Senate Democrats voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a near certain path to a shutdown. Key US politics stories from 30 September 2025
Donald Trump has blamed Democrats for stalled talks that have made a US government shut down all but certain, and has threatened to punish the party and its voters during any stoppage by targeting progressive priorities and forcing mass public sector job cuts.
Late on Tuesday Senate Democrats voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a near certain path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday for the first time in almost seven years. Democrats refused to vote for the bill unless it included a series of concessions centred on healthcare.
After the vote, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo saying that “affected agencies should now execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.”
“So we’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected. And they’re Democrats, they’re going to be Democrats,” Trump said at an earlier White House event. The president added that a “lot of good can come down from shutdowns” and suggested he would use the pause to “get rid of a lot of things we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things”.
