Bipartisan rank-and-file negotiations on expiring Obamacare subsidies are picking up steam as lawmakers hunt for a shutdown off-ramp. Republicans still say those talks won’t lead to action until the government reopens. Senate Majority Leader John Thune underscored this point in an exclusive interview Wednesday with POLITICO, where he said he needs to see a “critical […]
Category: Politics
Hakeem Jeffries has spent nearly three years in relative anonymity as House minority leader. Now the New York Democrat is treating the government shutdown fight as a potential breakout moment. Shedding his reputation as a cool, careful and sometimes overly calculating leader, Jeffries has staked out a much more aggressive approach in recent weeks as […]
Senate Majority Leader John Thune laid out a path to end the government shutdown in an exclusive interview Wednesday, saying he is willing to discuss the shape of future health care negotiations if a “critical mass” of Democrats say they are willing to support a House-passed funding bill in return. The comments, made in his […]
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said Wednesday he was “overwhelmed” by Pope Leo XIV’s comments on his behalf, made this week after the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago’s decision to honor the pro-abortion-rights Democrat for his immigration work sparked a backlash from conservatives. The pontiff — a Chicago-area native who has voted in elections where Durbin was […]
A bipartisan group of senators is already looking for a way out of the government shutdown. The talks, which played out on the Senate floor Wednesday as lawmakers again voted down dueling partisan funding bills, are still in their early stages. Multiple lawmakers involved said they aren’t close to finalizing a proposal. But the nascent […]
Speaker Mike Johnson and fellow Republican congressional leaders blasted Democrats on Wednesday for opposing their short-term funding stopgap and triggering the pending federal shutdown. Johnson on Wednesday echoed threats from President Donald Trump that a shutdown’s burdens would fall disproportionately on Democrats by slashing blue-state funding and potentially government “benefits.” “The longer this goes on, […]
Welcome to the government shutdown. There’s no sign right now anything will change by this weekend. Congressional leaders are digging in, without any bipartisan meeting on the books for Wednesday. They will, however, host dueling news conferences Wednesday at 10 a.m. before voting again at 11 a.m. on the two opposing continuing resolutions. Don’t expect […]
One small think tank is driving health policy within the GOP. It has also created friction on Capitol Hill and in the White House as Republicans clash over the future of Obamacare. Paragon Health Institute was established in 2021 and has only 11 full-time staffers, but founder Brian Blase is credited with formulating many of […]
Washington is waking up to its first government shutdown in nearly seven years. How many more days that will be the case, no one knows. With President Donald Trump and congressional leaders not actively negotiating, there’s no sign the shutdown will be over before the end of the day. And with Congress dormant for Thursday’s […]
As Washington enters a government shutdown, the Trump administration has erected safeguards to ensure President Donald Trump’s most hardline priorities continue unscathed. Agencies central to Trump’s agenda are shielding certain programs by declaring the federal employees who work on them essential or sheltering them under already approved funding streams — designations that will allow them […]