Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., delivered a stark warning during a Monday press conference on Day 13 of the government shutdown.
‘We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and pass a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,’ the leader of the House of Representatives said.
The government entered into a shutdown nearly two weeks ago on Oct. 1 after Senate Democrats rejected the GOP’s federal funding plan. They have since blocked consideration of the same bill six more times.
During his press conference, Johnson referenced former President Barack Obama telling a crowd over a decade ago, ‘There is one way out of this reckless and damaging Republican shutdown: Congress has to pass a budget that funds our government with no partisan strings attached.’
‘What I just read was a direct quote. Those are not my words. They belong to President Barack Obama. He was speaking there in 2013 when our government was shut down for 16 days,’ he said. ‘This would be the third-longest government shutdown in American history, that one would be.’
He added, ‘If Democrats keep up their obstruction here today, that’s where we’re going to be headed.’
The longest shutdown in U.S. history lasted 35 days between December 2018 and January 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The second-longest was a 21-day shutdown under former President Bill Clinton between December 1995 and January 1996, followed by the shutdown under Obama.
At this point, the 2025 shutdown is the fifth-longest in history, just behind the 1978 shutdown under former President Jimmy Carter.
Republicans proposed a seven-week bill extending fiscal year (FY) 2025 federal funding levels through Nov. 21 called a continuing resolution (CR). It’s aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a longer-term agreement on FY2026, which began on Oct. 1.
It’s largely free of policy riders — save for an added $88 million in security funding for lawmakers, the White House and the judicial branch — and it has bipartisan support.
It passed the House along mostly partisan lines on Sept. 19. But Democrats in the House and Senate were largely infuriated by being sidelined in federal funding talks and are now demanding that any spending deal also include an extension of COVID-19 pandemic-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.