already been doing<\/a> since January.<\/p>\n

Yet there are already signs that Democrats are nervous about that threat. Three voted for a Republican bill to continue funding on Tuesday evening, with concern for what Trump might do during a shutdown being a common thread.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany feel that this was an opportunity to stand up to Donald Trump<\/a>, to vote no and to fight back. The irony, the paradox is, by shutting the government, we\u2019re actually giving Donald Trump more power,\u201d said Angus King, the Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats.<\/p>\n

The hard reality for Democrats is that shutdowns in the past have rarely succeeded in winning concessions for the side that instigates them. Republicans likely need only five more dissenters from the minority to get their bill through the chamber, and say they will continue holding votes in a bid to exploit the Democratic angst that could already be seen on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not comfortable with anybody\u2019s strategy right now,\u201d said New Hampshire\u2019s Jeanne Shaheen, whose retirement next year will force Democrats to defend a Senate seat in a competitive state. \u201cI think that what\u2019s been lacking has been a commitment from the president, who\u2019s in charge of all three branches of government, and he doesn\u2019t seem to be interested.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finally, after nine months of Donald Trump running rampant over much in the government they hold dear, Democrats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-173984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}