Government Shutdown

As the government shutdown enters its fourth week, National Guard units across the country are canceling drill weekends, suspending routine training, and operating without pay for many personnel, according to state National Guard officials across the country. 

In several states, only units preparing for mobilization or conducting mission-critical activities are continuing training, Guard officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Other drills have been postponed altogether, leaving thousands of National Guard members temporarily sidelined and unpaid while force readiness deteriorates.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune placed the Shutdown Fairness Act on the calendar, and it should come up for a vote as the shutdown enters its fourth week. The measure would provide backpay and ongoing wages to military servicemembers and essential federal workers who have not been furloughed. Seems like something Democrats should jump on because they claim to support our troops and federal workers. But a reporter asked him whether he would encourage his Democratic colleagues to support the legislation, Jeffries dismissed the bill as inadequate.

“It’s my understanding that that is not a comprehensive bill that actually is designed to reopen the government, while at the same time, addressing the issues that need to be confronted on behalf of the American people, which include lowering the high cost of living and decisively addressing the Republican healthcare crisis,” Jeffries said. The minority leader’s response signals that Democrats remain dug in on their demands for a broader package that includes extensions of Affordable Care Act tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise put Sen. Jon Ossoff on blast at a press conference Tuesday, accusing him and fellow Senate Democrats of refusing to reopen the government as a campaign fundraising tool and out of fear of their base of support.

“It truly is fear, fear of their own party’s base that has driven the Democrats, especially in the Senate, to shut down the government,” Scalise, R-La., told reporters. “It’s a calculated decision, and the continued votes, including yesterday, to keep the government shut down, has been a direct result of the fear Democrats continue to have of their own party’s base.”

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Every day the Democrat government shutdown drags on, it becomes more difficult for President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency to maintain certain critical operations, a spokesperson told The Daily Signal.

“The Trump EPA is committed to protecting the environment and ensuring America has the cleanest air, land, and water in the world while growing our economy, but Democrats are content to allow our funding to run out,” a spokesperson said. “They are preventing us from securing funding needed to continue these important programs and impeding our ability to deliver clean air, land, and water for Americans.”

But they’re also addicted to engaging in sad, little stunts that at best are embarrassing and at worst are, by their own definition, insurrection-y.

See their pathetic “Choose Your Fighter” video as an example. Or Hank Johnson’s bizarre anti-Trump guitar solo. Or any of Eric Swalwell’s TikTok videos or the embarrassing ones. And, have we mentioned the “TACO” protests yet?

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) delivered a firm warning to his Democrat colleagues on Monday as the partial government shutdown drags past the two-week mark.

“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and pass a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,” Johnson said during a press conference Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sparked a massive backlash from the White House on Thursday after making a “disgusting and revealing” statement about the government shutdown he caused.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, the Schumer Shutdown took effect at 12:01 am on October 1 after two measures to avert the government shutdown failed in the Senate.

The measures needed 60 votes to pass. The GOP-backed measure failed to pass in a 55-45 vote – Rand Paul voted with the Democrats.

Will Senate Republicans go nuclear to end the shutdown?

It’s a fair question, considering how dug in the Democrats appear to be, having voted down a continuing resolution to fund the government over a half dozen times. “The nuclear option,” in Senate parlance, is a process through which the Senate can establish new precedent with a simple majority.

Almost two weeks into a shutdown with no end in sight, some are asking if President Donald Trump, who has previously criticized the 60-vote threshold required to end debate on most bills, could call for the nuclear option to remove the requirement.

A wall of unanimous opposition began to crumble this week when three Democrats in the U.S. Senate broke with their party to support a Republican-backed plan to reopen the federal government.

The shutdown, now in its seventh day, is approaching the first missed paychecks for the federal workforce, increasing pressure on both parties to reach a solution before tens or hundreds of thousands of furloughed employees can no longer pay their bills. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), as recently as Monday, urged his colleagues to “fight” for Obamacare subsidies that Republicans are seeking to debate in a standalone package.

Gridlock has prevented Republican Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) from securing the 60 votes needed to pass a short-term government funding bill, but signs of concession emerged on Tuesday with news that Senators John Fetterman (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Angus King (I-ME) signed on to Republicans’ plan for a clean spending plan, Politico reported.

Multiple rounds of voting have resulted in a 55-45 finish, putting Thune still five votes shy of his goal.

Fetterman has been supportive of the GOP plan since a first vote was held on Sept. 19.

Democrats’ position on the government shutdown contains no small amount of hypocrisy. Even the corporate media have pointed out that people like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were decrying the problems associated with government shutdowns as recently as March.

But the problem with Democrats’ demands, such as they are, goes well beyond hypocrisy. Democrats are insisting on getting their demands met — namely, an expansion of Obamacare, via extension of enhanced subsidies — in exchange for reopening the government. In making that appeal, they’re citing Republicans’ unsuccessful efforts to defund Obamacare, chief of which was the government shutdown in 2013. Viewed from this perspective, Democrats’ position looks even more asinine — they are demanding that they succeed where Republicans (largely) failed.

With the government shutdown, Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy is exposing all the strange, nonsensical initiatives Democrats want funded before it reopens.

For as much as Democrats, like New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, insist this is a war over healthcare, Kennedy decided to read some of the specifics for where that party wanted your tax dollars going before business could resume — none of which sounded like Schumer’s “healthcare” claim.

Footage of Kennedy reading off this list was posted to social media platform X on Tuesday.

“We took out, and here’s what they want us to put back in,” Kennedy said in preface.

Try again, Chucky. pic.twitter.com/sejN2OFcrv

— The Disrespected Trucker (@DisrespectedThe) October 8, 2025

“We found that under President Biden, they were spending $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia. We took that out. The congresswoman [New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] says, ‘We’re going to shut down the government until you put that back in.’