Washington: US President Donald Trump has declared he won’t be “extorted” by the Democrats as the government shutdown approaches a record length, with few signs the two parties will reach an agreement to avoid further pain for millions of Americans.
Federal government workers have been furloughed or working without pay for a month, airport delays are intensifying and millions began losing food stamp benefits on the weekend because funding bills to allow the government to function have not been passed.
US President Donald Trump said he wanted Republicans to consider “the nuclear option” to end the government shutdown.Credit: Bloomberg
While Republicans control both the House of Representatives and the Senate – as well as the White House – Democratic support is required to overcome the Senate filibuster threshold of 60 votes for passing many types of legislation.
Democrats are not satisfied by the Republican proposal for a so-called “clean” resolution that would temporarily reopen the government. They have demanded an extension of expiring “Obamacare” healthcare subsidies, without which premiums will skyrocket for millions of Americans.
Appearing on CBS’s prime-time 60 Minutes on Sunday night (Monday AEDT), Trump said he would not be swayed, but offered to work with Democrats to “fix” the healthcare system once the government reopened.
“I’m not going to do it by extortion,” he said. “I’m not going to do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way. There’s something wrong with these people … They’ve become crazed lunatics.
Democrats Senate leader Chuck Schumer has refused to yield to demands to reopen the government without renewed healthcare subsidies.Credit: AP
Trump called Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, “a basket-case, and he has nothing to lose … he’s become a kamikaze pilot”.
He said Obamacare – the major healthcare overhaul passed in 2010 that substantially reduced the number of Americans without health insurance – was “bad healthcare at far too high a price”.
“We should fix it, and we can fix it with the Democrats. All they have to do is let the country open and we’ll fix it,” Trump said.
The government shutdown has lasted 33 days and is now just shy of the 35-day record set over the winter of 2018-19, during Trump’s first term. Thousands of federal government workers are queuing at food banks each week in the suburbs outside Washington and elsewhere.
Members of the California National Guard sorting produce at the Los Angeles Food Bank last week.Credit: AP
Having returned from a six-day trip to Asia to meet world leaders, Trump spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he hosted a Great Gatsby-esque black-tie ball titled “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody”.
Democrats, especially Schumer, were criticised by their own side this year when they reluctantly voted with Republicans to avert a government closure.
This time, the party is also coming under pressure from allies, including the largest federal workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees, which last week said it was time to end the shutdown on the Republicans’ terms.
“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” the group’s president Everett Kelly wrote. “It’s time to pass a ‘clean’ continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.”
Trump told 60 Minutes the Democrats would eventually capitulate and vote to end the shutdown. “I think they have to, and if they don’t vote, that’s their problem.”
Meanwhile, Trump has floated the idea of changing Senate rules to scrap the 60-vote super-majority needed to cut off debate on a bill and move to a vote. Republicans hold only 53 seats in the 100-seat chamber.
Calling it “the nuclear option”, Trump said: “The Republicans have to get tougher. If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want.”
Despite the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster on legislation, Republicans can change the Senate rules with a simple majority of 50 per cent plus one (or a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance).
But the Republican leadership, including Senate leader John Thune, have rejected these calls, arguing it would leave them susceptible to the Democrats passing legislation with a simple majority in the future.
‘Better looking’
Trump was also asked on 60 Minutes about the imminent New York election in which 34-year-old Muslim immigrant Zohran Mamdani, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is poised to become mayor of the country’s biggest city.
Invited to respond to comparisons between himself and Mamdani – both are seen as charismatic, populist figures who broke with party conventions – Trump replied: “I think I’m a much better-looking person than him, right?”
A post from an official White House account later implied the president was joking.
Branding Mamdani a communist, Trump said it would be difficult for him to give much federal funding to New York if Mamdani won on Tuesday night, local time.
“If you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.”
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