Democrats Want A Deal. Can They Trust Trump?

WASHINGTON ― As the federal government shutdown grinds on this week with no discernible end in sight, some Democrats are beginning to explore potential off-ramps that could lead to an agreement with Republicans on one of their main demands: protecting health insurance for millions of Americans.

The problem getting to a deal is the deep lack of trust in Washington in recent years. Republicans have ripped up prior bipartisan spending agreements to push deep cuts. The Trump administration has unilaterally frozen billions of dollars in funding, infuriating Democrats who believe it to be wildly illegal. Now, the Trump administration is threatening mass firings of federal employees who have been furloughed and putting on hold tens of billions of dollars more in spending for blue states only ― further provoking Democratic lawmakers.

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Republicans maintain they are willing to discuss the expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies protecting millions of Americans from health insurance premium hikes next year, but only after Democrats vote for their bill reopening government until November.

For Democrats thinking of making that deal, the key question then becomes: How do we know Republicans in both the House and Senate will hold up their end of the bargain and act to extend the subsidies? And will this White House ultimately honor a deal struck by Congress, something rarely seen in the past?

“We have a trust issue,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), one of a dozen senators involved in informal bipartisan discussions that occurred on the Senate floor on Wednesday, acknowledged to reporters afterward.

“Obviously, issues with the House and what they’re going to do, and [House Speaker Mike] Johnson specifically. So we’re trying to figure out what a process we could create that will first create trust, and then we can move on to the second step,” Gallego added.

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That process would likely involve some kind of commitment by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to address the expiring health insurance subsidies as part of the bipartisan appropriations bills that Republicans are hoping to approve in the coming weeks. During the brief January 2018 government shutdown, which occurred over the issue of protecting Dreamers, for example, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Democrats he would hold a vote on immigration, a concession that ultimately ended the standoff and reopened government.

Thune hasn’t gone that far, but he dangled the possibility of a framework for negotiations over the Obamacare insurance subsidies in an interview with Politico ― provided it includes reforms such as new income limits and fraud protections. However, the majority leader said he couldn’t guarantee that a deal on extending the premium tax credits would pass in Congress and be signed into law by the president ― especially not before Nov. 1, when Obamacare enrollees must make decisions about which insurance plans to sign up for next year.

“What I can’t guarantee, of course, is an outcome and, in particular, one that would clear in the House, too,” Thune told the outlet. “The White House is another factor here. But I think everybody realizes we want solutions.”

Thune’s South Dakota colleague, GOP Sen. Mike Rounds, suggested that if Democrats aren’t happy with the progress being made on extending the subsidies after they vote to reopen the government, they can again have leverage over the budget on the next government funding deadline of Nov. 21.

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“If it fails, and they’re totally disappointed with it, the [continuing resolution funding the government] expires,” he said. “In the meantime, they might be very pleasantly surprised with how much we want to get our work done in the Senate.”

Still, Rounds was skeptical Democrats could ultimately get there: “They’ve kind of backed themselves into a corner, and it’s a matter of, how can they save face without simply being seen as capitulating? And so, I don’t know how they do that.”

Since three members of the Senate Democratic caucus joined Republicans in voting for a House-passed funding bill earlier this week, Republicans need to peel off at least five more Democrats to break a filibuster and reopen the government. They’re eyeing centrists like Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Gary Peters of Michigan, and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, making appeals to them to vote to fund the government like they did earlier this year.

“This is an opportunity for us to talk to each other,” Shaheen said Thursday during an interview on Fox News. “I think we can address both keeping the government open and the health care needs of so many people. If we don’t address the premium tax credits, they’re going to see their rates double by November.”

But other Democrats are suspicious of Republicans following through on any deal. Conservatives want to let the subsidies lapse at the end of the year, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said there’s nothing to negotiate over until December, at the earliest. And then there is Trump, a president who has shown far more interest in trolling Democratic leaders with racist, AI-generated videos than actually sitting down with both parties to make a deal.

“It’s remarkable that Democrats are negotiating for some assurance that the president of the United States will follow the law that, evidently, is now such an open question that even Republicans acknowledge that maybe we have to figure out some way to lock him in,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told HuffPost.

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“Democrats have to decide, are we going to go along with Republicans knocking 15 million people off their health care and doubling insurance premiums for tens of millions more, or are we going to stop? This is our chance to put that in front of the Republicans and force them to take a hard look,” she added.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Democrats are looking for more than “an empty promise” from the White House and from Republicans given their record of trying to disregard federal spending levels set by lawmakers.

“This administration has ignored those and sent impoundments and rescissions and cut programs and done all kinds of things that Congress did not approve,” Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters on a Thursday call.

“An empty promise is, ‘We’ll have a proposal to you by the end of November,’” added Murray. “An empty promise is, ‘Just get us going again and we’ll get those bills on the floor.’ That means nothing, unless we know for sure that our legislation actually is going to be passed and enacted into law as Congress has approved.”

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The decision by Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House to place a hold on previously approved federal funding for projects in New York and other blue states, as well as his threats to lay off thousands of federal employees, is putting at risk bipartisan talks in the Senate and annoying senators of both parties.

“They need to be really careful with that, because they can create a toxic environment here,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told HuffPost, warning it would  cause “more work to get us out of this.”

Trump and Vought are moving forward with full speed, however, ignoring those warnings. On Thursday, the president announced he is meeting with the Project 2025 architect to determine “which of the many Democrat Agencies” in the federal government will be cut or reduced.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote in a post on social media.

Jen Bendery contributed reporting.

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