Some congressional allies of Donald Trump are giving the president cover as a government shutdown enters its third full week, contending that only Democratic lawmakers can turn on the federal lights. Trump ended last week by threatening to continue firing federal workers and “closing up” programs valued by Democrats, showing no urgency to reopen the government. Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus have accused Trump of overstepping during the shutdown, blaming him for triggering it. Trump’s Republican allies on Capitol Hill, however, shrugged off questions about whether he needed to engage with Democratic leaders to find a way out of the shutdown wilderness. “It's not his decision. It's Congress' decision. It's our decision whether we pass budgets, not pass budgets,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott said. “It’s our decision to do a continuing resolution." “So Democrats have made the decision, led by Chuck Schumer, to have a shutdown,” he added. Asked if Trump or Vice President JD Vance, a Republican former senator from Ohio, should get more involved in seeking a shutdown-ending deal, Scott replied: “They're not members of Congress — it’s Congress' job.” Another Trump ally in the Senate pointed a finger at Democrats in the chamber. “This is easy. For the shutdown to end, they just need to vote for the House CR,” Sen. Ron Johnson said. Asked if Trump and Vance had been involved enough, the Wisconsin Republican responded, “This is up to Congress and the Democrats." Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia described the pressure on Senate Democrats as “enormous.” “When your leadership … raises the stakes so high like this, politically, I think it's difficult for them to then begin to change the vote,” the senator told “Fox News Sunday.” “I do believe many Democrats do not want to be in a shutdown situation. They know it's a misery march. It's a a road to nowhere,” the West Virginia Republican added. “And we need to reopen the government to get things moving. We need to get appropriations moving.” Those comments came after Trump told reporters last week that his administration would continue targeting federal programs important to Democratic members — the latest example of his administration’s bare-knuckle style of governance. “Honestly? Can I put it in plain words for you? … The Democrats are getting killed in the shutdown because we're closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we were opposed to,” the president said. “They're never going to come back, in many cases. So we're being able to do things that we were unable to do before,” he said, appearing to suggest the shutdown program-cutting was preplanned. One veteran Senate Democrat, Virginia’s Tim Kaine, said last week that what Trump should do is drop his threats and show up at the negotiating table. Kaine recalled that the economic fallout from the government shuttering during Trump’s first term ended up forcing the 45th president to seek a deal. With recent polls showing Americans blaming both sides for the ongoing shutdown, the 47th chief executive has not yet reached a similar point this time. 'Kamikaze pilots' For his part, Trump was asked during an interview that aired on Fox News' “Sunday Morning Futures” how long he expected the shutdown to drag on. He did not directly respond with a time estimate. “Look, the Democrats are ... kamikaze pilots right now,” he said. “They have nothing going. They have no future. They have incompetent candidates.” Some Senate Democrats have warned that Trump’s moves during the shutdown to fire federal employees and shutter some Democratic-preferred federal programs have challenged norms — and might be illegal. “It's so antithetical to the fundamental responsibility of the president in Article II, which he often cites, which is to, quote, ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ the laws, meaning the laws establishing these agencies, establishing the mission of the agencies,” said Maine independent Sen. Angus King, one of three Democratic Caucus members who've been voting with Republicans to end the shutdown. “Just last week, they defunded the office in the Department of Education that deals with education for people with special needs and disabilities. That's downright cruel,” King said. “So, yes, it concerns me, and I think we've got to get this shutdown over with, or they're just going to continue doing this.” Kaine said the only way out of the stalemate was for Trump to feel enough pressure to engage with lawmakers about a deal. “Look, Donald Trump put us in a shutdown in 2018 and 2019, and what eventually convinced him to get out of it was the instability in commercial air traffic, which really jeopardized the whole U.S. economy,” the Virginia Democrat said. “When flights started to get canceled and delayed, that had such an effect on the economy that he decided that he should get a deal." "When he engages, we will solve this in 36 hours," Kaine said. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, another influential independent who caucuses with Democrats, called on Trump to seek a deal with lawmakers. “What's Trump doing? Negotiating a budget deal? No. Preventing premiums from doubling? No. Stopping 15 million Americans from losing health care? No,” he said on X last week. “He's meeting the [president] of Argentina to reward him with a $20 billion bailout. America first?”
