SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
bernie sanders
'Nonstarter': Senate GOP Rejects New Dem Deal to End Government Shutdown
"Mr. President, the ball is in your court right now," Sen. Bernie Sanders implored President Donald Trump. "Show us what a great dealmaker you are."
Nov 07, 2025
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday offered—and Republican leadership rejected—a compromise deal to end the longest federal shutdown in US history, an agreement under which Democrats proposed to vote to reopen the government in exchange for a one-year extension of expiring Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies.
"It's clear we need to try something different," Schumer (D-NY) asserted on the Senate floor, noting the 14 failed upper chamber votes on the short-term continuing resolution passed by the House of Representatives in September to fund the government through November 21.
“All Republicans have to do is say ‘yes’ to extend current law for one year," he said. "This is a reasonable offer that reopens the government, deals with healthcare affordability, and begins a process of negotiating reforms to the ACA tax credits for the future. Now the ball is in the Republicans’ court. We need Republicans to just say yes."
.@SenSchumer: "Democrats are ready to clear the way to quickly pass a government funding bill that includes health care affordability. Leader Thune just needs to add a clean one-year extension of the ACA tax credits to the CR so that we can immediately address rising health care… pic.twitter.com/HvgLZHhhhb
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 7, 2025
Schumer's proposal involved a “clean” extension of the ACA tax credits that are set to expire at the end of this year, meaning they would exclude new eligibility restrictions that many Republican lawmakers are seeking to impose. Schumer also floated the creation of a bipartisan committee tasked with negotiating a further extension of ACA subsidies.
After consulting with GOP colleagues, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) rejected the Democrats' offer as a "nonstarter." Republicans have repeatedly balked at voting on the ACA subsidies before the shutdown—now in its 38th day—ends.
"The Obamacare extension is the negotiation. That's what we're going to negotiate once the government opens up," Thune said. "We need to vote to open the government—and there is a proposal out there to do that—and then we can have this whole conversation about healthcare."
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also dismissed Schumer's proposal, writing on social media that "health in$urance companies applaud Schumer’s proposal to extend Obamacare subsidies for one year."
"Another year of insane profits at the expense of consumers and American taxpayers," added Graham, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the health insurance industry during his congressional career.
The Democrats' new offer came as a legal battle over Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits plays out, as hundreds of thousands of federal employees are working without pay, and hundreds of commercial airline flights have been delayed or canceled.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joined Democrats in urging his GOP colleagues to accept the new offer.
"We are now in the 38th day of a government shutdown," Sanders said on the Senate floor Friday. "That means that federal employees all over this country who have to feed their families are not getting paychecks. It means that air traffic controllers are forced to work crazy hours, and we worry about the safety of our flights right now. We worry about Capitol Police officers right here in DC who are having a hard time feeding their families."
LIVE: Donald Trump claims to be a dealmaker. The ball is now in his court. Help negotiate a deal which protects the health care of tens of millions of Americans and let us end the shutdown today. https://t.co/f9Gpi7wd8W
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 7, 2025
Sanders continued:
These are hardworking people who are doing important work. They deserve respect. They deserve to be paid. This shutdown must end as quickly as possible.
And on top of the fact that we have hundreds of thousands of workers not getting paid, we now have a president who—for the first time in the history of this country—is willing to allow our kids, low-income, working-class children, to go hungry in order to try to make a political point. A point, by the way, that the American people are seeing through.
Despite appealing a judge's Thursday directive to fully fund November SNAP benefits, the Trump administration told states on Friday that it would release funding for the food aid in compliance with the court order.
"Well, Mr. President, the ball is in your court right now," Sanders added. "Show us what a great dealmaker you are. Help us negotiate a deal which protects the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans and let us end this shutdown today. We can end it in the next few hours."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressives Tell Dems Thinking of Capitulating to GOP on Shutdown: 'You Cave, You Lose'
"Moderate Senate Democrats who are looking for an off-ramp right now are completely missing the moment," said MoveOn's political director.
Nov 06, 2025
As the Senate Democratic caucus met privately on Thursday to discuss the party's approach to the ongoing government shutdown following key electoral victories earlier this week, progressives sent a message to any centrists thinking of breaking ranks: "You cave, you lose."
Those were the words of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has vocally warned Democrats against abandoning their push for an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies as a necessary condition for any deal with the GOP to end the shutdown—now the longest in US history.
"Trump claims he is 'a dealmaker.' Well, Mr. President: Let's make a deal today," Sanders wrote in a social media post on Thursday. "Stop the doubling of healthcare premiums for 20 million Americans. Stop 15 million from losing their healthcare. Immediately reopen the government. What are you waiting for?"
Assuming a united Republican caucus, the GOP needs the support of at least seven Democratic senators to break the 60-vote filibuster in the upper chamber and pass government funding legislation.
Thus far, Republicans have refused to negotiate on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies as long as the government is shut down, even as people across the country see eye-popping premium hikes. Rather than cutting a deal on the ACA tax credits, President Donald Trump has pushed Republicans to scrap the filibuster to end the shutdown without Democratic support.
The Hill reported that Thursday's Senate Democratic caucus meeting was expected to include discussion of a potential deal that would entail a vote on the ACA subsidies "in some form" in exchange for a government funding agreement—though the details are nowhere near finalized.
It's also far from clear that House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), would agree to a vote, even if Senate Republicans backed such a compromise.
"Voters have sent a resounding message: We want leaders who fight for us, and we want solutions that make life more affordable."
Ahead of Democrats' meeting, Republicans floated a new offer that would reportedly entail "rehiring federal workers who have been laid off during the shutdown as part of a deal to end it," according to Politico.
