The GOP Acts to Prevent a Government Shutdown. Will Chuck Schumer?
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House Republicans pass a bill to fund the government through September 30th, putting the pressure on Senate Democrats and Chuck Schumer to follow suit or shut down the government at midnight Friday. Meantime, the House bill tries to save the GOP from a hard vote on Donald Trump's trade wars, as the latest is a presidential threat to put 200 percent tariffs on European wine.

Welcome. I'm Kyle Peterson with The Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleagues, columnist Kim Strassel and editorial board member Mane Ukwebarua. Will Democrats shut down the government? That might seem like a novel question after years of watching Republicans in the House struggle to get these government funding bills over the finish line. But in the new GOP Congress 2025, the roles have been reversed.

On Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson was successful in keeping the House GOP together to pass a continuing budget resolution through the end of the fiscal year. The vote was 217 to 213 with Republican Thomas Massey in the no column and Democrat Jared Golden in the yeses.

And now this goes over to the Senate. Chuck Schumer, as we tape this on Thursday afternoon, is still pitching an alternative stopgap 30-day funding bill that Republicans are saying is a nonstarter. Here he is on the Senate floor on Wednesday. Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort. But Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input, any input from congressional Democrats. Because of that,

Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR. Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11th CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass.

We should vote on that. And here is Speaker Mike Johnson on Fox and Friends the same day. We passed a clean, simple bill to keep the government funded for the rest of the year. And every Democrat, except for one, in spite of all their...

All their previous sayings about how disastrous it would be to shut the government down, they all voted to do exactly that. So now the ball is sent over to the Senate. And Chuck Schumer has a big decision to make. Is he going to cast a vote to keep the government open, or is he going to be blamed for shutting it down? And that's clearly, very simply what they have to decide. And I hope they do the right thing, because government shutdowns, as they all said in their own video and have said a thousand times, is harmful for everybody. We don't need that.

Kim, what do you make of this role reversal in the new Trump era and the choice now facing the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer? Well, count me as those that was completely shocked when the House pulled this off as I was watching the final vote. I actually sent an email to a colleague and the subject line said, "Do you see those things in the sky? Those are pigs flying."

It was remarkable. The House is normally so riven with controversy and disputes. And yet, all credit, I think, to Speaker Johnson, who convinced them that this was the way to put maximum political pressure on Democrats and get over this hump of government funding for the rest of this fiscal year. Also to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and Russ Vogt, who runs the Office of Management and Budget, who were

on the phone and making rounds on Capitol Hill this week to shore up last support. This was hard for Republicans. On the one side, you had more conservative members who were frustrated that this did not cut more money, which is something that they wanted.

On the other hand, you had moderates who wanted to see more money go into this, and they had to reconcile themselves to the fact that they were not going to get it. This does put Democrats in a very difficult spot because what Mike Johnson said is true, and that's the politics of this, which is that the House has passed a bill. Not only that, it passed the bill and left town, so it's gone.

And if the Senate now cannot hand over eight Democrats to vote alongside Republicans to overcome the filibuster, at least from a procedural point of view, they will be holding the bag for a government shutdown. And that's not just flying in the face of everything they've said in the past about how shutdowns are bad. But think of it this way, too. This is a Democratic Party that has spent the past six weeks trying

talking about how mean Donald Trump has been to federal employees, etc. And yet they would be the cause of putting all of those employees on furlough and potentially, by the way, giving Trump an opening to further make cuts, I think, at some of these departments as part of the shutdown morass. So right now they're threatening that this is what they're going to do. One back

option they have is to maybe give the Democrats necessary to at least start the debate, the procedural level, and then vote against it in the end, which would give them a little bit of cover. It still would allow the bill to go through. But this is not an enviable choice that Chuck Schumer has at the moment.

