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NEED TO KNOW
- The government shutdown has now dragged into day 36, becoming the longest in history
- The previous shutdown lasted from December 2018 to January 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first term
- Democrats are demanding Republicans negotiate extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year for millions of Americans
The government shutdown has officially become the longest in history as the impasse between Democrats and Republicans reaches its 36th day. Millions of struggling Americans are now receiving reduced and delayed food benefits, while healthcare subsidies are set to expire.
President Donald Trump has declined to engage with Democratic leaders on ways to end the shutdown. In an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired Sunday, Nov. 2, he said he won’t be “extorted” by Democrats who are demanding Republicans negotiate extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year for millions of Americans.
Trump said Democrats “have lost their way” and predicted they will have to capitulate to Republicans who have said they won’t negotiate until they vote to reopen the government.
“I think they have to,” Trump said. “And if they don’t vote, it’s their problem.”
Trump also said Republican leaders should change Senate rules to end the filibuster, which Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republicans have repeatedly refused to do.
The Senate voted on a short-term government funding bill for the 14th time on Tuesday, Nov. 4, but failed to pass the measure. Lawmakers would need to get 60 votes to move the legislation forward and reopen the government.
Only three members of the Democratic caucus have voted in favor of the bill: Sen. John Fetterman, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Sen. Angus King.
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“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think any of us expected that it would drag on this long,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a daily briefing after the bill failed to pass. “We couldn’t have imagined it’s now tied with the longest shutdown in history.”
Trump and other Republicans have long targeted the Affordable Care Act, often known as Obamacare because it was signed and championed by former President Barack Obama.
In his 60 Minutes interview, Trump called Obamacare “terrible” but did not share a plan to address health care costs. The intention of the Affordable Care Act was to reduce the number of Americans without health insurance.
More than 600,000 federal workers have been furloughed and upward of 700,000 have kept working without pay throughout the shutdown.
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The 2019 shutdown lasted from December 2018 to January 2019 during Trump’s first term, when he demanded that Congress give him money for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
It ended when he retreated from his demands and amid delays at airports across the country. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers also missed multiple paychecks.
