The Latest: Vote to end government shutdown fails as Democrats hold firm on health care demands

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The U.S. Senate adjourned for the day on Wednesday with no resolution on how to reopen the government.

Blame was being cast on all sides on the first day of the shutdown. A vote to end the government shutdown failed earlier Wednesday, as Democrats in the Senate held firm to the party’s demands to fund health care subsidies that President Donald Trump and Republicans refuse to extend.

At issue are tax credits that have made health insurance through the Affordable Care Act more affordable for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The credits are set to expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t extend them — which would more than double what subsidized enrollees currently pay for health insurance premiums, according to a KFF analysis.

Senators will return Friday, after a break for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, to vote again on a GOP measure to extend federal funding for seven weeks.

Here's the latest:

Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, announced his “difficult decision to request retirement from the United States Air Force for personal and family reasons” in a post on his command’s Facebook page late Tuesday.

He had been tapped to take over as the service’s No. 2 uniformed officer after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suddenly fired the general in that job without explanation in February. The Air Force didn’t respond to questions seeking more information about Bussiere’s decision to retire.

Bussiere’s announcement came the same day Hegseth told a gathering of top military leaders that if they disagreed with his approach to leading the nation’s military, “then you should do the honorable thing and resign.”

Out-of-office email messages for furloughed employees at the Education Department were reset Wednesday with language blaming Democrats for the government shutdown.

“On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution,” the message said. “Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations.”

Some employees tried to change it to something nonpartisan only to see it reverted back, according to an employee who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Some viewed it as a violation of the Hatch Act, which restricts partisan political activity by U.S. federal employees. But people were unable to file complaints because the website for the department’s Inspector General is down during the shutdown. The watchdog’s website has been replaced with a short message: “Due to a lack of apportionment of funds, this website is currently unavailable.”

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— By Collin Binkley

Historically, the U.S. military has been an engine for cultural and social change in America. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s vision for the armed forces he leads runs counter to that.

In comments Tuesday to hundreds of military leaders and their chief enlisted advisers, Hegseth made clear he was not interested in a diverse or inclusive force.

“The military has often been ahead of at least some broader social, cultural, political movements,” said Ronit Stahl, associate professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. ”The desegregation of the armed forces is perhaps the most classic example.”

President Harry S. Truman’s desegregation order in 1948 came six years before the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation in the Brown vs. Board of Education case — and, Stahl said, “that obviously takes a long time to implement, if it ever fully is implemented.”

▶ Read more about the role the military has played in social change

The Department of Interior is keeping on employees needed to approve fossil fuel projects during the shutdown.

The agency is exempting from widespread furloughs employees who work on oil, gas and coal leases and permits, according to contingency plans for Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management.

That would allow the administration to push ahead with plans to spur more drilling and mining by private companies on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico.

The land bureau plan cites a “National Energy Emergency” that critics accuse the Trump administration of fabricating to further its energy agenda.

About one quarter of the land bureau’s employees and most of the ocean bureau’s employees would be furloughed for the shutdown, the plans show.

Past shutdowns show that it’s hard to win major concessions by closing the government.

In 2018, the government shut down for three days as Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, insisted that any budget measure come with protections for young immigrants known as “Dreamers” under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. They voted to reopen after then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised only a vote on the issue.

Later that year, Trump forced a shutdown over funding for his border wall and retreated after 35 days as delays at the nation’s airports intensified and hundreds of thousands of federal workers missed paydays.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Republicans triggered a shutdown in 2013 over Obama’s health care law. Bipartisan negotiations in the Senate finally ended the shutdown after 16 days, and Republicans did not win any major concessions on health care.

“I don’t think shutdowns benefit anybody, least of all the American people,” Thune said.

Congress had few fans with the American public, even before the shutdown.

It’s hard to find an American who has “a great deal” of confidence in the way Congress is being run, according to AP-NORC polling. Only 6% said they had a high level of confidence in the people running Congress in polling from this summer. About half had “only some” and 44% had hardly any confidence in how Congress was being run.

Confidence tends to be low among Democrats and Republicans, regardless of which party is in power. About 10% of Republicans had “a great deal” of confidence in Congress, compared to 2% of Democrats.

A record 24 million people have signed up for insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, in large part because billions of dollars in subsidies have made the plans more affordable for many.

With the expanded subsidies in place, some lower-income enrollees can get health care with no premiums, and high earners pay no more than 8.5% of their income. Eligibility for middle-class earners is also expanded.

When the tax credits expire at the end of 2025, enrollees across the income spectrum will see costs spike. Annual out-of-pocket premiums are estimated to increase by 114% — an average of $1,016 — next year, according to an analysis by KFF.

Democrats have insisted an extension of the health subsidies needs to be negotiated immediately as people are beginning to receive notices of premium increases for next year.

At the White House on Monday, congressional Democratic leaders shared their health care concerns with Trump. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said after the meeting that Trump “was not aware” that so many Americans would see increases to their health care costs.

▶ Read more about the health care issues central to the shutdown here

The government shutdown puts even more stress on the system that keeps planes safe when air traffic controllers are already stretched thin and relying on outdated equipment that breaks often.

The president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Nick Daniels, said a shutdown that forces air traffic controllers to work without a paycheck only adds to the stress.

“They’re out there working right now with critical staffing — the lowest staffing we’ve had in decades of only 10,800, where there should be 14,633. And on top of that, they’re working with unreliable equipment,” Daniels said. “Anything that adds to that stress and pressure absolutely puts them in a position to not be able to operate at their peak performance.”

During the last shutdown that drug on for 35 days, some controllers even got second jobs to help make ends meet.

If the system can’t handle all the flights scheduled safely, the FAA will impose restrictions, leading to more delays and cancellations for travelers.

Funding for the $8 billion program that provides food assistance to pregnant women, babies and young children is almost depleted, but states likely have enough resources to maintain normal operations for one to two weeks during a government shutdown.

That includes new enrollments in most states in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, according to Ali Hard, policy director for the National WIC Association. One state, Mississippi, has halted applications during the shutdown, according to a web posting.

“We feel good about one to two weeks,” Hard said. “After that, we are very worried.”

The program serves nearly 7 million women and children per month, about half of those eligible in the U.S.

The president spoke to Qatar’s ruling Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on Wednesday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The White House did not offer details about the call, but it came hours after the administration published a notification that Trump this week issued an executive order vowing to use U.S. military action, if needed, to defend Qatar.

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— By Michelle L. Price

Treasury’s Inspector General said while the 2025 tax filing was successful with several key improvements, the IRS watchdog has concerns about how Department of Government Efficiency cuts earlier this year will impact the 2026 Filing Season.

“Key IRS functions responsible for managing the filing season have lost 17 to 19 percent of their workforce” as a result of the cuts, the report released Wednesday states.

It also points out how new legislation will put added strains on the agency.

The report says the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will require the IRS to make substantial changes ahead of the 2026 Filing Season, “but the agency will have fewer Information Technology resources to timely update processing systems.”

A coalition of cities and counties largely in California are suing the Department of Homeland Security for conditioning $350 million in federal disaster prep funding on acquiescence to the Trump administration’s policies on immigration and diversity.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in California, local officials say they now must “either accept conditions that are unconstitutional and contrary to law, or lose millions of dollars” from the Federal Emergency Management Agency used to prepare for and mitigate disasters.

San Francisco and Santa Clara County are leading the coalition of 29 local governments, which also includes Los Angeles, several Washington state counties and Tucson, Arizona. The FEMA grant money is used for a variety of needs, such as bomb-defusing equipment, training for emergency personnel and preparing for major events, including Super Bowl LX and the FIFA World Cup next year.

The Trump administration wants local governments to assist with federal immigration enforcement and reject programs that promote diversity and equity.

