JUST IN: Government Shutdown Imminent As Dems Vote Against Funding Bill

Senate Democrats on Tuesday evening voted against a temporary funding measure that would fund the government through late November, making a shutdown increasingly more likely as the midnight deadline approaches.

The vote failed in the upper chamber by a final vote of 55 in favor and 45 against, five votes short of the 60-vote threshold required to pass the stopgap measure. Senators John Fetterman (D-PA) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) joined all Republicans with the exception of Rand Paul (R-KY) in voting for the motion.

Senator Angus King (I-ME), who caucuses with Democrats, also voted in favor.

“It’s a sad day for our nation. Our government shuts down at midnight,” Fetterman wrote in an X post. “I voted AYE to extend ACA tax credits because I support them—but I won’t vote for the chaos of shuttering our government. My vote was our country over my party. Together, we must find a better way forward.”

Cortez Masto said she voted to fund the government because doing otherwise would “hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration.”

Lawmakers have been unable to reach a deal to avoid a government shutdown as the midnight deadline fast approaches. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and his Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have repeatedly called on the administration to “compromise” by including healthcare guarantees for “all Americans” in a continuing resolution.

Republicans, and the White House, have rejected Democrat proposals due to demands for taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens. “If you look at the original they did with this negotiation, it was a $1.5 trillion spending package, basically saying the American people want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of billions of dollars to illegal aliens for their health care, while Americans are struggling to pay their health care bills,” Vice President JD Vance said following a meeting between legislative leaders at the White House on Monday.

Congressional Republicans and the White House want Democrats to move forward with  their “clean,” short-term funding extension until November 21, while Democrats are demanding a permanent extension of expiring Obamacare tax credits and other demands that the GOP has said are off the table.

“The far left’s determination to oppose everything President Trump has said or done is not a good reason to subject the American people to the pain of a government shutdown,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). Democrats had initially expressed optimism after meeting with Trump on Monday, though party leadership went ballistic after the president posted a satirical video depicting Jeffries with a mustache and a sombrero.

While speaking with reporters in the White House, President Donald Trump warned that thousands of federal workers would be permanently fired if Democrats move forward with their plan to shut down the government. “As you know, we this country no country can afford to pay for illegal Immigration health care for everybody that comes into the country and that’s what they’re insisting and obviously I have an obligation to not accept that that,” he said.

“A lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want. And they’d be Democrat things,” the president went on to say.