Menae, what's your read of the lay of the land here? Another thought I would add is that these continuing resolutions are still no way to run a government. There is about $6 billion in additional money for the Pentagon here, but to my mind, not what is really needed to fund the kind of buildup that the United States needs, given the threat environment out there. But it seems that Republicans have decided this is the best that they can do for now, and they are focusing then on doing bigger picture items.

in this reconciliation bill that is coming down the pike. And as far as the Democrats go, my read of the politics of recent government shutdowns is the party that is the aggressor, the party that says no, is generally the party that gets blamed politically by the American people. And in the past, often it has been Republicans who

And so that, I think, is the question that is weighing on Democratic minds here is whether they really want ownership of this kind of a shutdown that would mean some people, federal workers not getting paid, Social Security checks maybe not going out. Exactly. I think in that first clip, you heard Speaker Mike Johnson describe the bill as clean,

And that is mostly true. It is extending a spending baseline of about $1.7 trillion. And so even though it does make some modest adjustments, neither the defense increase, as you said, about $6 billion, or some of the tweaks that they included in it are making any really significant change in the spending levels or the spending priorities. And there's a reason for that. Of course,

Mike Johnson had to include enough details in that bill to make sure that the most conservative members of the House Republican caucus could get on board. And you did see that with the exception of Thomas Massey, who has drawn a line in the sand and said basically he's not going to vote for anything ever except for the most conservative.

severe possible cuts. He did manage to get the entire rest of the Freedom Caucus to support the bill and not to make much of a fuss in doing so either. And yet he also knows that for Republicans to be able to win this fight in the end, they have to present something that at least a few Senate Democrats would conceivably be willing to support. They don't have to actually vote for the piece of legislation in the end, but they have to vote for cloture on debate to allow it to move forward.

And so they wanted to present something that made only minor adjustments. And the idea is that other major priorities that the party has, increasing defense spending further, and of course, all of the extra money that they're going to want for border enforcement, energy, et cetera, is going to come in subsequent reconciliation bill. And so it does seem as if they've really succeeded in leaving the ball in Democrats' court.

I do think that there are competing theories about who gets the blame in government shutdowns. You touched on the most popular one, which is essentially that the party that says no once one has put forward a reasonable plan is going to get the blame. Other possibilities are that the party who has possession of the White House essentially gets blamed because most people who are watching these things unfold are not necessarily following the minute details of

who is beginning with the initiative in each house of Congress, et cetera, but they know who has the White House. And so they essentially just blame the president for failing to deliver a compromise that could bring both parties along. I think some Democrats are betting that that would be the case because there has been a lot of disruption of government under Trump already. They think that they'll be able to just

blame Trump because voters aren't paying attention to exactly how the shutdown unfolded. And I think another theory that a lot of Democrats have is essentially that Republicans get the blame regardless of what happens because Republicans are known as being the party of small government, being the party of driving a hard bargain to try to extract cuts whenever these clashes take place. And so

They're hoping that they can drive this potentially toward a shutdown. And if things do tip over, that they're not necessarily going to be able to get blamed. But I think it's very difficult to envision that taking place because of how unified Republicans have been in holding up their end of the deal and then leaving town and basically saying Democrats have no choice but to get on board with this proposal. Hang tight. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back. Kim, we're still waiting to see how this will all shake out in the Senate. But is the lesson here for Republicans in the House the importance of sticking together as a party, even if some of their members are not thrilled with the bill that is ultimately negotiated? Because if this had failed already,

on the House floor. What is the alternative then? Does Speaker Mike Johnson have to go and get a few Democratic votes to get a spending bill over the line to stop the government from shutting down? And there's a price to be paid for that. And one other thought, what do you make of the eccentric

Thomas Massey, Republican of Kentucky, voting no here. President Trump is now going after him a little bit. Here he is on Truth Social. Congressman Thomas Massey of beautiful Kentucky is an automatic no vote on just about everything. Also said in all caps, he should be primaried and I will lead the charge against him.

Thomas Massey's response, I guess I would sum it up as bring it on. He seems pretty confident in his popularity, his political support back home. Yeah. Well, on the first question, look, Democrats made this a little bit easier for House Republicans to unify.

Because they laid out what those demands were going to be, what the price of their votes were going to be in order to get any help getting this across the line. And the big one was that they wanted restrictions put in this bill on Donald Trump and Elon Musk's doge's ability to cut and make changes to spending.

And I think that even the hardliners in the Republican caucus realized just how bad that would be and how counterproductive that would be to some of their priorities. So to be clear, nobody loved this bill. All right. But anyway.

