By Katy Stech Ferek, Alex Leary and Lindsay Wise
WASHINGTON -- The federal government was on course to shut down early Wednesday, after Senate Republicans and Democrats rejected rival proposals that would have prevented the first lapse in funding since President Trump's first term.
Trump issued new threats to Democrats on Tuesday while also signaling he could be open for more discussions regarding their demands for healthcare funding. Disagreements among Republicans on healthcare policy and pressure on Democrats from the party's left flank ended any hopes for dealmaking, with funding running out at 12:01 a.m. A meeting Monday at the White House involving Trump and congressional leaders of both parties yielded no agreement.
A shutdown would push the U.S. into uncharted territory. White House officials, who have been eager to cut the government workforce, said they would use a lapse in funding to carry out mass firings of federal workers, on top of the typical furloughs of hundreds of thousands of employees.
Late Tuesday, Democratic senators again rejected a Republican measure extending government funding for seven weeks, while Republicans rejected Democrats' proposal. Both measures had failed previously. While Republicans have a 53-47 Senate majority, 60 votes are needed to advance any bill.
Shortly after the failed votes Tuesday night, White House budget director Russell Vought said federal employees should report to their next shift to "execute their plans for an orderly shutdown."
Trump said earlier that the country was doing well and "the last thing we want to do is shut it down." But he warned he could use a lapse in funding to flex his executive powers at Democrats' expense. "We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them," he said, pointing to possible workforce and program cuts.
Early in the day, Democrats leaned on Trump to rally Republicans behind some sort of deal, while questioning whether he was taking the situation seriously, after he posted a late-night AI-generated video mocking Democrats.
"It's only the president who can do this. We know he runs the show here, " Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Tuesday on the Senate floor. Still, he said, "we have less than a day to figure this out and Donald Trump is busy tweeting deepfakes."
Schumer later said Trump's threats about cuts to jobs and services show he was admitting "that he is using Americans as political pawns."
The Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that about 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed in a shutdown. All government workers typically get back pay, though contractors might not.
The president has largely avoided engaging publicly on Democrats' demands, instead defaulting to talking points casting Democrats as holding out for benefits for immigrants who entered the country illegally. In his comments to reporters Tuesday, Trump said of Democrats: "We had a good discussion, and we're going to see what happens. We're going to see what happens."
Regarding healthcare, he said he suggested changes to "make Obamacare much better" but said Republicans can't allow Democrats to "charge tremendous amounts of money for health care for people that aren't even citizens."
Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) said that rather than defending their positions on the merits, "it seems like the only sentence that Republicans can form these days consists of a noun, verb and 'illegal immigrant.' "
Schumer, who in March agreed to vote with Republicans to keep the government open despite sharp opposition from many Democrats, has vowed this time to hold the line. The GOP bill failed Tuesday evening on a vote of 55 in favor, 45 against, short of the 60 required.
One Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against the bill. Three members of the Democratic caucus voted with Republicans: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Angus King of Vermont.
"I want to stand up to Donald Trump, but to me, handing him more power is not standing up to him -- it's just the opposite," said King, who added that he feared mass firings or program cuts. Cortez Masto said a shutdown would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to the "reckless" Trump administration.
Democrats want to restore hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare funding. They are focusing in particular on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire this year but also demanding that cuts to Medicaid be restored. Their effort, which proposed funding the government through Oct. 31, failed in a party line Senate vote, with 47 in favor and 53 opposed.
Republicans reiterated that the House passed the GOP plan to fund the government through Nov. 21 and said Senate Democrats were being unreasonable for holding out for healthcare spending now -- rather than discussing the matter after passing the short-term patch.
"The president is ready to sign it," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said in a floor speech. "Senate Democrats are standing in the way."
Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said Schumer was bowing to the left wing of his party. "The American people should not suffer the cost and the consequences of a Schumer shutdown because he is politically toxic in his own party," he said.
The Trump administration has broad latitude to determine which workers are essential or nonessential during a lapse in funding. A shutdown would restrict a range of government operations, though critical services would continue, and Americans would continue to get Social Security payments and mail deliveries.
Democrats have brushed off the threats of firings, saying that Trump officials have already laid off swaths of the federal workforce since January.
Talks on Monday between Trump and congressional leaders failed to produce a bipartisan path forward. Some Republicans are eager to work with Democrats to save the enhanced ACA subsidies, which were first passed in 2021 by Democrats during the Covid-19 pandemic, while others say they are bad policy.
"We're not trying to chop the traditional ACA subsidies, we're just letting this other one sunset," said Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.).
If the enhanced ACA subsidies expire, millions of Obamacare enrollees could see their health-insurance bills rise, often by hundreds of dollars or more a year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) canceled votes this week in an effort to box in Democrats. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) ordered Democrats to come to Capitol Hill to be ready to act quickly in the unlikely event that a bipartisan deal came together, as well as to show the public they were at work while Republicans weren't.
"We're on duty. They're on vacation," Jeffries said as Democrats crowded behind him on the House steps. "They're on vacation because they'd rather shut the government down than protect the healthcare of the American people. That's unfathomable."
Write to Katy Stech Ferek at katy.stech@wsj.com, Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com and Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 30, 2025 20:38 ET (00:38 GMT)
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