A rogue group of moderate Democrats willing to negotiate secretly with Republican leadership reportedly led to the end of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the real turning point came not from President Donald Trump or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., but from a small band of centrist Democrats and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, all former governors, who quietly slipped into the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., after hours as the shutdown neared a month.
With federal workers missing paychecks and food-aid programs running dry, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., alongside King, signaled they were ready to cut a deal with Thune, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and other Republicans to reopen the government.
The group kept Schumer informed but moved ahead without him when it became clear the White House wouldn’t negotiate, and Schumer’s strategy of prolonging the shutdown to win enhanced Obamacare subsidies was going nowhere.
Schumer pushed to keep the government closed, betting Republicans would ultimately pay a political price and cave on the expiring health insurance tax credits.
Instead, it was his own caucus that fractured.
By the first weekend in November, flight delays were piling up, and families had lost multiple paychecks and benefits.
Eight Democrats broke ranks, backing a bipartisan funding bill that reopened most of the government through Jan. 30 and fully funded key nutrition programs for a year but without any guarantee on the Obamacare subsidies their party had demanded.
Thune offered the Democrats a vote on the subsidies by mid-December, though he didn’t promise an outcome.
“We sat across from him, we looked him eye to eye,” said Shaheen, explaining that meeting in person with Thune helped convince her that he would keep his word.
The House then returned from a lengthy recess and, with Republicans holding a narrow majority, passed the same bill by a vote of 222-209.
Trump called the measure a “very big victory” as GOP leaders argued Democrats had tried to use American families as leverage in a partisan healthcare fight.
“Government shutdowns don’t work,” said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., noting Democrats “haven’t achieved” their stated objective.
Conservatives say the episode exposed deep Democrat divisions and weak leadership at the top.
The Hill reported that several Senate Democrats privately blasted Schumer’s handling of the negotiations as “surrender” and “weak,” with some colleagues feeling blindsided when Shaheen outlined the nearly finished deal in a closed-door caucus lunch.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Democrats who voted yes “caved,” warning the agreement would demoralize the party’s base.
Schumer has tried to spin the 43-day shutdown as a political win, claiming Republicans now “own” rising healthcare costs.
But in practical terms, Republicans stood firm, the government reopened on largely GOP terms, and the left walked away without the Obamacare guarantee it shut the government down to obtain.
Moderate Democrats ultimately chose paychecks over party talking points, and in the process, underscored just how far their leadership was willing to go to placate the party’s progressive wing at the expense of everyday Americans.
Newsmax Wires contributed to this report.
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