They also understood that this deadline had been set this Friday. That was a decision that was made at the end of last year. I still think it was a poor decision. They should have just dealt with it at that time. One thing that also Speaker Johnson did to make this more palatable is instead of doing a giant omnibus, which has become a dirty word to many Republicans, one great big huge spending bill where all kinds of things get dumped in it, nobody sees it, it's thousands of pages long.

This was a more, as Monet said, clean resolution with just a few tweaks.

They've also been promised that reconciliation will be their opportunity to make some of the bigger changes that they want. So did they like this? No. But they now also, as you know, Kyle, walk into reconciliation feeling good and understanding the benefits of winning a political fight with unity. And I think that that's going to be a helpful benchmark as they tackle this next project. Thomas Massey.

You know, Thomas Massey, what he has on his side is he's consistent. He is a curmudgeon, an absolutist. He does not vote for any of this stuff. He does not change his mind based on who's in office or how he's been courted or a telephone call from Donald Trump. He represents Kentucky's 4th District, which is a northeastern part of Kentucky. He's represented it since 2012, right?

He usually wins his elections in the 60 percentile mark, sometimes the 70 percent. There could be a very different dynamic in a primary. But that could be an interesting exercise because he is much respected and liked by base voters because of his principled position on debt.

And spending. And this is a clash that is still brewing in the Republican Party. Donald Trump in his first term did not care much about those priorities. There seems to be an awareness in the White House this time that they are going to have to be more cognizant of that. The other thing that's interesting is how many times has Donald Trump says he's going to take someone out and then they make up later?

So watch to see what Thomas Massey, what role he plays in reconciliation. I'm still not sure yet that a primary will materialize or a big showdown there. Another notable move by the House is to shield its members, Republicans, from a vote to terminate the state.

President Trump's tariff emergency. And this gets a little bit procedurally complicated, but the tariffs are being imposed by President Trump under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. And, Mene, there's a provision of the law that lets Congress

terminate that kind of emergency. There's a resolution that has been introduced to do so. My understanding is that that is a privileged resolution. So it has some things that put it procedurally in front of the line. And it's supposed to be considered within 15 calendar days of being introduced.

Mone, the House in part of its package here has this line. It says, each day for the remainder of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for the purpose of that tariff emergency resolution. Mone, fascinating procedural maneuver here. It seems intended.

to prevent Republicans in the House from having to take a kind of tough vote on the tariffs and the tariff threats that President Trump is out there day in and day out making. Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing that's absolutely clear is that

Almost no Republicans in Congress, regardless of how they feel about tariffs on the merits, would be willing to take a stand to vote them down. President Trump has staked too much of his reputation on those tariffs, and he has shown his willingness, as we've just discussed, to attack members who put a toe out of line.

on parts of his agenda. And so there are plenty of Republicans who are watching the beginning of the tariff onslaught, are already very wary, have longstanding opposition to tariffs as a policy tool, who nonetheless would never want to put their hand up to say, we want to claw back the power of the president to actually impose these tariffs. But the flip side of that is that Republicans aren't enthusiastic about endorsing the tariffs on the record either. Most of them are

at least for now, are happy to go in front of a camera and talk about how much they trust President Trump and how he is using the tariffs as leverage to extract beneficial concessions from our allies and adversaries alike and how they might have some positive impact on a variety of different industries.

But I think that they, just as much as anyone, are looking at how the markets are reacting to these tariffs. And in the words of George W. Bush, they're thinking this sucker could go down if things don't change or if Trump doesn't adjust his economic policies at some point.

And they don't want to be on the record endorsing those tariffs. They want to be in a position where they're able to shift their story the way that they talk about them. So come two years from now when they have to run for reelection, they're not going to be vulnerable to a primary challenger or to a Democratic opponent saying this person put their name on these tariffs that have cost you your job, that have tanked the economy.

And so it is one more sign of Congress's unwillingness to actually fulfill its role and govern and drive the agenda. They do have legislative authority over this and should be able to weigh in on it. But like so many things, they would rather leave that in the court of the president who has a much bigger reputation, will be able to sustain Congress.

Some of the damage, if the tariffs do end up being unpopular because he has such a committed base behind him, these members of Congress don't feel that they have that ability to co-sign that agenda, which they think could leave them in a really vulnerable position, and they'd rather dodge responsibility altogether. Hang tight. We'll be right back after one more break.

