On the first day of the U.S. government’s shutdown, both sides signalled they were digging in for the long haul, with Democrats vowing to hold a harder line against President Donald Trump’s fast-moving agenda and the White House threatening to fire public-sector employees and slash spending.
Senate Democrats blocked budget legislation after Mr. Trump and other Republican leaders refused their demands to extend tax credits for people buying subsidized health insurance plans and to reverse earlier cuts to Medicaid.
The shutdown that began Wednesday – the first since 2019 – threatened to leave much of the world’s most powerful government adrift in a test of political wills between Mr. Trump and his newly emboldened opposition.
The move is a response by Democratic leaders to demands from the party base that they do more to fight back against the President. It follows several months in which the opposition has struggled to do anything about the sweeping immigration crackdowns, government layoffs, health care cuts and tariffs that have marked the dizzying opening to Mr. Trump’s second term.
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Leader in the Senate, said Republicans had refused to negotiate on the budget. “Republicans are plunging America into a shutdown, rejecting bipartisan talks, pushing a partisan bill and risking America’s health care,” he said on the floor of the chamber.
The government shutdown has sparked intense political battles, with both parties blaming each other.
The Associated Press
He and other party establishment figures have been accused by the Democrats’ left flank of being ineffective, including for passing on the opportunity to trigger a shutdown in March, despite framing the President as a uniquely authoritarian threat to democracy.
The Trump administration, for its part, also promised to take a tougher stand on Wednesday. Russell Vought, the White House budget chief, announced a series of funding freezes and cuts he said he would be making, targeting Democratic-run jurisdictions. These include US$18-billion in federal funding for a subway extension and a new passenger rail tunnel in New York, and US$8-billion in environmental spending in 16 states.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the administration will also announce “imminent” layoffs of more government employees. Mr. Trump has already used a series of firings and buyouts to cut 300,000 government jobs this year.
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At a press briefing, Vice-President JD Vance said he was confident that it was Mr. Schumer and fellow centrist Democratic senators who would blink first. “I actually don’t think it’s going to be that long of a shutdown,” he said. “Moderate Democrats are cracking.”
The shutdown will see 750,000 federal workers either furloughed or working without pay – everyone from public-health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to airplane safety inspectors – and a range of government services, such as the processing of tax returns, either frozen or slowed down.
Essential workers, including soldiers, border guards and air-traffic controllers, will stay on the job, but will not be paid until the shutdown is over. In past shutdowns, this has driven absenteeism, which could lead to delays for people travelling to the U.S., including Canadians.
Layne Morrison, left, and Courtney Creek, who were let go from their jobs with the Education Department and a USAID funded grant respectively, on Capitol Hill during a rally with former federal employees, on Tuesday.Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press
Over time, the effect for Americans could be more severe as agencies run out of money. Programs that help tens of millions of low-income people buy food and pay rent, for instance, could stop paying benefits. Major social programs such as Medicare and Social Security, however, will be unaffected as they are funded indefinitely and do not need their budgets replenished by Congress.
Democrats are calculating that taking on Mr. Trump over health care is a winning issue. If the tax credits are not extended, they will lapse at the end of the year, making health insurance more expensive for those who buy it through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, system, and throwing an estimated three million people off their health care plans.
As part of Mr. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year, the Republicans also cut US$800-billion out of Medicaid, which is expected to take health care away from nearly eight million people once implemented.
Still, some Democratic figures were cautious about openly endorsing the shutdown. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a potential presidential contender in 2028, told reporters in Toronto that she didn’t have much “insight on D.C.” when asked about the shutdown.
“I continue to be hopeful that common sense prevails, and they don’t devastate the American health care system, because it’s people that will lose out,” she said, after a meeting with Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Since 1981, the U.S. government has been through 15 shutdowns, which happen when Congress and the President fail to pass budget legislation, blocking a portion of government funding. Many of these shutdowns have lasted just a few days, with the longest stretching for more than a month in 2018 and 2019 during Mr. Trump’s first term.
Although Republicans control both houses of Congress, they need Democratic help to reach the 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats.
In an unusual move on Wednesday, many government websites borrowed a page from Mr. Trump’s communications style and posted notices criticizing the Democratic Party or “the Radical Left” for the shutdown.
The White House, for its part, incorrectly framed the Democrats’ position as wanting to give subsidized health care to undocumented immigrants, something that is already barred by law. The two parties disagree, however, over whether people in the country legally under certain programs, such as temporary protected status, should be eligible for health care coverage.
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To press his point, Mr. Trump this week released a video of Mr. Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that had been doctored with AI to include racial and anti-transgender language, and added a cartoon mustache and Mexican sombrero to Mr. Jeffries.
“It’s a disgusting video and we are going to make clear: Bigotry will get you nowhere,” Mr. Jeffries told MSNBC. Mr. Trump then posted to Truth Social a doctored version of this MSNBC video as well, featuring himself playing mariachi music behind Mr. Jeffries.
Asked Wednesday if it was possible to have good faith negotiations with such videos coming from the President, Mr. Vance addressed Mr. Jeffries directly: “I make this solemn promise to you that, if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop.”
With a report from Laura Stone in Toronto.
The U.S. government shut down much of its operations on Wednesday as deep partisan divisions prevented Congress and the White House from reaching a funding deal, setting off what could be a long, grueling standoff that could lead to the loss of thousands of federal jobs.
Reuters