That would meet a demand of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), one of the Senate Democrats seen as most likely to support a government funding package without an extension of the ACA subsidies. The others include Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
"Moderate Senate Democrats who are looking for an off-ramp right now are completely missing the moment," Katie Bethell, political director of the progressive advocacy group MoveOn, told the Associated Press on Thursday, pointing to the results of this week's elections.
"Voters have sent a resounding message: We want leaders who fight for us, and we want solutions that make life more affordable," said Bethell.
Polling data released Thursday by Groundwork Action and Hart Research Associates shows that a strong plurality of US voters are "more favorable toward Democrats and the Democratic Party" over their decision to make soaring healthcare costs the "main focus" of their shutdown messaging and demands.
Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Action, said the new polling shows that "voters are fed up with President Trump's economic policies and want candidates who will fight to lower costs and rein in healthcare prices."
"With both the message and momentum on their side, now is not the time to back down," Owens added. "Democrats must continue their fight to deliver for working families and reverse Trump’s healthcare price hikes."
Boosting progressives' case, some Senate Democrats have openly scoffed at the idea of agreeing to a deal to reopen the government in exchange for a mere commitment from the GOP to vote on the enhanced ACA tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year with potentially devastating consequences for millions of people across the country.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said the notion that Democrats "should have some level of trust that they're going to deal with us and deal with the American people in an equitable way, I think, is just laughable."
Gallego said he would not support legislation to end the shutdown "unless there's somehow assurances that insurance rate premiums aren’t going to double for 24 million Americans."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Hope Is Alive!' Mamdani Victory in NYC Seen as Historic Turning Point
"If there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump. It is how we stop the next one."
Nov 05, 2025
Zohran Mamdani was elected the next mayor of New York City on Tuesday in a victory he and his supporters say reflects the hope of a city—and a nation—ready for a new kind of politics that puts the needs of working people at the center after decades of failed leadership that put corporate interests and the desires of the wealthiest first.
Withstanding a barrage of negative ads and fearmongering by the city's elite, the democratic socialist candidate secured 50.4 percent of the vote in a three-way race that saw disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an Independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mandani, nab 41.6 percent, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa just over 7 percent.
"Hope is alive," declared Mamdani in his victory speech from the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn after most major networks called the victory his shortly after 9:30 pm local time.
"While we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together," said Mamdani. "Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas. Hope over despair. We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible. And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do."
"This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt." —Zohran Mamdani
Mamdani, a member of the New York State Assembly who ran a campaign focused on making life more affordable for the workers who make the nation's largest city run and thrive, said that while the campaign's unifying and inspiring spirit meant his supporters could express a collective sigh of relief after the election day win, the hard work will now be making that shared vision for the city become a reality.
"This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt," he said. "Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia: an agenda that will freeze the rents for more than two million rent-stabilized tenants, make buses fast and free, and deliver universal child care across our city."
"Years from now, may our only regret be that this day took so long to come," he added. "This new age will be one of relentless improvement."
As progressives and Democrats nationwide took the victory in New York City as a sign of what a populist campaign focused on the needs of working people can accomplish, Mamdani also spoke to the underlying theme of Tuesday's elections across the country, where Democrats claimed major wins in various competitive races and ballot initiatives—outcomes seen as a resounding rebuke to President Donald Trump's scorched-earth second term.
"If we embrace this brave new course rather than fleeing from it," said Mamdani, "We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him."
Mamdani: "We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him." pic.twitter.com/mvGcsN01Xt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2025
"If there is any way to terrify a despot," he added, "it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump. It is how we stop the next one."
That dynamic was front and center for many who heralded Mamdani's win as historic and called for the Democratic Party leadership to embrace his vision on economic issues and a more populist style of politics to displace the corporate stranglehold on the party.
Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, called Mamdani's victory "the turning point in this Democratic Party that our movement has been working towards for years: electing leaders with the moral courage to unite our voters to take on Republican authoritarianism, Democratic corporatism, and billionaire greed all at once."
"Zohran Mamdani has never backed down from standing up to Trump and the forces that threaten our democracy,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a pro-democracy advocacy group focused on the climate crisis. “This is the leadership our democracy, and the Democratic Party, needs to rebuild trust with working people and fight for a future that works for everyone."
Michael Magazine, a campaigner with the group's local NYC affiliate, echoed that sentiment. "Tonight, the people of New York City showed up in force and reminded the world that grassroots power can beat big money," he said. "This is more than a win for Zohran. It’s a win for the movement and for democracy itself. We’ve proven that a bold, people-powered vision can overcome the status quo, and this is just the beginning."
"The oligarchy came out in full force against Zohran Mamdani's fight for a more affordable NYC," said former labor secretary Robert Reich following Tuesday night's victory. "It didn't matter. Let his victory in the face of Big Money serve as a reminder that people have the power."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who proudly endorsed Mamdani, also championed the win.
"Starting at 1% in the polls," said Sander, "Mamdani pulled off one of the great political upsets in modern American history. Yes. We CAN create a government that represents working people and not the 1%."
And Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), one of Mamdani's most prominent backers in the race, also heralded his victory as a major turning point, not just for New York City, but for the party.
In her remarks to MSNBC shortly after Mamdani's victory was declared, the New York Democrat said the campaign and the "heroic effort" of its supporters was not only a fight against Trump and Republican destruction but also a battle against the Democratic Party's "old guard," which "essentially led us to many of the perils of this moment."
Mamdani, she explained, "how a two-front war to win, which is what makes his win so deeply impressive" in a broader political context that should be a wakeup call for those in the party resisting the kind of policies and politics that his campaign championed and exemplified.
"We have a future to plan for. We have a future to fight for," Ocasio-Cortez said of the party from now on. "And we're either gonna do that together, or you're gonna be left behind."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular