For the first time in seven years, a paralyzing closure of the American federal government started on Wednesday morning, after President Donald Trump and his Republican party members could not agree with their democratic opponents about financing government services and healthcare.
The so -called shutdownin which hundreds of thousands of federal employees are driven on leave and non-essential government services come to stop, is a risky political confrontation with high effort between Trump and the Democrats. Both sides are gambling that American voters will blame the other party for the impasse.
The closure became inevitable on Tuesday evening when a Republican bill to extend the government’s financing by seven weeks died in the Senate. According to the rules of the Senate, 60 out of 100 votes were needed to accept it; It received 55 votes for and 45 against. Because the Republicans have 53 seats, they needed support from Democrats.
The Democrats saw a rare opportunity to bring in policy points since Trump returned to the White House in January and the Republicans control both houses of the congress. They demanded that Trump and the Republicans would extend subsidies for health care that ends at the end of this year. They also want cuts on the Public Health Insurance Medicaid, adopted this summer within Trumps Budget Act or the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, will be reversed. They threatened to steer on a government closure if the Republicans would not comment on those requirements.
Bet higher
Although the threat of a government closure regularly returns to Washington, this time the bet seems higher than normal: Trump threatens to permanently dismiss officials, as part of his aim to make the government more efficient. Earlier this year, his former supporter Elon Musk led efforts to do that, as head of the so -called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
According to the White House, those actions can be performed during a government closure. “We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible – things that are bad for them and cannot be undone by them,” Trump said Tuesday, referring to the Democrats. “Like huge numbers of people dismiss and cut back on programs they are for.”
For the Democrats, the Shutdown is therefore politically risky. Their leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, nevertheless insisted on Tuesday evening that his party is fighting for maintaining health care for millions of Americans. Moreover, their supporters want the party to actively resist Trump. This spring Schumer was under fire from party members when he voted for a Financing Act under similar circumstances.
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Democrats are in Shutdown fight for a large dilemma: getting up against Trump or risking that he is breaking the government further
Discussions between leaders of both parties in the White House did not end up on Monday. Trump also reduced the chance of rapprochement by Monday evening a video made with artificial intelligence (AI) to be published on social media In which Schumer with a voice -over denigrating statements were put in the mouth and Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, was depicted with a sombrero and a mustache.
Jeffries published Then a photo of Trump with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019. “This one is real,” he wrote.
Longest shutdown
Without a view of a clear way out, it is unclear how long the closure will take. During Trumps first term, a shutdown lasted a total of 35 days in December 2018 and January 2019. That was the longest government closure in American history. Then financing of Trumps proposed wall along the American border with Mexico was the commitment; Eventually Trump then tied in.
The question is whether a solution can now be found to quickly blow the shutdown again. John Thune, leader of the Republicans in the Senate, announced on Tuesday evening that the house’s proposal will be put back in the Senate again later this week. According to Thune, the Republicans will not negotiate the demands of the Democrats as long as the government is locked; He hopes that more Democrats in the Senate will fear that their party will be blamed for the impasse – and will still vote for the temporary financing law of the Republicans.
On Tuesday evening, three opposition senators did that, including the independent Senator Angus King from Maine (who usually joins the Democrats). After the vote, he warned of ‘permanent damage’ that the closure can cause. “Instead of fighting Trump, we give him more power,” he argued.
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