Democrats previously rejected a short-term funding fix, demanding that any funding bill include an extension of federal subsidies for health insurance<\/a> under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The expiration of those subsidies at the end of the year would result in monthly cost increases for millions of people. Democrats also want any government funding bill to reverse the Medicaid cuts<\/a> in President Donald Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.<\/p>\n During an appearance on Fox Business\u2019 Mornings With Maria, Bessent told host Maria Bartiromo that he believed the shutdown had \u201cdragged on\u201d because \u201cDemocratic friends in the mainstream media have been downplaying\u201d it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is getting serious. It\u2019s starting to affect the real economy. It\u2019s starting to affect people\u2019s lives,\u201d\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n Bartiromo asked Bessent whether he believed Democrats were holding out \u201cbecause they want to be there\u201d for an upcoming \u201cNo Kings\u201d demonstration<\/a> in Washington, D.C. <\/p>\n Bessent replied: \u201cIf, in fact, they are waiting for this \u2018No Kings\u2019 protest, you know, \u2018no kings\u2019 means no paychecks. No paychecks and no government.\u201d<\/p>\n The host also asked how the government was going to ensure members of the military did not miss a paycheck despite the shutdown.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bessent said: \u201cAs Vice President Vance said yesterday on your show, we\u2019re having to prioritize payments. So we\u2019re having to hold back on some payments so that our\u2014the brave men and women in the U.S. military can get paid.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are having to shuffle things around. We are having to furlough workers here in D.C. and around the country. We had friends visiting from my hometown. They had to run to the zoo in D.C. on Saturday because now it\u2019s closed down. Nothing is open.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump said on Saturday that he had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use \u201call available funds\u201d to ensure troops are paid on October 15<\/a> despite the shutdown. <\/p>\n A Defense Department official previously told Newsweek that the department had \u201cidentified approximately $8 billion of unobligated research development testing and evaluation funds (RDTE) from the prior fiscal year that will be used to issue mid-month paychecks to service members in the event the funding lapse continues past October 15th.\u201d<\/p>\n While the move ensures troops are paid on Wednesday, no similar action is being taken for federal employees\u2014thousands of whom are being laid off<\/a> while others work without pay<\/a> during the shutdown.<\/p>\n What People Are Saying\u00a0<\/p>\n Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox Business: \u201cI think the dirty secret here for why this has dragged on for so long is the Democratic friends in the mainstream media have been downplaying the shutdown. And this is getting serious. It\u2019s starting to affect the real economy. It\u2019s starting to affect people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Monday: \u201cWe\u2019re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history, unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and pass a clean no strings attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, saying months of work would be needed to reform the ACA: \u201cWe have to fix health care in America, and we have ideas to do it, but we have to have government open and operating to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on MSNBC on Monday: \u201cIt\u2019s day 13 of the Trump-Republican shutdown, and House Republicans have actually now canceled votes for the third consecutive week because they\u2019d rather keep the government shut down than deal with the cost-of-living crisis that exists in the United States of America. And they certainly have no interest in dealing with the health care crisis that they have created.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cSo we\u2019ve made clear from the very beginning\u2014we\u2019ll sit down with anyone, anytime, anyplace to find a bipartisan path forward toward reopening the government. We want to stand with our hardworking federal employees and certainly our men and women in uniform. But we have to enact a spending agreement that actually meets the needs of the American people, and at the same time decisively addresses the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating people all across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n What Happens Next<\/p>\n The shutdown is expected to continue as the standoff between Republicans and Democrats shows no sign of ending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned on Monday that the government shutdown was \u201cstarting to affect\u201d the U.S. economy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,12,101,9292,13410,4666],"class_list":["post-224098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-government-shutdown","tag-mike-johnson","tag-scott-bessent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2239526283.jpg\"\/)
What To Know\u00a0<\/p>\n