No Deal Yet To Avert Shutdown Tomorrow Night

President Trump and congressional leaders left their meeting at the White House this afternoon with no deal to avert a government shutdown at midnight tomorrow night. If nothing changes, agencies like NASA will have to pause all non-essential operations at 12:01 am Wednesday after FY2025 ends with no appropriations for FY2026. Also today, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee issued a report asserting the White House has been requiring NASA to adhere to proposed FY2026 budget cuts even though Congress has not acted on NASA’s appropriations bill yet.

The partisan impasse over a government shutdown has been brewing for weeks. House Republicans passed a “clean” Continuing Resolution (CR) on September 19 to keep the government operating at full strength through November 21. The vote was 217-212, with all but one Democrat against and all but two Republicans in favor.

The House can pass legislation with a simple majority, but the Senate needs 60 votes to pass this type of bill. The House CR went down to defeat in the Senate (44-48), as did a Democratic alternative (47-45). Both chambers then left town for a pre-scheduled one-week break.

Both were supposed to return to work today, with two days to find a solution. The Senate is back in session, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) decided to keep the House in recess at least until Wednesday to try and force Democrats to agree to his CR. Both chambers must agree to identical text. With the House out of session, they can’t approve any changes the Senate might make and a shutdown will occur.

Democrats want to include an extension of Affordable Care Act health care subsidies that will expire at the end of this year in the CR, and roll back Medicaid cuts made in the reconciliation bill  — officially the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1), which Democrats call the one big, ugly bill. They also object to the White House not spending money as directed by Congress, as required by Article I of the Constitution, by using pocket rescissions and impoundment.

Republicans insist the CR should only extend appropriations for an additional seven weeks and not address other issues.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance met with Senate and House leaders —  Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Speaker Johnson and Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) — this afternoon.

Schumer and Jeffries said afterwards they had “candid, frank discussions” with the President about health care. Schumer credited Trump for “really listening to us” about the impacts if the ACA subsidies are not extended now even though they don’t expire until the end of the year. Enrollees will get notices beginning October 1 and must make decisions by November as to whether they can afford the higher prices or change their coverage.

Watch @SenSchumer and @RepJeffries on how this shutdown is in Trump’s hands.

If the government shuts down, it’s because Republicans would rather shut it down rather than help people afford health care. pic.twitter.com/il0sXcixhC

— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) September 29, 2025

Vice President Vance blamed Democrats for “holding government funding hostage to broken healthcare policies” created by Democrats that Republicans are trying to fix.

VP calls out Dems for holding government funding hostage to broken healthcare policies:

“Everything they accuse of being broken about American healthcare is policy they supported for the past decade…we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.” pic.twitter.com/TF0sRaB78g

— Vice President JD Vance (@VP) September 29, 2025

The Senate will vote again tomorrow on the House CR. There are 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and two Independents who caucus with the Democrats. Whether 60 of them will vote in favor of the House CR seems unlikely at the moment, but anything can happen in Washington.

Shutdowns are caused by a lapse in appropriations and impact activities funded in the 12 appropriations bills — “discretionary spending.” “Mandatory spending” like Social Security and Medicare is not affected. Funding allocated in the reconciliation act also is not affected.

During a shutdown, essential operations including those to protect life and property continue, although workers are not paid until the shutdown ends. At NASA, operations of the International Space Station, for example, will not be affected.

White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought has said federal workers may not just be furloughed as typically happens in a shutdown, but fired (RIF’d) if their work is not statutorily required, funded through means other than appropriations, or consistent with the President’s priorities. Politico got a copy of the memo.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, issued a Democratic staff report today asserting that Vought has been directing NASA since early summer to implement the dramatic cuts proposed in the President’s budget request even though Congress has not completed action on the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that funds the agency.  “The Destruction of NASA’s Mission: Whistleblowers Reveal OMB’s Unconstitutional Plot to Gut the Agency” calls the actions illegal and says the Administration is trying to do the same thing at other agencies.

Both the House and Senate appropriations committees rejected the President’s proposal to cut NASA by 24.3 percent, instead keeping the agency at its current level of about $24.8 billion. The CJS bill hasn’t been voted on by the House or Senate yet, however.