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Washington
CNN
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Democrats have been powerless as they’ve watched President Donald Trump systematically move to dismantle federal agencies and push the bounds of his office with little concern about the fallout.
But they do have one looming piece of leverage: the March 14 deadline to avert a government shutdown.
House and Senate Democrats at the highest levels are now engaged in a fierce debate about what exactly to demand in their first big negotiation with Trump and how forcefully to push, according to conversations with more than two dozen members and senior aides.
Trump and GOP leaders will need Democratic support in the Senate, where 60 votes would be required to advance the bill. In the House, they have to contend with a contingent of conservatives unlikely to vote for any spending bill. While rank-and-file Democrats are eager to play hardball with Trump, other senior Democrats are uncertain how firm of a line to draw, fearing they may be forced to capitulate in a funding feud and ultimately appear even weaker.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, have been in talks about how best to use the funding deadline to counter Trump. But some top Democrats worry that even if they won policy concessions, Trump would only ignore the law — as they believe he has in some of his initial assaults on federal agencies — so a knockdown, drag-out battle and potential shutdown could be all for naught.
“If the foundational role of Congress is the power of the purse, why would we ever believe them again on an appropriations deal?” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware. “It’s going to be harder for us to work together because it’s harder for us to trust each other.”
And as one senior aide described the situation: “There’s just not a lot of good options for Democrats.”
Many exasperated Democrats, even some from battleground House districts, insist a shutdown shouldn’t be off the table if Republicans can’t put up the votes themselves. But Schumer and other governing-minded senators are proceeding more cautiously, wary of provoking a damaging shutdown and getting a share of the blame.
Indeed, even as Jeffries and Schumer have intensified their attacks on Elon Musk’s role in Trump’s government, it’s uncertain whether they’ll take aim at the tech billionaire when it comes time to negotiate a funding deal.
In an interview last week, Jeffries indicated Democrats’ legislative push to block Musk’s access to government payment systems is not “at the moment” one of their demands in the funding fight.
“There are bipartisan negotiations that are underway right now to try to reach a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people,” Jeffries told CNN. “I’ve encouraged those bipartisan conversations to continue.”
But other Democrats say there must be a steep price for any Democratic votes.
“We’re not going to keep on bailing him out,” added Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who is among a growing faction of Democrats who are ready to stare down Trump in a shutdown fight. “We’re not a cheap date.”
Across the Capitol, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, stressed that the party needed to “use every point of leverage that we have” and that democracy itself is at stake. But he also acknowledged the risks of fighting too hard and landing in a shutdown: “Nobody wants a shutdown, but we have leverage.”
Sen. Mark Warner, another veteran of congressional spending battles who represents a huge share of federal workers in Virginia, said the party needed to fight to “protect the rule of law” and halt Trump’s dismantling of government. “But who knows,” he added grimly, “that may be all destroyed by the time [the deadline] comes about.”
Trump’s slashing of Washington programs — particularly for the US Agency for International Development — has put Democrats in a quandary. While the party universally supports the mission of the agency and believes Musk’s efforts to gut it flout federal law, some are uneasy about making foreign aid a centerpiece of a government shutdown fight.
“As tragic as it is what’s happened to USAID and our efforts abroad, I’m not sure that it hits many Americans emotionally — certainly not outside the Beltway,” said Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut.
Why a shutdown could still happen
Avoiding a shutdown will be difficult. Just over a month before the deadline, top House and Senate appropriators remain divided on reaching a basic agreement about how much Congress should spend in a fiscal year that’s already halfway over.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday accused Democrats of “trying to set up some sort of government shutdown” and said their negotiators have retreated from talks in recent days.
But Democrats dispute his characterization. They say the bigger problem is that Republicans in the House and Senate are at odds among themselves over the spending levels.
“We want to make sure that once we come to an agreement, it can’t just be thrown out the window after it’s passed into law by a lawless Trump-Elon administration that is currently running things,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Other contentious matters, such as California wildfire aid and a national debt limit increase, could be rolled into the spending bill, making the ultimate outcome of the fight unpredictable.
“Republicans need us. So if they want to have meaningful conversations, they know where to find us,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, a California Democrat and No. 3 in leadership.
Some on the left are pressing for a fight.
“If Senate Democrats don’t have the gumption to do what is necessary in this moment, I believe that House Democrats will,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said. Asked whether the confrontation could lead to a shutdown, she insisted her party wouldn’t be to blame and the price of Democratic votes should be “very high.”
‘Don’t swing at every pitch’
Jeffries and his team are keeping close tabs on their most vulnerable members, many of whom represent Trump-won districts. The minority leader huddled with a group of battleground members Thursday to speak about the looming question of leverage, according to multiple people familiar with the discussion.
“I don’t think people like when their government shuts down, and I don’t think the average person watches the debate so closely that they know whose fault it is,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat who won a critical battleground seat where Trump also won.
As Democrats try to apply lessons from their 2024 losses, they’ve differed on how hard — and how often — to push back against Trump.
Rep. Al Green of Texas, for instance, went to the floor Wednesday to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump. Two other House Democrats filmed themselves forcing their way into Johnson’s office to discuss Musk’s access to Treasury Department payment systems. A day later, Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman protested the GOP’s holding of the National Prayer Breakfast in the Capitol, which he called symbolic of the MAGA “dystopian authoritarian agenda.”
In private meetings, Jeffries has told members to be selective, like his favorite baseball player Aaron Judge, and not “swing at every pitch.” But in Trump’s flood-the-zone era of politics, not all Democrats agree.
“I think there’s no harm in Democrats raising alarms every single day. I do not believe in this theory that we should sit in the bushes and wait for some moment down the line when things get really, really bad. They’re bad right now,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut. “We’re going to need everybody to be even louder in the coming days.”
CNN’s Alison Main contributed to this report.
