The US Senate on Friday passed a stopgap spending bill, averting a partial government shutdown, after Democrats backed down in a standoff driven by anger over US President Donald Trump’s campaign to slash the federal workforce.
After days of heated debate, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer broke the logjam on Thursday night, saying that he would vote to allow the bill the advance.
Schumer said he did not like the bill, but believed that triggering a shutdown would be a worse outcome as Trump and his adviser Elon Musk were moving swiftly to slash spending.
Photo: Bloomberg
The US Senate voted 54-46 to pass the bill and send it to Trump for signing into law, after fending off four amendments.
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives earlier this week passed the measure, which largely leaves spending steady at about US$6.75 trillion in the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30.
Democrats had expressed anger over the bill, which would cut spending by about US$7 billion and which they said does nothing to stop Trump’s campaign to halt congressionally mandated spending and slash tens of thousands of jobs.
The moves come as Trump is locked in a trade war with some of the US’ closest allies that has sparked a major sell-off in stocks and raised recession worries.
Schumer’s maneuver sent shock waves through the Democratic Party and laid bare members’ divisions over how to stand up to Trump while they remain in the governing minority.
“When the Senate Minority Leader sells you out, the only option is to take back the party and country with grassroots activists in blue and red districts to stand up for the Constitution and our democracy,” Democratic US Representative Ro Khanna wrote in a social media post.
Senate Democrats refrained from attacking Schumer, focusing their harsh words on Trump and Musk.
US House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to answer reporters’ questions about whether he backed Schumer’s leadership at a Friday news conference, exposing stunning cracks in the party leaders’ strategy.
Schumer’s decision particularly rattled House Democrats, who were huddled at a retreat in a suburb of Washington. Jeffries rushed back to Washington to hold an impromptu news conference on the spending bill.
US House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar told reporters that Schumer’s move had caught him by surprise.
More than 60 members signed a letter to Schumer on Friday urging him to reject the measure.
Lawmakers including former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi and New Yorker US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez heaped public criticism on Schumer on Friday, even without naming him directly. Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X on Thursday that an affirmative vote was “unthinkable.”
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