President Donald Trump can’t seem to bring himself to make a deal with congressional Democrats.
While Democrats are fired up for a showdown with Trump, their main demand in negotiations has been the extension of pandemic-era subsidies for health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that would cost $350 billion over 10 years, a relative pittance compared with the more than $3 trillion cost of his “big, beautiful bill.”
Instead, the standoff has become the latest example of a major theme of Trump’s second term: his belief that his victory in last year’s election gave him a mandate to pursue his agenda aggressively and without respect for the typical checks and balances on the presidency.
Democrats’ politics “is what allowed me to win the Presidential Election, including all seven Swing States, and the Popular Vote,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post last week, canceling a meeting with top congressional leaders that was later rescheduled. “There are consequences to losing Elections but, based on their letter to me, the Democrats haven’t figured that out yet.”
From imposing sweeping tariffs to bucking court orders and firing officials at independent agencies, Trump has sought to expand the powers of the executive branch, and he’s faced little pushback from Congress or the Supreme Court.
But the budget fight is different. Because of Senate rules requiring a supermajority to move ahead with the budget, the Democratic minority has some leverage. Along with the extension of the Obamacare subsidies, they’ve asked for a reversal of cuts to Medicaid in the reconciliation bill that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would lead to millions of Americans losing their health care.
Notably, Trump himself promised not to cut entitlement programs — including Medicaid — during his 2024 campaign and has long said he would like to cut health care costs.
After a meeting with the president Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that the president was receptive to the argument.
“He seemed to understand for the first time the magnitude of this crisis,” Schumer said.
Still, the White House’s official position is that it will not negotiate with Democrats on the budget. For their part, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., want Congress to pass a seven-week continuing resolution, leaving the door open to addressing Obamacare subsidies later this year.
“Let’s work on it together, but let’s do it in the context of an open government that’s providing essential services to the American people,” Vice President JD Vance said Monday.
Shalanda Young, a former Office of Management and Budget director who served as House Appropriations staff director during the 2018 shutdown, pointed to the Trump administration’s tariff discussions.“It’s amazing that we negotiate with foreign countries,” she said, adding that the administration “should also” be willing to negotiate with Democrats.
The shutdown wouldn’t be Trump’s first. In his first term, he oversaw the longest shutdown in U.S. history — a partial closure that lasted more than a month — over a fight with Democrats over funding for his border wall. That fight ended with Trump caving and signing a resolution to reopen the government without getting the money he’d requested.
The White House feels like it can pin the shutdown on Democrats, but a handful of early polls show the public so far thinks Republicans will be responsible.
Trump instigated that fight, and polls at the time showed most Americans blamed him. This time, the White House feels like it can pin the shutdown on Democrats, but a handful of early polls show the public so far thinks Republicans will be responsible.
Another wild card only adds to the unpredictability. The Office of Management and Budget drafted a memo preparing plans for mass layoffs of government workers if a shutdown occurs. If the Trump administration follows through on that threat, the shutdown could shift the political conversation from Democrats’ preferred turf of health care to the fate of government workers.
The Trump administration already fired thousands of federal workers, though, with mixed results. The majority of voters now view the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency effort negatively and say the cuts to staff and spending went “too far.” It’s not clear that laying off more federal workers during a shutdown would be a net positive for Trump.
Meantime, Trump made clear, in a very Trumpy way, that he’s not interested in negotiating: by posting an artificial intelligence-generated video on social media mocking Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., with vulgar language and a false claim that they are demanding health insurance for undocumented immigrants.
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