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Welcome back. The latest on the trade war is some retaliation on Wednesday by the European Union against President Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum. The EU announcing tariffs on about 26 billion euros of U.S. exports, including Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and jeans. Then some response here on Thursday by President Trump threatening 200 percent U.S. tariffs on European wine and

Champagne. Kim, I tend to agree with Monet here. It would be awfully clarifying to get a vote from these members of Congress on whether they support this kind of tit for tat that is going on right now and that U.S. industries, including the Distillery Association, are saying is going to be pretty harmful if those tariffs on U.S. exports end up hitting.

You wanted a trade war? This is how a trade war happens. And you can see the escalation happening right and left. You know, the EU retaliation is going to be done in two stages. You just mentioned some of the items that they are going to slap very high tariffs on in the first round. They're still deciding what they're going to do in a second round. And you can bet that they will be aimed at maximum pain here in the U.S. And that's the thing that's being a bit...

missed, and it gets to your point about the vote, is some of the talk in the press has been, well, you know, this is putting some of Donald Trump's more moderate or swing districts in a difficult spot. That's true. But you are beginning to feel this pain everywhere. And if you are a Republican member of the House or the Senate that represents a dairy farmer somewhere,

a rancher somewhere, a soybean farmer somewhere. Anyone in the district who has a business owner, small business owner, or a large corporation, they are hearing it from these constituents about the immediate pain they're already feeling. And at a time when Americans already remain deeply concerned about inflation, and we got a better than expected inflation report out this week

That's slightly calm nerves, but it's the uncertainty here. And one question is, regardless of whether or not Republicans have the spine to have a vote on this in Congress,

Is that message being relayed to Donald Trump behind the scenes? You know, he surrounded himself with these advisers that all have largely said yes to his tariffs are beautiful thought process. But the little disruption that he warned about in his State of the Union is rapidly becoming big disruptions for a lot of people today.

at a time when Americans' tolerance for that kind of uncertainty and gyrations in their 401 s and in their business plans and in their farming operations is just not, there's not a lot of tolerance for that. So, one way or the other, whether through a vote or through backroom channels, Republicans, it would be in their interest to be getting the message to Donald Trump that there are some real concerns about this current path.

The other piece of this tariff maneuver by the House that I find a little disheartening is ratifying governance by presidential executive emergency. It's a precedent that I think Republicans may come to regret if the next Democratic president, for example, declares a climate emergency and unlocks all sorts of presidential powers.

On the point about the economic disruption, Manet, you're also seeing that in some of the polling. CNN poll out Thursday, 51% say Trump's policies have worsened the country's economic conditions, 28% improved, and 21% say no change. So more than half.

of the country respondents to this poll, at least, Manet, say that Trump has been bad for the economy. And I wonder how closely the White House is watching that kind of polling. As we know, voters are watching their 401ks, as Kim says, and also the broader stock market and the orders coming into their businesses.

Well, the frightening possibility is that Trump actually believes what he says when he says that the pain from the tariffs will be temporary en route to a mighty and dramatic and much needed restoration of the American economy through those protectionist actions. Because if he believes that...

then that means that he'll see those tremors in the stock market. He'll see small businesses starting to pull back their spending, and he'll think, this is all going according to plan. And basically, I just need to keep these tariffs on, and eventually we'll start to see a replication of the announcements that we've seen from a handful of businesses so far saying, we're going to invest $100 million in building a new factory in

In this part of the country, we're going to reshore some of our production that we'd previously offshored. Trump, it's very possible, really thinks that the tariffs are going to cause the repatriation of a lot of investment in a way that will drive the economy back up after a temporary blip as people have to adjust their spending decisions and their supply chains.

But obviously, as what we know from the vast majority of economics is that the tariffs are unlikely to have that effect either in the short or the long run. And so it's very hopeful, actually, that Trump is seeing these bad economic tremors and hearing people start to talk about recession and believing that

That could be where we're heading and is looking for an out, looking for ways to say that he's been able to extract concessions from these countries that they've imposed tariffs on, and then will be willing and able to actually repeal some of them in the relatively short term before the deepest economic consequences have time to take root. Thank you, Manay and Kim. Thank you all for listening. You can email us at pwpodcast at wsj.com.

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