OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:53 PM – Thursday, October 30, 2025
Moderate Democrats have reportedly grown increasingly frustrated with their party’s leadership in relation to the ongoing government shutdown and are now exploring ways to reopen the government — as millions of Americans face disruptions to essential programs.
After more than a dozen failed attempts to pass a temporary funding bill, more centrist Senate Democrats are considering alternatives to end the stalemate, as programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) risk lapsing, potentially affecting tens of millions of Americans.
The shutdown has now entered its fourth week, approaching the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, which lasted 35 days from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019.
“There are a few Democrats that are starting to say, ‘Well, we’re talking about actually making a proposal and bringing it to John Thune,’” GOP Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) told Newsmax on Thursday, referencing Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
“Thune has been very patient in this process, but is incredibly frustrated, as I am, to say — I know you hate President Trump, you’ve said that over and over again, but now you’re punishing federal workers, you’re punishing kids in Head Start [early-learning program], you’re cutting off SNAP benefits,” he continued.
Advertisement
Lankford highlighted that the GOP currently has 55 votes, five votes short of the required 60 needed to pass the continuing resolution, which would open the government back up.
“We have 55 right now. We need five more Democrats to be able to walk over and say, ‘I’m not going to shut down benefits for SNAP. I’m not going to close down Head Start. I’m not going to not pay federal workers that are working every day.”
He also noted that he doesn’t believe Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) will engage with Republicans in talks, stating, “Their plan was to shut the government down. They just didn’t have a plan to restart it again.”
Senator Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) echoed Lankford’s analysis, stating: “We’re hearing from Democrats, particularly in these last few hours and last day or two, that just think it’s intolerable to go into November very far with a government shutdown.”
“When you don’t have school lunch programs, for example, getting their money, when you don’t have SNAP recipients getting their money, people going hungry as a result of this government shutdown, when air traffic controllers start not showing up for work, when our police officers, our FBI, our Border Patrol, when the country becomes less safe, that’s real,” he added.
Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) has since confirmed that related conversations are taking place, telling CNN on Wednesday that the “private conversations that are going on are trying to create like a shadow negotiation, so that we have some clarity about what we need to vote on.”
Additionally, Representative Jared Golden (D-Maine) broke ranks with his party this week — publicly criticizing his fellow Democrats for their misleading strategy to leverage the impasse over funding. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Golden, the only House Democrat to vote in favor of the Republican-backed stopgap funding bill aimed at averting the shutdown, said he feels uneasy about using deceptive Democrat Party tactics to “win” and shutting down the government.
“I’m just uncomfortable lying about the strategy to win and shutting down the government. We’ve never been the party that does that,” Golden told the Journal.
Meanwhile, Schumer continues to argue that the Trump administration is “refusing to fund SNAP during a shutdown,” signaling an intent to prolong the standoff and shift responsibility to the opposing side. Senate Democrats, under Schumer, have been actively pushing to extend the enhanced premium tax credits from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) amid ongoing budget negotiations.
These credits are scheduled to expire at the end of 2025 due to built-in sunset provisions in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 and its extension in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. No actions by President Trump or his administration have triggered this expiration, as it stems directly from those Democrat-led laws.
Republicans have also promised to work with Democrats on tackling rising healthcare costs, but only after the government is reopened.
“We have to fix health care, because Obamacare is a disaster,” Trump stated on Wednesday. “When you see the increases in Obamacare, it never worked. It never will work, and we can do something with the Democrats much better than Obamacare.”
“Less money and better health care. And I think that’s something that could come out of this with the Democrats. We work with the Democrats,” he continued. “I think it’s a great time for the Republicans and Democrats to get together and make something that will work, and let the insurance companies make money — they’re entitled to that, but not the kind of money that they’re making.”
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts
What do YOU think? Click here to jump to the comments!Sponsored Content Below