Rep. Mark Pocan, a progressive Democrat from Wisconsin, is urging fellow Democrats and activists on the left to aggressively call out Republicans for falsely saying that the shutdown is about whether to give health care benefits to people in the U.S. illegally.

It has been a longstanding federal policy that immigrants without legal status are ineligible for federally-funded health care coverage.

“Call it out,” Pocan said, using an expletive to characterize the attacks by Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP members of Congress.

Pocan said states policies like those California extend some Medicaid coverage to residents regardless of their immigration status.

“That’s not federal dollars,” he said, emphasizing that federal law bars federal money from Medicare, Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act from going to people without legal status.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune says that his message for senators trying to cobble together a bipartisan solution for funding the government is “when you have critical mass, come and talk to me.”

That means any bipartisan fix will need support from at least eight Democrats.

Thune, a South Dakota Republican, gave no sign a negotiation was happening among leaders and appeared resigned to allowing the funding bill to sit in the Senate for at least several days.

The Senate adjourned for the day on Wednesday with no resolution on how to reopen the government.

The government shut down Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. after Democratic senators voted against a Republican bill to extend funding for seven weeks. They argue it should include funding to extend health care subsidies.

Senators will return Friday, after a break for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, to vote again on the GOP measure.

The videos, which had been shared by Trump shared on social media and were widely condemned as racist, began playing on monitors in the briefing room Wednesday afternoon.

One deepfake video has Schumer implying that Democrats seek to give free health care to immigrants in the country illegally while Jeffries, standing beside him, is depicted as wearing a Mexican sombrero and fake mustache. A second video, showing a clip of Jeffries condemning the first as “disgusting,” again depicts him that way.

It is Hispanic Heritage Month.

The minority leader responded with a meme of his own superimposing an image of Vance with a fat head and curly, long hair on a video of him in the briefing room earlier.

“JD Vance thinks we will surrender to the Republican effort to gut healthcare because of a Sombrero meme. Not happening Bro,” Jeffries wrote in a post on X.

At least eight federal agencies are publicly blaming the government shutdown on Democrats or the left, a move critics say misuses U.S. government websites in a partisan messaging war.

Meanwhile, several other agencies have posted neutral messages on their websites, noting the lapse in appropriations may disrupt some services.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday on its website blamed the “Radical Left” for any potential shutdown. By Wednesday, similarly-toned messages had popped up on at least seven other agency websites, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.

Some questioned whether the postings violated the Hatch Act, an 80-year-old law that restricts partisan political activity by federal employees. HUD officials pushed back on claims their post violated the law, noting the banner did not refer to an election, and did not mention any party or politician by name.

Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine faulted leftwing groups for causing the government shutdown and said it’s hurting working people in his state.

Golden, a moderate Democrat, said in a statement the shutdown “is the result of hardball politics driven by the demands far-left groups are making for Democratic Party leaders to put on a show of their opposition to President Trump.”

He said some Republicans have “reasonable concerns about tax credits going to high-income households” and there’s still time to broker a deal.

“There’s room and time to negotiate. But normal policy disagreements are no reason to subject our constituents to the continued harm of this shutdown,” Golden said.

Golden also said he felt the shutdown hands more power President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration sees the president’s threat last week to put 100% import taxes on pharmaceutical drugs as jumpstarting new investments in domestic manufacturing.

Trump did threaten to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs starting on Wednesday, but there has yet to be an executive order signed by the president doing so. The reasoning to hold off on tariffs is that companies are being given time to reduce the prices they sell their products for in the U.S. to match the lowest prices charged in other industrialized nations, according to a White House official who insisted on anonymity to describe the administration’s plans.

The thought is that the tariffs are forcing concessions by pharmaceutical drug companies as evidenced on Tuesday by Pfizer, which received a three-year grace period on tariffs after announcing price reductions and a $70 billion investment in its American operations.

