Shutdowns are a periodic feature of gridlocked Washington, although this is the first since a record 35-day pause in 2019, during Trump’s first term.
They are unpopular because multiple services used by ordinary voters, from national parks to permit applications, become unavailable.
“I think our government needs to learn how to work together for the people and find a way to make things not happen like this,” said Terese Johnston, a 61-year-old retired tour guide visiting Washington from California as the government shut down.
“You compromise. You find ways. So everybody gives a little bit, everybody takes a little bit, and things work.”
Democrats – spurred by grassroots anger over the expiring health care subsidies and Trump’s dismantling of government agencies- have been withholding Senate votes to fund the government as leverage to try and force negotiations.
As the messaging war over the shutdown intensified, Vice President JD Vance took centre stage at a White House briefing normally headed by Leavitt to upbraid Democrats over their demands.
“They said to us, ‘we will open the government, but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens.’ That’s a ridiculous proposition,” Vance said in a rare appearance in the briefing room.
US law demands that anyone who presents at a publicly funded emergency room be treated, regardless of their ability to pay. But it bars undocumented immigrants from receiving the health care benefits Democrats are demanding, and the party has not called for a new act of Congress to change that.
