October 1, 2025

Good Wednesday evening. In this edition: Democrats and Republican point fingers after government shuts down.

• Plus, Lisa Cook, BLS, Navy, nominees and Jane Goodall.

Government Shutdown

The federal government shut down just after midnight amid a funding standoff between Democrats and Republicans — and both sides appear to be only digging in deeper.

• Democrats continue to insist that Republicans negotiate with them on health care, while Republicans have not budged from their position that the "clean" House-passed seven-week continuing resolution (CR) is the only way out.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) argued that since Republicans need Democratic votes in the upper chamber, they have no choice but to negotiate.

• "It's clear that the way out of this shutdown is to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to address the looming health care crisis that faces tens of millions of American families," he said from the Senate floor.
  
  
• "Democrats want to avert this crisis, but Republicans tried to bully us, and it's clear they can't. They don't have the votes. The way out of this is for Republicans to finally roll up their sleeves and get to work."

The New York Democrat noted there were no shutdowns during the four years he was the majority leader.

• "You know why? Because we worked with our Republican colleagues to find a way to keep the government funded," he said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) accused Democrats of wanting a government shutdown and said the only offramp is to vote for the House-passed measure.

• "Chuck Schumer, at the behest of a bunch of liberal, far-left activist groups, has walked his Democrat colleagues into a boxed canyon. There's no way out, folks. There's no way out. This could have been avoided," he said.
  
  
• "Everybody is now asking the question, how does this end? Well, it ends when the Senate Democrats pick this bill up, passed by the House of Representatives, and vote for it."

Republicans have repeatedly accused Democrats of seeking to shut down the government because they want to give undocumented immigrants federal health care benefits, a claim Democrats refute.

• "They make up lies, absolute lies. They say what they're fighting to do is prevent illegal immigrants from getting federal health care dollars. That is a damn lie," Sen. Schumer said.
  
  
• "Not one dollar of Medicare, Medicaid, or the ACA is allowed to go to undocumented immigrants. Not a dollar. Why do they keep saying this? This seems to be their theme. They're afraid to speak to the real issue."

Vice President JD Vance countered that the reversal of the Medicaid cuts that Democrats are pushing for would allow some undocumented immigrants to receive emergency health care at hospitals as well as some who were paroled under the Biden administration to be eligible for taxpayer-funded health care.

• "It's a lie told by the Democrats that they're not trying to give health care benefits to illegal aliens," he told reporters at the White House briefing. "It's a lie that is obviously untrue if you just look at the text that they gave us."

The Congressional Budget Office said that as many as 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed during the shutdown, but the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to permanently fire workers and cut programs.

• "We want to do everything we can to help the American people, but when the Democrats shut down the government, we have to actually do a little triage to make sure the most critical and most essential services are provided," Vice President Vance said.
  
  
• "We are going to have to lay some people off if the shutdown continues. We don't like that. We don't necessarily want to do it, but we're going to do what we have to."

In the meantime, Sen. Thune is expected to keep holding votes on the two competing funding measures that have now been rejected three separate times.

• Senators voted 47–53, along party lines, today to defeat the Democratic proposal that includes the health care provisions.
  
  
• They then voted 55–45 on the Republican proposal, with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), John Fetterman (D-PA) and Angus King (I-ME) voting in favor and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting against.

Sixty votes will be needed to advance any measure in the Senate, meaning at least seven Democrats — but probably eight considering Sen. Paul's repeated opposition — will be required to reopen the government.

• The Senate will be out on Thursday for Yom Kippur but will return on Friday with possible weekend votes on the horizon.

Watch the remarks from VP Vance and Sens. Schumer and Thune.

• Also tune into C-SPAN at 8pm ET for special programming on the shutdown.

In other news…

• The Supreme Court is allowing Lisa Cook to remain a Federal Reserve governor after justices declined to act on an emergency appeal from the Trump administration asking them to immediately remove her from the central bank. The court said it will hear arguments in January over President Trump's attempt to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud.
  
  

• The White House withdrew the nomination of E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics amid a lack of Senate support for his nomination. President Trump tapped the Heritage Foundation economist for the post after he fired former Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in August on the heels of a weak jobs report.
  
  

• The Senate voted 52–45, nearly along party lines, to confirm Hung Cao as the new under secretary of the Navy, the branch's No. 2 civilian post. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) joined all Democrats in opposition.
  
  

• Senators also voted 53–46, along party lines, to advance the second tranche of President Trump's nominees to be considered in a group. The batch of 107 nominees includes Herschel Walker to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas. A final confirmation vote is expected Friday.
  
  

• Jane Goodall, the renowned primatologist considered the preeminent expert on chimpanzees, died at the age of 91. See this video of President Biden awarding her the Presidential Medal of Freedom from January.

For your radar…

• The Heritage Foundation on Thursday hosts a panel of legal professionals to preview the Supreme Court's upcoming 2025–26 term. Watch LIVE on C-SPAN2 at 12pm ET.

Was this email forwarded to you? 
Sign up here

Like this newsletters? Make sure to share it: