US Government Shutdown Enters 3rd Day, Expected to Last Past Weekend
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The United States government shutdown has entered a third day after the Senate failed to reach a deal on a crucial spending bill before observing Yom Kippur.
The Senate floor was open on Thursday, but it did not vote due to the holiday, Judaism’s holiest day of the year.
The next vote is set for Friday, but the chances of success appear slim.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters a weekend vote is “unlikely,” which means the shutdown will likely continue into next week.
Both Republican and Democratic spending bills have failed to reach the 60 out of 100 vote threshold to pass, as senators continue to vote largely down party lines.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Republican, told CBS News the House of Representatives was working on a new bill to present to the Senate.
Republicans are also working to win over individual legislators. They hold 53 seats in the Senate to Democrats’ 45 seats. The Senate’s two independents – Angus King from Maine and Bernie Sanders from Vermont – typically vote with Democrats, but not always.
King and a few Democrats, like Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, voted in favor of the Republican deal earlier this week, saying they feared a shutdown would cause more harm than good, Al Jazeera reported.
Trump has also threatened to use the shutdown to slash the federal workforce, going against the longstanding practice of furloughing hundreds of thousands of workers.
He said on Truth Social that he had met with Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent”.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also confirmed on Thursday that cuts were “likely going to be in the thousands”.
The White House has already frozen $26bn in programs in Democratic states like California, New York, and Illinois.
Democrats are trying to use the spending bill to gain concessions from Republicans on healthcare, following major cuts earlier this year by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
