WASHINGTON — Heading into the third day of the government shutdown, senators from both parties continue speaking past each other, even as the House of Representatives remains closed for business.
Republican leaders continue denying Democrats a seat at the negotiating table — a table they say doesn’t exist.
“I don’t know what they’re doing,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story while riding an elevator in the Capitol.
“I hear the Dems saying, ‘We want to make healthcare cheaper.’ Great, so do I, but I don't understand what this has to do with that. I just don't get it. I don't get it at all.”
But most Democrats remain unified in their blockade of the spending bill President Donald Trump keeps demanding they rubber-stamp.
“Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. They control the White House. They control the government,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told Raw Story. “They have a responsibility to govern.”
Washington’s short on leaders these days, though.
‘Act like a king’
On first blush, the only thing bipartisan in the nation’s capital seems to be the finger-pointing.
As the minority party on Capitol Hill, Democrats say they should not be held accountable for Republicans’ failure to fund the government.
“Donald Trump, his own words, has said that presidents should not allow this to happen, so he needs to stop it,” Booker said, referring to 2013 remarks from Trump.
“He needs to take responsibility and step up to the table and bring people together and get something done that is actually going to help Americans with their rising costs.”
But there’s no help on the horizon, especially with the GOP-controlled House still out of town.
“It's very ironic when they send the House away,” Booker said. “It's the height of irony and hypocrisy.”
While Trump and Republican leaders blame Democrats and rebuff efforts to resume negotiations that unraveled at the start of the week, Democrats remain unified.
"We think they miscalculated," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Raw Story on the first day of the shutdown.
"Donald Trump was on TV yesterday saying a shutdown is good. I mean, it's pretty clear he wants this shutdown, because he thinks that it allows him to act like a king."
With Trump using the shutdown as cover to fire more federal workers while freezing federal funds for vital local projects in blue states — like the $18 billion he’s withholding from a new rail tunnel in New York City or the $8 billion for green projects canceled in 16 blue states — Democrats say their resolve has only grown since the federal government ran out of money at 12:01am Wednesday.
"The news today is that the president is deciding to act illegally and shut down funding for Democratic states and keep money flowing for Republican states. This is not a functioning democracy,” Murphy said.
“If the president seizes spending power in order to reward his friends and punish his enemies, that is exactly what our founding fathers worried about. That's exactly why they didn't give the president the power to decide unilaterally where funding goes."
Murphy says there wasn’t a shutdown throughout former President Joe Biden’s four years in the White House because Democrats reached across the aisle.
“We listened to [Republicans’] concerns. We wrote short-term and long-term funding bills that were bipartisan,” Murphy said.
“I know we can win this fight with the American public if we are loud and earnest about it. The American public don't want their [health care] premiums to go up by 75 percent. They don't want this lawlessness."
"So I want us to show a backbone right now. I want us to be loud in our defense of our democracy and our defense of family's budgets not being exploded by health care premium increases. This is not a moment for us to shrink. This is a moment for us to stand tall and explain to the American people what we believe in.”
After a bipartisan effort to keep the government’s lights on this spring, this time Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is following his party’s base and rank-and-file lawmakers — an effort Republicans dismiss.
“I don't see what Schumer gains from it. You know, it gets worse and worse for him,” Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) told Raw Story Tuesday afternoon, ahead of the midnight shutdown.
“I'm trying to picture his speech where he says, ‘We've come to some resolution,’ and I think he's losing his opportunities right now.”
“And that makes this different than times in the past?” Raw Story asked.
“Yeah,” Budd said. “We're the reasonable ones.”
Luckily for entrenched party leaders, bipartisan talks are happening — just off our screens.
‘Get the House back’
If they’re engaging the other side at all, party leaders continue yelling past each other — at least when not attacking the other side with racist memes. Behind the scenes, talks concern what to do about rising health care premiums and, ultimately, how to reopen the federal government.
“I do see room to address some of the concerns expressed, so I'll probably continue those conversations,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) told Raw Story. "There are a number of us who are like-minded, who think we can get this done.”
Even behind closed doors, Shaheen says it’s hard to take Republicans seriously when the House isn’t in town.
“We need to get the House back," Shaheen said.
Veteran Republicans counter that this shutdown is as stupid as past ones, even if the two parties' usual roles are reversed.
“Does this feel different than shutdowns in the past?” Raw Story asked.
“No, they're all the same. They cost money to shut down. It costs money to open government up,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said, in the hours leading up to the shutdown.
At 92, Grassley’s the president pro tempore of the Senate, third in line for the presidency. He’s spent roughly five decades in Washington, where he has now witnessed 11 government shutdowns.
“Government’s supposed to be a service for the American people,” Grassley said. “You can't serve the American people if the government shuts down.”
