The federal government shutdown was set to extend through the weekend with no end in sight as Senate Democrats again rejected a resolution to accept a Republican stopgap spending bill and demanded negotiations on President Trump’s health care cuts.
With both sides standing firm, no votes were planned until Monday at the earliest as Trump prepared plans for mass layoffs of federal workers and unilaterally cut $2 billion in funding for a previously approved Chicago subway project.
“The government remains shut because Donald Trump and Republicans insist on raising Americans’ health care premiums and kicking millions off their insurance,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.
“Until they have eight or hopefully more (Democratic senators) who want to decide they want to end the government shutdown, I’m not sure this goes anywhere,” countered Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said.
The Senate voted by 54-44 in favor of the Republican bill, with one senator on each side absent and no lawmakers changing their positions.
Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress. But they need 60 votes in the Senate to pass the government funding legislation, giving minority Democrats a rare opportunity to effectively resist Trump’s controversial agenda.
Democratic leaders are demanding concessions on Trump’s draconian health care cuts and an extension of popular subsidies for the Obamacare health insurance plan, believing health care could be a key issue in the forthcoming midterm elections when they hope to win back a slice of power.
White House budget director Russ Vought, the architect of the far right-wing Project 2025 policy blueprint, said the Trump administration would withhold $2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects, expanding the effort to retaliate against Democratic cities and states during the government shutdown.
Trump, who sought to distance himself from the controversial Project 2025 during his presidential campaign, is now enthusiastically embracing Vought’s hardball tactics. Late Thursday, he posted a video depicting Vought as the Grim Reaper, wearing a hood and holding a scythe.
The Chicago cuts will halt work on a long-awaited plan to extend the city’s Red Line subway through underserved parts of the South Side, a historically Black neighborhood.
Vought claimed the suspension was tied to Chicago’s racial diversity initiatives, without elaborating.
The Chicago cuts came after the White House pushed the pause button on $18 billion in New York-area infrastructure projects, including funding for the Second Avenue subway and a long awaited new rail tunnel under the Hudson River to New Jersey.
Trump also had slashed millions in anti-terrorism grants to blue states, including damaging cuts to the NYPD, FDNY and New York state public safety agencies.
Originally Published: October 3, 2025 at 10:20 AM EDT