A “significant number” of staff who work in the Executive Office of the President were furloughed, while Trump’s senior staff and some commissioned officers continue to work, Leavitt said.

Critical White House functions continue, and many executive offices are operating with skeleton staffing, she said, including the press office.

But concerned citizens and others won’t be able to get through to the White House switchboard or comment line until the shutdown ends. Both have recorded messages explaining why no one is answering the phone.

“We apologize, but due to the lapse in federal funding we are unable to take your call. Once funding has been restored, our operations will resume. Please call back at that time,” the White House switchboard says.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, said Wednesday that Republicans are being disingenuous in their demands that Democrats support a so-called “clean CR” bill that would reopen government at current spending levels because they could just turn around and further slash government as soon as it reopens.

Pocan said a conference call with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee that Republicans used what’s called a “recission” process this summer to cut $9 billion of foreign aid and support for public broadcasting that Congress already had approved. Republicans did that after Democrats in March agreed to a continuing resolution that avoided a government shutdown.

“They broke their agreement by letting the president steal funds through recission,” Pocan said. “That’s not a continuing resolution” in practice, he said. “I don’t want to get lost in process, but if you can’t trust the people you’re negotiating with ... it makes it very hard to have those negotiations.”

The last government shutdown took place in late 2018 and early 2019, after Trump demanded money for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

In an AP-NORC poll conducted during that shutdown, about 7 in 10 Americans said Donald Trump had “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the partial shutdown. About 6 in 10 said that about Republicans in Congress, and roughly half said that about Democrats in Congress.

It was seen as a significant problem at the time. About two-thirds of U.S. adults said the partial government shutdown was “a major problem for the country.”

Democrats were more likely than Republicans to see it as a large issue. About 9 in 10 Democrats said this, compared to just one-third of Republicans.

About two-thirds of registered voters in a recent NYT/Siena poll said the Democrats should not shut down the government even if their demands were not met. That poll was conducted last week, before the shutdown.

Registered Democrats may have been more enthusiastic to see their party’s leadership force a shutdown: 47% said the Democrats should refuse to fund the government if their demands were not met. The move was less popular among independents and Republicans. About 9 in 10 Republicans and roughly 6 in 10 independents said Democrats should not force a shutdown.

But depending on what happens next, there could be plenty of blame to go around.About one-quarter of registered voters said they would blame Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress if a shutdown happened, while about 2 in 10 said they would place blame on congressional Democrats. About one-third said they’d blame both sides equally.

▶ Read more about federal shutdown poll

The White House is targeting numerous Democratic-leaning states for a pause or cancellation of infrastructure funds on Day 1 of a government shutdown.

OMB Director Russ Vought said on X Wednesday that roughly $18 billion for New York City infrastructure projects had been put on hold to ensure funding wasn’t flowing to “unconstitutional DEI principles.” Later, he said nearly $8 billion in clean energy funding “to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.” He listed 16 states as impacted.

Democrats said the White House was attacking the jobs of thousands of hard-working Americans across the country. “This is a job killing administration,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said when asked about Vought’s tweets. “Job creation is down, but you know what’s up? Costs.”

Potentially life-saving forecasting by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service mark one of few areas of the government that will not be disrupted by the federal shutdown, according to U.S. agencies.

That’s important as the country still faces the threat of severe storms yet this hurricane season, and the agencies are tasked with critical storm monitoring, issuing warnings and protecting against significant harms from extreme weather.

Concerns over the impact of the shutdown on the NWS and the nation’s ability to properly warn people of increasingly severe weather threats come as the Trump administration has attacked the agency with cuts to its staffing and resources throughout the year.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said in a blog that “weather, water, climate observations, prediction, forecasting, warning, and related support,” along with fishery management, would continue during the shutdown, while less-critical NOAA research activities would cease.

The White House’s budget director, a chief architect of Project 2025, told House Republican lawmakers that federal reductions in force — which are essentially layoffs and firings — could come in the next couple of days.

