Voices in both parties say both Democrats and Republicans are looking for a deal that would allow them to save face while ending a shutdown that is causing increasing pain for Americans across the country.
The difficulty is finding a sweet spot that reopens the government and allows both sides to tell their bases with a straight face that they have won.
There is no obvious solution and everyone can only guess what the exact compromise will be. But lawmakers, strategists and other policy experts say two ingredients are crucial to a deal: President Trump and ObamaCare subsidies.
The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced tax credits have been the central sticking point during the months-long lockdown, and both parties have secured public positions that have so far been unchangeable.
Republicans say they won’t negotiate an extension of expiring subsidies – Democrats’ key demand – before Democrats aid reopen the government. Democrats say they won’t aid reopen the government until Republicans negotiate health care. Neither side has given an inch in the month since the government closed its doors — and leaders on both sides publicly insist they won’t.
Breaking the deadlock will be a tender dance, but experts say there are at least a few options to pursue without it appearing as if either side is giving in.
The first involves a commitment from Trump, who sat on the sidelines of the debate, to sit down with a select group of Democrats on a specific date to hammer out a deal to extend ACA subsidies in some form. In return, Democrats would agree to open the government by supporting the “clean” Republican spending bill that has been languishing in the Senate for more than four weeks.
“Everyone will claim victory,” said a Democratic strategist, speaking anonymously to discuss a sensitive issue.
“The Republicans will say, ‘Well, I’m glad they came to their senses.’ And they will be able to claim: “We never gave in; ‘We said we would negotiate if they opened the government,'” the source continued. “We’ll be able to say, ‘We finally got his attention after he was in Asia, and he’s going to sit down. He’s going to get everyone involved.’
“As long as the president says yes, I think everyone would save face.”
Leading Democrats — Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) — have said they simply don’t trust Trump and Republicans to follow through on future commitments to support the ACA, which the president sought to repeal in his first term. Trump recently called the ACA a “disaster” in a Truth Social post and called on Democrats to “do something” before the cost of health insurance premiums rises.
But with the shutdown set to hit millions of low-income people who participate in federal education, nutrition and health programs — and flight delays already making travel from coast to coast complex and threatening to get worse — some observers say the two sides will have little choice but to move toward the other side.
“I think that’s what everyone is secretly thinking – that we’re having a little collapse and that would be helpful for everyone,” the strategist said. “That would be the way out that everyone can use without accepting recognition or blame.”
Craig Shirley, presidential historian and Ronald Reagan biographer, said he believes Trump will sit down with Democrats before Thanksgiving because the holiday could escalate pressure on both parties.
A second way to break the impasse would be for Republicans to promise an up or down vote — rather than just negotiations — on extending ACA subsidies in return for Democrats’ aid ending the shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) presented this strategy in mid-October. Democrats rejected that, saying they wanted a stronger commitment that the ACA reforms demanded by Republicans would not undermine patient benefits.
But some are eager to return to that approach as a condition for ending the shutdown – provided the promised vote also takes place in the House of Representatives and receives Trump’s support.
“Thune said, ‘Okay, we guarantee a vote. We can’t guarantee we’ll win or lose it.’ Good,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the former House Majority Leader.
“Now they can’t just guarantee us a vote in the Senate,” he added. “You also have to guarantee us a vote in the House of Representatives. Because I think we will win both votes.”
If Republicans step down, Democrats could again divorce the government at the next budget deadline, whenever that occurs.
The expiring ACA subsidies pose a dilemma for GOP leaders, who are caught between moderate Republican frontliners who are pushing to expand benefits — and prevent premiums from skyrocketing next year before the midterm elections — and conservative ObamaCare critics who want the tax credits to be phased out entirely.
Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have both criticized the ACA subsidies — and ObamaCare more broadly — as unskilled and ineffective. They say they are only willing to address the expiring tax credits if the law is revised.
“If you look at it objectively, you know it is subsidizing bad policy,” Johnson said this week. “We’re throwing good money into a bad, broken system, and that’s why real reform is needed.”
But Democrats see the shutdown as a way to shed lightweight on health care, which will emerge as a central issue in the 2026 midterm elections. And they have reason to believe that their message is getting through.
A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found this About six in 10 Americans are “extremely” or “very” worried about rising health care costs in the next year. And a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll A study released Thursday found that more Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown than Democrats.
“I think it’s clear that the Trump administration is trying to make this as painful as possible. We’re not about winning politics. This is about making sure people can afford their health care and that hungry people get food, and that’s what we’re fighting for,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (Democrat of California).
Another potential factor in both parties’ political calculations comes Tuesday when voters go to the polls to elect the governors of Virginia and New Jersey and the mayor of New York City. Democrats are expected to win all three races, but a larger-than-expected margin could boost Democrats’ confidence in their shutdown strategy. Conversely, a narrower margin could give Republicans a recent line of attack.
In addition to the ACA subsidies, Democrats have also called for specific language in a budget bill requiring Trump to spend funds the way Congress intended. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that even if Democrats support a short-term stopgap measure to reopen the government, he doesn’t believe his colleagues would sign a full-year budget plan unless it “limits the amount of illegality that occurs.”
“I will not vote for an immoral, corrupt budget, be it a short-term or a long-term budget, that deprives millions of people of their health care and helps Trump participate in his ongoing witch hunt against my allies. I just won’t do it. And again, I think the bar for a short-term deal is different… the longer-term budget will be an opportunity for us to do more to limit its illegality. But I’m interested in far more than a promise or a failure.” Vote,” Murphy said.
After weeks of staying on the sidelines, Trump plunged into the shutdown debate on Thursday, but not in the way many Republican lawmakers wanted. Just hours after returning from a long trip to Asia, the president called on Thune and Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster – the 60-vote threshold that minority Democrats are using to block Republicans’ stopgap bill.
“Now is the time for Republicans to play their ‘TRUM CARD’ and choose the so-called nuclear option – get rid of the filibuster, NOW!” Trump wrote on Truth Socialthe social media company he owns.
The proposal was quickly rejected by a number of Republicans in the Capitol, including Johnson, who warned that it would come back to haunt Republicans once Democrats took control of the upper chamber.
“The filibuster has traditionally been viewed as a very important safeguard,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “If the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t think our team would like it.”
