Both Republicans and Democrats are digging in their heels, with no sign of White House intervention or a serious breakthrough in negotiations evident as a federal government shutdown approaches the one-month mark.
On Capitol Hill, the House remains out of session and the Senate squabbles over the prospect of standalone resolutions to provide funding for individual initiatives, like pay for air traffic controllers. But as November 1 approaches, the pressure on the legislative branch and especially in individual House districts is going to ramp up considerably — setting a new tone for any talks going forward.
Lawmakers on Tuesday watched as air traffic controllers and a wide range of other federal employees from civilian agencies missed their first full paycheck of the shutdown period. The federal government employs more than one million Americans and with rent traditionally due at the beginning of the month, hundreds of thousands are now facing real, tangible financial instability. Even for homeowners, the burden is significant, with many food banks reporting an influx of federal workers.
For millions of other Americans, another financial cliff lies at the end of the week: A pause on SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps. Food assistance for low-income families is set to expire on October 31 thanks to a deliberate decision by Brooke Rollins, the Trump-appointed USDA secretary. Guidance from the Department of Agriculture stated that officials supposedly believe that it would be illegal to use congressionally-appropriated SNAP emergency funds to cover the shutdown period, contradicting the agency’s own previous guidance issued earlier in 2025.
Democrats are crying foul in Congress, but the administration is playing hardball. Meanwhile, one in ten Americans are set to lose access to federal food assistance benefits in four days.
Vulnerable members of both parties are now caught in the crossfire. Republicans are weaponizing the repeated votes by Democrats against “clean” government funding resolutions against the likes of Jon Ossoff and others they see as easy targets in 2026, while the right is pressing on the continued refusal to negotiate and apparent disinterest in the entire situation shown by the president.
The GOP continues to face pressure from its Democratic opponents on two issues that actually drove the shutdown in the first place, too: Protections for congressionally-authorized spending against Russ Vought’s attempts to axe federal programs and an expansion of federal subsidies for Obamacare plans, which are set to jack up healthcare premiums for millions of Americans if they expire at the end of 2025.
Both sides are adamant that the situation is on the verge of working to their advantage, if not already doing so.
“Look, on November 1st, people in more than 30 states are going to be aghast, aghast when they see their bills, and they’re going to cry out, and I believe there will be increased pressure on Republicans to negotiate with us,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared on Tuesday.
“Trump’s not even in the United States, and Senate Republicans are running exactly the same failed play that brought America to its knees,” he added.
And others in his party seem to be of the mindset that it’s now or never as it pertains to halting Donald Trump and the executive branch from flexing its power any further. Sen. Tim Kaine, whose state of Virginia is home to many federal workers, dismissed a call from leaders of a federal workers’ union for Democrats to drop their resistance and vote for a clean continuing resolution without any concessions. The senator pointed to the Trump administration’s mass layoffs, including some that occurred during the shutdown, and referenced a shattering of trust between the two parties on the Hill and between the two branches of government regarding whether deals agreed upon in Congress will be honored by the White House or even just between congressional colleagues.
“The AFGE would not want us to cut a deal and then have Trump fire a bunch of people next week,” Kaine said, referring to the union. “If we cut a deal and then he did that, they would come to us and say, ‘What the hell were you guys thinking?’”
That breach of trust outlined by Kaine has been blamed by many for the inability of the two parties to cut a deal, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune receiving the cold shoulder after putting forward a plan to guarantee a vote on healthcare subsidies after the shutdown ends in an effort to satisfy Democrats.
Mark Kelly, another purple-state senator, indicated to The Independent on Tuesday that Democrats expected the situation to come down to the president forcing congressional Republicans to cede ground, as he trained his fire on Trump.
“How much time do you think Donald Trump has spent?” Kelly asked, then gave his answer: “About an hour. Less than an hour. About an hour, yeah. How much time do you think he spent on his ballroom?”
“A lot more,” Kelly went on. “Spends more time on his ballroom than he does on Americans’ health care. So we could fix this and wrap this up quickly, if we can get him to engage on it.”
One sign of a fracture within the Republican Senate caucus clearly emerged on Tuesday, even as Vice President JD Vance was on the Hill for a lunchtime meeting with GOP senators. Josh Hawley, the populist Missouri senator, indicated that he was pushing ahead with a bill to extend SNAP benefits through the shutdown — and when asked by reporters to identify the main obstacle to its passage, he named Thune even while he took shots at Democrats for continuing the shutdown until an agreement on healthcare subsidies was inked.
“I mean, he controls the floor, obviously, and this is only going to pass with a vote,” said Hawley of the GOP Senate leader. “I mean, it’s not going to pass by [unanimous consent], someone will object to it, their hold’s on the hotline. So it can’t pass by [unanimous consent], so the only way it will pass is with a vote.”
Thune hasn’t indicated he’s yielding to the calls just yet, though their public nature puts in question his caucus’s unity. Calling a vote on Hawley’s bill, cosponsored by Democratic Sen. Peter Welch, would give it a real shot of passing the upper chamber. Then, the bill would bounce down to the House, where it would become a much, much more politically noxious football for Speaker Mike Johnson to carry. Johnson has kept the House out of session, adamant that the chamber “did its job” by passing a clean CR, and has insisted he won’t bring it back until the government reopens. A House vote on a SNAP bill would also certainly divide Johnson’s caucus, while being supported by a unified Democratic side.
With the end of food assistance on the table in less than a week, it’s very possible that the administration’s attempts to draw a line in the sand (in the absence of Donald Trump’s interest) are about to backfire for Republicans in a massive way.
