Government shutdown live updates as Senate talks continue over ending stalemate

The prolonged shutdown is putting millions of Americans at risk of missing their November food stamp benefits, a vital lifeline for low-income households.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, said in a memo Sunday that no benefits will be issued on Nov. 1, leaving the program’s roughly 42 million beneficiaries uncertain about how they’ll pay for groceries next month. 

SNAP recipients receive an average of $187 a month on a prepaid card, and many families rely on those benefits as their main source of money for food. Many of those registered with the program are also asking if they will still be able to use the remaining dollars on their cards once funding is suspended and if they’ll receive their November benefits retroactively, should lawmakers reach a deal to reopen the government.

Read more about what experts are saying about a potential suspension in SNAP funding here.

Amid conversations over full-year funding measures, Thune told reporters that while he wants to “get the appropriations process going,” the process is lengthy and the government must reopen first. 

“Unfortunately, doing all that is going to take a while,” Thune said. “So we’ve got to reopen the government, then we’ll have a normal appropriations process.”

While the question of how to reopen the government is in focus, senators have also been considering broader funding, seeking an agreement on some full-year appropriations bills. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican appropriator, walked into Thune’s office as he spoke to reporters. 

Still, the majority leader said “it’s going to take a while to process, if you look at the calendar, any appropriations bill,” noting that it would have to get through the Senate, go to conference with the House and be signed into law by the president. “So none of that happens without the government opening back up,” he said.

“I don’t think we can afford to have, in my view at least, the government shut down any longer,” Thune added.

Johnson was asked about his earlier comments that the Senate would vote on the continuing resolution today. A reporter noted that no vote is currently scheduled, and asked if Johnson agreed with Thune’s approach.

“I’m not going to second-guess his decisions on when they schedule the votes each time, but he’s probably about had it with their nonsense,” Johnson said. “And when they tell him, and they thumb their nose at him, and say other things — they like to drop the F-bomb now for fun, for emphasis apparently — when they tell him those things, he probably recognizes it’s a futile effort. He realizes they’re dug in. They don’t care.”

The speaker was asked about the ramped-up pace of talks in the Senate over ending the shutdown.

“I’m not surprised that the conversations are turning up in earnest. I mean, when you’re talking about the handful of centrists and moderates who are there, they feel the pressure of this,” Johnson said. “You have all the major unions now coming out, as we’ve noted, demanding that they do the right thing and get the paychecks flowing again. You have flights being delayed and canceled. It harms people under nutrition and their food and everything else. So this is not a surprise to us. We welcome them doing the right thing, but again, we don’t have anything to negotiate because we didn’t put any partisan Republican priorities on the CR at all.”

He added: “Our urge and our plea to them is just do the darn right thing and open the government and then we’ll figure all the rest of these things out … We’ve got to get the lights turned back on here, and get the services provided to the people, so that we can come here and do the rest of the legislative job.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said at the Capitol that he sees no indication that Democrats are preparing to back down.

“The Democrats, incredibly, are showing no signs at all that they want to end their shutdown,” Johnson said at his daily press conference. 

Johnson indicated that Democratic senators will have another chance to vote on the House-passed funding bill on Thursday, although no votes are currently scheduled.

“Now, they’ll have another opportunity today,” Johnson said. “The Democrats in the Senate will have their 15th opportunity to do the right thing. We’re concerned that they won’t, and if they reject this for the 15th time, they will be ensuring that this shutdown continues past the Nov. 1 deadline.”

The next vote in the Senate will be the 14th time the upper chamber has tried to pass the House bill. Johnson includes the House’s original vote in his tally of times the Democrats have voted to block it.

The speaker said the Saturday deadline is “fateful … for a number of reasons.”

“Starting on Saturday, let me give you a list of things that this means for the American people: it means that tens of millions of American families will struggle to keep food on the table, because the SNAP program benefits will run dry. It means that WIC assistance — that’s Women, Infants and Children, nutrition programs — will be at risk of running dry. It means that Head Start centers, which serve 60,000 children nationwide, will be at risk of closure,” Johnson said. “Millions of federal workers … will miss their paychecks.”

Speaking on CNBC this morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “there are a lot more conversations going on now” between Republicans and Democrats than “perhaps there were a couple of weeks ago.”

“This is something we ought to be able to work out. It’s simply funding the government so that we can fund the rest of the government through the normal appropriations process,” he said. “And the Democrats have tried to make it about everything else, and all we’re simply doing is saying, let’s pass a funding bill and keep the government open.”

Asked what the path for ending the shutdown is, Thune said “we just need five more Democrats,” and reiterated his belief that the Democratic leadership will not be dictating the final resolution.

“If this happens, I think it happens through the rank-and-file Democrats who come to the conclusion that this isn’t in anybody’s best interest, and I think that’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s always a matter of time.”

Thune said elections in several states next week could provide a catalyst for resolving the standoff.

“I think it will make a difference. You have to get past Tuesday. You’ve got those two off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia. I think there’s a lot of attention being paid to, we don’t want to suppress turnout by appearing like supposedly we’ve caved or folded or something like that,” he said, referring to Democrats. “I mean, I don’t view it that way, through that lens. Unfortunately, I think this is about real people who are being hurt every day by this government shutdown … If it is about politics, hopefully after next week, maybe it gets a little bit easier.”

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. and hold a series of votes beginning at 11:45 a.m. A vote on the House-passed continuing resolution is not currently on the schedule.

Senators will first consider a resolution about the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and then take up a Democratic measure challenging the emergency declaration that President Trump has used to impose tariffs around the world.

The Senate has passed two resolutions this week that would block the president’s tariffs on Brazil and Canada, with each attracting the support of a handful of Republicans. The resolutions require a simple majority to pass, but are mostly symbolic, since they’re not expected to be taken up by the House.

Vice President JD Vance will lead a roundtable at the White House on Thursday focused on how the shutdown is impacting air travel, a White House official said. 

He will be joined by Transportation Secretary Duffy, Airlines for America CEO and former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and other industry leaders, the official said. 

Duffy has been raising alarms over the shutdown’s impact on the aviation industry, warning that staffing shortages are leading to intermittent cancellations and delays as air traffic controllers call off work. The controllers have not been paid since the shutdown began.

The shutdown, now on Day 30, could become the longest shutdown in history next week, eclipsed only by the 34-day 2018-19 shutdown. 

Shutdowns are a relatively recent phenomenon and have only begun in their current form in 1980. The longest shutdown, which began in December 2018, involved Mr. Trump’s demand for funds to pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

President Trump is heading back to Washington Thursday after a three-country visit in Asia. His return comes as Democrats have criticized the president for being away from the U.S. during the nearly monthlong shutdown. 

For the first time in weeks, senators expressed cautious optimism on Wednesday about talks aimed at ending the shutdown. 

After Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday morning that talks among rank-and-file senators have “ticked up significantly,” saying a “higher level of conversation” is taking place at the member level, senators weighed in more freely with hints of optimism throughout the day. 

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina suggested that the shutdown could end next week, telling reporters “I think it is coming to a close.” And a number of other senators spoke of improved talks, as key deadlines put pressure on both sides to reach a resolution to reopen the government. 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, told reporters she’s more optimistic. She said there’s been a “significant uptick in bipartisan conversation,” reiterating what Thune said earlier in the day. Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, pointed to the impact of rising health insurance premiums, saying “obviously now people are starting to see the impact of these increases now that prices are coming out.”

While the question of reopening the government remains top of mind, senators are also considering broader funding, seeking an agreement on some full-year appropriations bills. And the conversations come as Republican leaders have made clear they won’t negotiate with Democrats, who have demanded an extension of health insurance tax credits, until the government is reopened. 

Thune reiterated to reporters Wednesday evening that “the conditions we’ve stated are the same ones,” saying Democrats must reopen the government before negotiating on health care.