Democrats look to government funding as their leverage against Trump, will we finally get

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Democrats held the Senate floor through the night this week in a painstaking but ultimately futile protest against President Donald Trump’s budget chief.

They’re about to get some real leverage.

Elon Musk’s dramatic reshaping of government, combined with Trump’s torrent of executive actions and a confusing federal spending freeze, have cast serious doubt on the prospects for Congress to fund the government past March 14, according to interviews with a half-dozen senior Democratic senators and several worried Republicans.

Republicans will need Democratic votes in the Senate and the House to avoid a government shutdown and a debt default later this year, given the GOP’s narrow majorities in both chambers. Democrats say they see little rationale now to try to compromise with Republicans who have shown little interest in stopping Trump’s aggressive use of executive power.

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“It feels impossible,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Semafor. “What’s the point of writing a budget if the president’s going to ignore it? It’s a problem without precedent.”

Democrats want assurances from Trump’s White House that any government funding deal would actually be implemented — a guarantee doesn’t seem to be coming, as Musk continues his spending scrutiny and the legally disputed budget freeze lingers. Russ Vought, the conservative nemesis of many Democrats, will soon run Trump’s budget office, another hurdle for a bipartisan funding pact.

House and Senate Democrats got a taste of their future challenges in December, when Trump scuttled a bipartisan government funding accord. The two parties cut a bare-bones agreement to avoid a shutdown, but there’s little evidence of tangible progress since then.

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And Democrats say they are in no mood to deal.

“This president is in this big power grab, saying that he can decide what to spend or not spend on anything. It kinda reduces your motivation to negotiate on stuff,” said Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.

Figuring out how to avoid a shutdown, she added, is “on them now,” referring to Republicans.

Ultimately, Democrats will have few good options if they opt out of negotiations on a spending deal that the administration might not make good on. They could support a “continuing resolution” stopgap bill, though that could eventually trigger a blunt defense cut thanks to a previous bipartisan agreement.

Or Democrats could refuse to supply the votes to fund the government — which would be atypical for the party that typically tries to pin shutdowns on the GOP. Republicans are optimistic that those two bad options will force Democrats to the table.

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“Look at what the alternative is. It’s either a year-long CR — which would still have to pass and get 60 votes and would create enormous problems and would trigger the sequester — or having the government shut down,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the Appropriations Committee chair.

“The Democrats will be responsible for that, if they aren’t cooperating,” she added.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer doesn’t see it that way. He reframed the question as one for Republicans, who struggle to cobble together votes to avoid a shutdown or lift the debt ceiling: “They’re in charge, they have to work with us.”

Still, several senior Democratic sources said the conditions for a real shutdown fight are starting to manifest in the halls of the Capitol. Collins is talking to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., her counterpart on spending, but Murray said she’s “deeply worried” about the situation.

Shutdown talk in Washington is now baked into the news ecosystem, and the last one was a record-breaker from Trump’s first term. Some Democrats say they are more worried than usual this time.

“Because there’s so little dialog and communication,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the minority whip.

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