Washington, D.C. entered the third week of the government shutdown amid deepening partisan divisions in Congress. On Thursday, the Senate voted for the tenth time to reject the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) to reopen the government. The vote was 51–45—short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the Democratic filibuster—with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), John Fetterman (D-PA), and Angus King (I-VT) joining Republicans in support of the CR. Following the vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) signaled openness to working with Democrats, promising a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies once the shutdown ends. His remarks, though, came shortly before Senate Democrats blocked a GOP effort to take up the House-passed FY 2026 Defense appropriations bill, a potential vehicle for a minibus combining the Transportation-HUD, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Labor-HHS spending bills.
Earlier in the week, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) warned the shutdown could become the longest in history and refused to negotiate until Democrats paused their healthcare demands and voted to reopen the government. The stalemate deepened after President Trump over the weekend ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use all available funds to pay troops, leading Hegseth to redirect $8 billion in unobligated FY 2025 funds and removing a potential pressure point that could have forced lawmakers back to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, recent polling finds that around 60% of Americans believe President Trump and congressional Republicans bear “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the ongoing shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress. Notably, about half of respondents assign Trump the highest level of blame individually.