The federal government shut down on Wednesday as President Donald Trump threatened mass federal layoffs. Republicans are blaming Democrats for the shutdown, while Democrats are refusing to support a Republican spending bill without guarantees to extend Obamacare provisions set to expire and reverse GOP health care cuts earlier this year.

“Democrats are … trying to reverse some of the cuts from the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ that was passed earlier this year to Medicaid,” says Intercept politics reporter Jessica Washington. “So what Democrats are really trying to message here is that they’re fighting for health care, both to reverse some of these Medicaid cuts and also to ensure that the Affordable Care Act subsidies continue.”

This week on The Intercept Briefing, senior politics reporter Akela Lacy speaks to Washington about the government shutdown and the impact it will have on public services, including essential services and federal workers.

We’re also following a federal court case where an appointee of Ronald Reagan blasted the Trump administration for unlawfully targeting pro-Palestine students for protected speech.

“It’s a historic ruling that rightly affirms that the First Amendment protects non-citizens lawfully present in the U.S. just as it protects citizens,” says Ramya Krishnan, lecturer at Columbia University Law School and senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which represented plaintiffs in the case. “And if free speech means anything in this country, it means the government can’t lock you up simply because it disagrees with your political views.”

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Transcript:

Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Akela Lacy.

The federal government shut down just after midnight on Wednesday.

The shutdown could lead to mass federal layoffs and threaten some essential services, though most critical workers in air traffic control and Social Security will work without pay for the time being.

If this all sounds familiar to you, it should. Shutdowns have become more common over the last 30 years. And the most recent “showdowns” have felt more and more like a charade. Another fight threatened to shut down the government just seven months ago. The most recent shutdown is the second under Donald Trump. The first under Trump, in 2018, marked the longest government shutdown in U.S. history — 35 days — forcing some federal workers to take out loans to make ends meet.

Republicans, who control both branches of Congress and the White House, have not passed a federal spending bill since Trump took office. They need Democratic votes to do so, but Democrats are currently withholding their support in efforts to show that this time, they really are trying to stand up to Trump.

In the meantime, Trump is using federal workers as pawns — threatening mass permanent layoffs — and delaying the next jobs report. Still, as we’ve discussed on this show before, Republicans, at least for now, appear to be controlling the narrative.

Joining me now to help us understand the bigger picture is my colleague, Intercept politics reporter Jessica Washington.

Jessie, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.

Jessica Washington: Thanks for having me on.

AL: And just a note, we’re speaking on Wednesday, October 1.

So Jess, you were on the hill Wednesday morning. What did you see?

JW: The vibes are, are definitely a little ominous over there. I think even just walking in, things felt pretty negative.

So I walked past some Capitol Police when I first arrived, and they were talking about the shutdown. I mean, they’ll have to potentially go without pay. And so there was a lot of talk. They were saying, I don’t care about Democrats or Republicans. They need to figure this out. But they’ll still have to work during the government shutdown, potentially without pay.

And then attending the Republican leadership press conference was [a] very different story. They were very angry. They were blaming the shutdown on Democrats wanting health care for undocumented immigrants. Obviously [this] isn’t true, but they were playing this with ominous music videos of Democrats who were opposing the last shutdown. It was just this very heated, very intense blame game.

I think for Democrats we’re also seeing a lot of anger. And a lot of outrage over Republicans’ refusal to consider bipartisan legislation on this.

AL: What does a government shutdown actually mean? How will this affect everyday people?

JW: So a government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass by the start of the fiscal year — so October 1 — fails to pass the multiple appropriations bills in order to get the government funded. And so what happens here isn’t necessarily that all government functions cease. In fact, essential work has to continue. Medicaid, Medicare payment, Social Security, those are all unaffected by a shutdown.

But kind of as time goes on, the shutdown becomes more and more dangerous in terms of everyday Americans not getting things like food assistance, or particularly assistance for pregnant women, babies as well.

“Congress and the president will still continue to get paid, while federal workers may have to go without pay.”

The bigger impact really is for federal workers who are potentially going to have to go without pay. There are also threats from the Trump administration of mass firing, so we are really not sure what the exact impact is going to be yet.

It is important to note that Congress and the president will still continue to get paid, while federal workers may have to go without pay. So that’s just an important thing to remember in a government shutdown.

AL: How did we get here and why hasn’t the government passed a spending bill yet? Is that unusual?

JW: Yeah. So unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you’re looking at it, it isn’t unusual for the government not to have passed a spending bill at this point.

So continuing resolutions are kind of Congress’s way of getting around having to actually make decisions about the budget and about how they want spending to go forward. So what happens in a continuing resolution is that Congress agrees to fund the government at the same levels as before.

So right now what we’re seeing is both the failure to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels, and also a larger systemic failure to pass appropriations bills. So since Trump has come into office, we haven’t actually seen one of these larger spending packages passed, and so that’s how we ended up here.

AL: Republicans are obviously blaming Democrats, even though they fully control the government, although they do need 60 votes to pass this kind of spending bill. I saw the official House Democrats Twitter account posted a picture of Democratic leaders taking a selfie at the Capitol on Tuesday night that read “House Democrats are in DC and ready to cancel the cuts, lower the costs, save health care,” which they’re now being dragged for. How are Democratic leaders responding to this shutdown?

JW: So Democratic leadership is really trying to focus on what they’re trying to accomplish by, I don’t want to say enabling the shutdown. It’s a little more complicated than that, but by not passing this continuing resolution that Republicans want.

So they’re really trying to highlight what their asks are. And what those asks are, are an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies to make sure that Americans who get their health care through that program are able to get their subsidies at the existing level and don’t have to spend more on health care.

Democrats are also interested in trying to reverse some of the cuts from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that was passed earlier this year to Medicaid, so also to ensure that more Americans can continue to access Medicaid. So what Democrats are really trying to message here is that they’re fighting for health care, both to reverse some of these Medicaid cuts and also to ensure that the Affordable Care Act subsidies........

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