Democrats who backed a deal to reopen the US government faced backlash from their party as Donald Trump sought to resolve a federal shutdown that hurt his approval ratings and took a toll on the economy.
The agreement reached in the Senate on Sunday evening came after Republicans and Democrats came under pressure to end the shutdown, which was being felt intensely across the country.
The agreement, which still faces obstacles before its approval, gave a new impetus to the American political scene, less than a week after Democrats achieved important victories in important elections for governor of the states of Virginia and New Jersey, and in the election of the mayor of New York City.
“No one can turn a certain victory into a defeat like Democrats,” Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director under Barack Obama, wrote in a blog post Monday.
The seven Democratic senators who voted cross-party to approve the deal said they secured a commitment from Senate Republican leaders to hold a vote on extending health care subsidies that were set to expire this year. They also won concessions from Republicans, limiting the firings of federal employees.
But other Democrats also condemned what they saw as a capitulation to Trump, as the agreement failed to commit to extending health care subsidies, an issue that helped them win last week’s election.
“This deal dramatically increases health care costs and only exacerbates the affordability crisis,” Zahran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor-elect, wrote in X. “It should be rejected, as should any policy that wants to compromise on workers’ basic needs.”
The measure still must be voted on in the House of Representatives before it goes to Trump for final approval.
But the initial agreement boosted stock markets on Monday. After its worst week in a month, the S&P 500 rebounded 1.2%, led by technology stocks as investors sought riskier assets. The Nasdaq index, which witnesses a strong presence of technology companies, rose by 2.1%. Treasuries and the dollar index, assets traditionally considered safe havens, fell. The government shutdown was an uncomfortable experience for many Republicans and Trump, who has seen his approval ratings decline and the economy weaken since the start of the longest federal shutdown in US history on October 1.
According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, 45% of Americans approved of Trump’s performance when the shutdown began on October 1, while 53% disapproved. But by Monday, the 8 percentage point approval gap had widened to 11 points, with 54% disapproving of the president.
The US President moved quickly to change this discourse, with new populist messages. On Monday, he reiterated his pledge to make $2,000 payments to “low- and middle-income American citizens from the massive tariff revenues coming into our country” in a social media post.
After clearing a major procedural hurdle in the Senate of Congress late on Sunday, the agreement still needs to be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives, where the margin of error is slim, before it reaches Trump’s desk for final approval. Therefore, there is still the possibility of a ban.
House Republicans appear inclined to accept the deal. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he hopes to summon lawmakers to Washington to vote on the plan later this week. “We have to do it as quickly as possible,” he told reporters on Monday. “This has gone on for too long, and too many people have suffered,” he added.
“The government is reopening after more than 40 days, which should never have happened. And I think, frankly, even some Democrats realize that this has been an unmitigated disaster,” Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, told CNN.
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