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Alexis Madrigal: Welcome to Forum. I’m Alexis Madrigal. As we’ve discussed on the air before, federal government shutdowns have become a feature of American politics over the last twenty-five years. But this one shows signs of being longer and more damaging than the others. We’re now on day twenty-nine of this shutdown.
Here to talk with us about the politics and the impacts, we’ve got two journalists: Luke Broadwater from The New York Times, who’s covering the politics of the shutdown. Thanks for joining us, Luke.
Luke Broadwater: Hi. How are you?
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah, good, good. Thanks for coming on. We’ve also got Carly Severn, who is leading the team here at KQED that serves our listeners and users with guides, explainers, and other helpful resources. Thank you for joining us, Carly.
Carly Severn: Thank you, Alexis. Thanks for having us on.
Alexis Madrigal: So Luke, remind me where we are. I feel like it’s Groundhog Day here—nothing seems to be changing. We’re weeks into this thing. How’d we get here?
Luke Broadwater: Yeah, if my math is correct, we’re on day twenty-nine of the shutdown, which makes it the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history. President Trump now holds the record for both the first and second-longest shutdowns under his watch. The first was during his presidency, and the second one looks like it’s on pace to eclipse that if it goes another week.
How did we get here? That’s a good question. You could trace it back to the last election. Democrats have been cast into the political wilderness—they hold no power in Washington. They don’t have the presidency, the House, the Senate, or the Supreme Court. They’ve been waiting for a chance to assert some leverage and stop what they view as the wrecking ball that is the Trump administration.
This is one of the few leverage points they have—to block the passage of a short-term funding bill because of the Senate filibuster. I don’t want to get too technical, but they see that Affordable Care Act credits are about to expire and that people’s health care benefits are about to become much more expensive. Many people will see a doubling or tripling in health care costs very soon.
So, seeing that looming mess, they’ve chosen to use the filibuster to block a spending bill, causing a government shutdown. This is their leverage point. They’re saying the Trump administration and Republicans need to negotiate over health care costs and help bring them down—and they’re not going to give in until they do.
Republicans show no interest in negotiating. President Trump isn’t even in the country. They’re not meeting, they’re not talking. So it looks like neither side is willing to give in, and this shutdown is going to keep extending even longer.
Alexis Madrigal: From what you said, it feels like a different kind of shutdown. I remember being in Washington, D.C., during a shutdown in the Obama era, and there was all this back-and-forth between Republicans in Congress and President Obama. It felt like every day there was some new development—maybe something would change or there’d be a breakthrough. In this case, it’s been oddly quiet.
Luke Broadwater: Yeah, there just aren’t a lot of developments because both sides are so dug in and not talking. It’s not like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are in the Oval Office hashing things out with Trump and John Thune and Mike Johnson—that’s not happening. So we’re in a stagnant place.
There’s so little negotiation that House Republicans aren’t even in Washington. They’ve been out for almost a month, so there’s no one to negotiate with. That makes it very different from past shutdowns.
The other thing is that traditionally, it’s Republicans who shut down the government. They’re the party that doesn’t believe in government the way Democrats do. They’re happy to shut it down and think the government should be smaller. This is the inverse—Democrats, who generally believe government should work for people, are now the ones driving the shutdown.
They see this as their only chance to get any policy through during the Trump years. If they don’t take a stand here, they’ll have no leverage on health care. So it’s very unlike other shutdowns.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah.
Luke Broadwater: And until there’s some real pain, the parties probably still won’t negotiate.
Alexis Madrigal: Carly Severn, talk to me about what KQED is doing locally to figure out where the impacts are and how we can help people.
Carly Severn: Sure. To set the scene, according to state data from the summer, around five and a half million Californians use CalFresh—California’s version of SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. All states have their own version of this program.
That includes about two million children, and seniors and children make up well over sixty percent of SNAP users. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Bay Area rely on SNAP, with the highest proportion in Alameda County.
In terms of local response: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie just announced that the city will cover November SNAP payments that would otherwise have been missed for San Francisco residents. That’ll come in the form of gift cards mailed out or available via QR code.
Governor Gavin Newsom has also activated the National Guard to help food banks and is fast-tracking $80 million in state support. Alameda County just voted to provide $10 million in food assistance.
These responses are happening, but it’s really all falling on the food banks right now—and they were already seeing rising demand. People working at food banks describe it as déjà vu from the COVID era—another emergency-level situation.
Alexis Madrigal: And maybe this is obvious, but why is the shutdown causing these SNAP payments not to go out?
Carly Severn: SNAP is federally funded. There’s a banner on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website saying, among other things, that the well has run dry. Normally, in the first ten days of the month—between the first and the tenth—people receive their SNAP benefits on their EBT cards.
We’re at the end of October now, and many balances are already running out. There’s also confusion about whether people can still use their EBT cards. There’s been no official signal that they’ll stop working in November, but Assemblymember Alex Lee, who oversees CalFresh on the state committee, told me that federal-level IT problems could potentially disrupt the system. He can’t guarantee that won’t happen.
So there’s a lot of confusion—should people spend down their balance now or save it? And of course, Thanksgiving is around the corner. November is when many families would have used these benefits for holiday meals.
Alexis Madrigal: Yeah, yeah. Luke, talk to me a little about how unusual it is for SNAP benefits to be cut. My understanding is that during the last shutdown, SNAP was covered. Not every federal program stops during a shutdown, right? So who decided SNAP wouldn’t be one of the protected ones?
Luke Broadwater: The Trump administration has been moving money around during the shutdown to pay for what they want to prioritize. There have been questions about whether that’s legal or constitutional, but they’ve been doing it. They’ve paid the troops, funded WIC—Women, Infants, and Children—kept border agents and the FBI on payroll, and supported other parts of government that would otherwise be furloughed.
They could, if they wanted to, fund SNAP benefits—but they’re choosing not to. They’re saying it’s the Democrats’ fault because of the shutdown. Democrats argue that even with the shutdown, the administration could use existing funds to support SNAP but won’t.
Ultimately, I think the Trump administration could fund this program if it chose to. They haven’t, and it’s become a political football—which is really unfortunate when you’re talking about millions of people potentially going hungry.
Alexis Madrigal: For example, the people in Congress are still being paid, right?
Luke Broadwater: Yes—every single one of them. There’s been talk over the years about senators and representatives not getting paid during shutdowns. Some of them have said, “My family couldn’t afford that,” which really shows how disconnected it all is.
Alexis Madrigal: Listener Trish writes in to say, “Thousands of innocent federal employees are being held hostage during the shutdown. It would seem appropriate to withhold the salaries of our federal legislators who are causing the shutdown until they can come to an agreement that restores a functional government.”
We’re going to get to more local impacts of the federal shutdown. We’re joined by Luke Broadwater, White House reporter with The New York Times—his most recent article is titled “The Shutdown Is Stretching On, Trump Doesn’t Seem to Mind.” We’re also joined by Carly Severn, senior editor of audience news here at KQED.
We’ll be bringing on more guests to give you a sense of what’s happening around our area as a result of this shutdown. Are you a friend or family member of a federal employee? How are you faring? What impacts are you seeing?
Give us a call at 866-733-6786, or email forum@kqed.org. I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.
