Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters during a press conference on Capitol Hill on November 5, 2025 in Washington, DC (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – After major Democratic victories in local and state elections across the country on Election Day, top Democratic congressional leaders pushed for a meeting with the president to end the federal government shutdown, which entered its 36th day on Wednesday, the longest in U.S. history.
“The election results should give Donald Trump the lightning bolt he desperately needs to meet with us to end this crisis, his shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “It’s time to have a bipartisan meeting. The findings from last night were simply unmistakable.”
Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, I sent a letter on Wednesday to President Donald Trump and called for a bipartisan meeting at the White House to end the government shutdown and address the rise in individual health care premiums.
“Last night, Republicans felt the political impact,” Schumer said after the Democrats’ election victories on Tuesday. These included the passage of a redistricting measure in California to offset partisan gerrymandering by GOP states, governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, and local races across the country.
For more than a month, Democrats have voted against approving the House GOP’s stopgap spending measure, fearing that health care tax subsidies will expire at the end of the year. With the start of open enrollment, people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace will see a dramatic boost in premium costs.
Sanders pushes for dealmaking
Schumer didn’t specify what kind of deal Democrats would accept, but said any negotiation “must take into account the health needs of the American people.”
But independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Democrats should not accept a deal with the Republican Party unless House Speaker Mike Johnson and the president committed to passing legislation extending those tax credits.
“The bottom line is that we have to succeed in protecting the health care of the American people, and if it’s just a bill that passes the Senate… so what? Where is it going to go? Then it becomes a meaningless gesture,” Sanders said.
Republicans have maintained that they will not have a discussion on health care until Democrats agree to restore government funding.
This week the Senate failed for the 14th time to pass an emergency solution that would fund the government until November 21st.
Lawmakers have acknowledged that a recent emergency aid law needs to be extended past the Nov. 21 deadline, but have not agreed on a recent deadline.
Thune downplays the Democrats’ victories
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Wednesday he was skeptical that the government shutdown had led to major victories for Democrats across the country.
“The shutdown doesn’t benefit anyone,” he said.
The South Dakota Republican noted that the shutdown may have played a role in suburban Virginia, where a enormous portion of federal workers live and are furloughed due to the government shutdown.
“Northern Virginia has a lot of federal workers, so that certainly could have been a factor in the election,” Thune said. “But I think it’s difficult to draw conclusions.”
But Thune said he is focused on ending the government shutdown and hopes more progress can be made before senators have to take a break next week because of the Veterans Day holiday.
Transport Minister Sean Duffy warned this week that if the shutdown continues into next week, it could result in certain airspace having to be closed due to a shortage of air traffic controllers who have continued to work during the shutdown.
Trump, in a social media post, blamed two factors for Republicans’ underperformance on Tuesday: his absence from the vote and the government shutdown.
“I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for Republicans, and that was a big factor, and they say me not voting was the biggest factor,” Trump said during a news conference Wednesday.
Withholding of SNAP benefits
As the government shutdown continued, the Trump administration tried to get Senate Democrats to agree to the stopgap measure by ordering the U.S. Department of Agriculture not to tap its emergency fund to provide food to 42 million people.
Two federal courts found that the Trump administration acted unlawfully by withholding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and the USDA agreed that this would be the case partially release SNAP benefits.
Trump wrote on his social media platform earlier this week: SNAP Services would simply be released If Democrats vote to reopen the government, it would likely violate the two court orders.
“The SNAP benefits that have increased by billions and billions of dollars (MANY TIMES!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous administration (due to the fact that they were arbitrarily handed out to anyone who asked, not just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!) will only be given when the radical left Democrats open the government, which they can easily do, and not before!” he wrote.
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to walk back that statement on Tuesday, arguing that the president’s social media post did not refer to the court order but to future SNAP payments.
“The president doesn’t want to tap that (emergency) fund in the future, and that’s what he was referring to,” Leavitt said.
