Good morning. It is Veterans Day. Thank you to those who have served. The Senate passed legislation last night to end the government shutdown. It’s not a done deal yet — the legislation still needs to make its way through the House — so I’d like to start today in Washington, which spent much of yesterday on what my colleague Michael Gold, who covers Congress, called “a slow-moving glide path” toward reopening the federal government, which has been shuttered for the past 41 days.
The road to reopeningLast night, a splinter group of eight senators voted with Republicans to end the government shutdown, without the concession that Democrats had spent weeks demanding. The House is set to take up the measure as soon as tomorrow, though it will take some time to gather its members. They have been on recess during the shutdown and have not held a vote in nearly two months. If the legislation passes, it can be signed by President Trump, who said yesterday afternoon that he approved of the plan. Then, the federal government will come back to life — at least until the spending agreement ends in January. The defections in the Democratic caucus prompted a sharp backlash. “The bitter rebukes came from every corner of the Democratic Party,” Michael wrote. A plan comes apartMore than a month ago, Democrats said they would not vote for a funding bill unless Republicans agreed to extend subsidies to the Affordable Care Act — which give people a tax credit to help pay for their health insurance — that are set to expire at the end of the year. The party was united. But Trump stands in the bully pulpit and has control of the government. Despite legal challenges, he found ways to pay for some parts of the government (the military, law enforcement) and cut off others (food stamp benefits, as well as federally funded projects in states led by Democrats). As my colleague Luke Broadwater, who covers the White House, explains, Trump’s strategy was to wait out the Democrats, turning up the heat until his opponents eventually caved. Eight senators did. As many as a dozen Democrats, many of them centrists hailing from purple states who were uncomfortable with the shutdown to begin with, had been quietly huddling for weeks in search of an off-ramp, Catie Edmondson reported. They found a bumpy one. Dick Durban of Illinois, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said he couldn’t “accept a strategy which wages political battle at the expense of my neighbor’s paycheck or the food for his children.” So even though Republicans did not agree to extend the health care credits, and even though voters were beginning to side with the left, Democrats — seven of them, anyway, and Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with them — folded. (Here’s how every senator voted.) “Standing up to Donald Trump didn’t work,” Senator King said on MSNBC. “It actually gave him more power.” A backlashSo Democrats are back where they started. For many, the decision brought to mind clichés about the party that have circulated since they lost the election in 2024: They are ineffective. They laid out an ultimatum, and then changed their minds. The bickering among Democrats found a home inside one family of lawmakers. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire was among those who voted to end the shutdown. But her daughter, a congressional candidate in the state, took a different view. In an interview with my colleague Reid Epstein, she said that “clearly we had different approaches here,” adding: “I can’t speak for her. I think she did what she believes is right.” As Michael put it, “The dispute was the latest evidence of a Democratic Party still deeply at odds over its direction and how best to counter President Trump.” More on the shutdown
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This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) The next installment of the “Knives Out” film franchise, “Wake Up Dead Man,” assembles a huge cast of stars, including Daniel Craig, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington and Mila Kunis. Because of the actors’ schedules and chemistry, it’s hard to gather an ensemble like this. How, according to a recent Times story, did the creators do it?
World War II cemeteries in the U.S. and Europe show how important the trans-Atlantic partnership is to preserving peace, Jonathan Darman writes. The “Make America Healthy Again” movement is appealing because it offers a level of control over our health that mainstream institutions can’t provide, Samuel Braslow writes. The Times Sale: Our best rate for readers of The Morning. Save now with our best offer on unlimited news and analysis as part of the complete Times experience: $1/week for your first year.
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14— Inches of snow that fell in Walkerton, Ind., yesterday, according to the National Weather Service, as a winter storm slammed parts of the Midwest.
M.L.B.: The league said it would cap bets on pitches at $200 just a day after two pitchers were indicted on charges linked to illegal sports betting. Olympics: The International Olympic Committee is moving toward a complete ban on transgender women in female events. |