That’s according to a person familiar with the private conference call but unauthorized to discuss it.

Leavitt was asked about Trump posting, then deleting, last weekend an apparently AI-generated video of himself appearing to promote a medical conspiracy theory about a “medbed,” which is supposedly able to cure ailments for anyone laying in it.

She explained the post by offering, “I think the president saw video, and posted it, and then took it down.”

“And he has the right to do that. It’s his social media. He’s incredibly transparent,” Leavitt added.

Leavitt didn’t speak to the conspiracy theory behind the video, but said of Trump: “He likes to share memes. He likes to share videos. He likes to repost things that he sees other people post on social media as well. And I think it’s quite refreshing that we have a president who was so open and honest, directly, himself.”

Leavitt also said that, “Many a times on truth you are hearing directly from the United States.”

Kushner served as a senior adviser during Trump’s first term and has resurfaced as an informal adviser to Trump as he helps push the president’s 20-proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal to end the war in Gaza.

Kushner’s private equity firm has received hundreds of millions of dollars from wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, a key interlocutor of Hamas. His business connections in the Middle East are raising questions from Democrats and beyond about whether Kushner’s personal business dealings presents a conflict of interest.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “despicable” to suggest that Kushner’s involvement is inappropriate.

“Jared is donating his energy and his time to our government, to the president of the United States, to secure world peace, and that is a very noble thing,” Leavitt added.

The U.S. president on his social media site said that China isn’t buying American soybeans for “negotiating” reasons in trade talks.

Trump repeated his promise to divert some tariff revenues to help soybean farmers as he said that talks at the end of October with China’s leader Xi Jinping will focus on this issue.

“I’ll be meeting with President Xi, of China, in four weeks, and Soybeans will be a major topic of discussion,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Minnesota’s state auditor is warning that Congress’ inaction on the looming year-end expiration of health insurance tax credits is straining people in her state now.

The expiring Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies, which Democrats are demanding be extended before they vote for a funding measure to reopen the government, are already forcing people to make tough decisions, the Democratic Julia Blaha said in a call with reporters Wednesday.

For example, she said, rural Minnesotans staring down high health insurance premium spikes next year due to the expiring credits may be forced to move to cities to earn higher salaries to afford their coverage.

“If you are trying to decide whether you can live in that home your dad built or you have to move miles away from everyone you know, you’re feeling it now,” Blaha said. “Frankly, at this point, there’s going to be damage whether or not these are extended.”

Republicans have offered to negotiate with Democrats on extending the subsidies after a stopgap funding measure is signed.

Leavitt disputed the concerns raised by Pope Leo about the treatment of immigrants, saying that she “would reject there is inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States under this administration.”

Leavitt pivoted to say that the inhumane treatment was caused by immigrants in the country illegally and blamed the Biden administration for the border crossings.

There have been concerns about the treatment of immigrants in holding facilities and instances in which there was a lack of due process in deportation proceedings. But Leavitt said the administration is acting with absolute humanity in its approach.

“This administration is trying to enforce our nation’s laws in the most humane way possible,” Leavitt said.

Vice President JD Vance played down Trump’s posting on social media of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York in sombrero, saying it was possible to negotiate in good faith even while trolling the other side.

“The president’s joking and we’re having a good time,” Vance said at the White House news briefing.

Vance said it’s possible to “have some fun at the absurdity of the Democrats” and questioned Jeffries calling the post of him in a sombrero as racist.

“I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make this solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop,” Vance said.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia sued President Donald Trump’s administration Wednesday over a policy that bars using money for programs for victims of crime and violence against women for services to those who are in the country illegally.

The states contend that the requirement violates the Constitution because it was put into place after grants were rewarded. They also say that it could strain service providers to determine the immigration status of victims and witnesses. And doing so would cause delays in getting people help and discourage some people from reporting abuse.

The filing was made in federal court in Rhode Island.