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Senate Democrats got the message.
Senate Minority Leader Schumer was notably quiet as his caucus debated among themselves over what to do with a CR that House Republicans passed that they thought was terrible.
Schumer finally gave his guidance late on Wednesday, and it was that Democrats would be filibustering the bill.
Schumer said on the Senate floor:
Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort.
But Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their Continuing Resolution without any input, any input, from Congressional Democrats.
Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR.
Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11th CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass. We should vote on that.
I hope our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.
The problem with the Senate Democratic idea is that the House passed their CR then left for the rest of the week, so even if Senate Republicans would agree to pass a one-month CR, the House could not pass it before the government funding expires on Friday.
Trump and Mike Johnson thought they could ransom Senate Democrats into passing their CR by pushing up against the deadline and leaving the Senate no option to counter.
Johnson and Trump did not expect that Senate Democrats would say no.
For much of this week, it was looking like some Senate Democrats were so afraid of being blamed for a government shutdown that eight would cave and help Republicans reach the 60-vote threshold to pass the resolution.
However, Democratic rank and file have made it clear that they would tolerate Democrats helping Trump as he dismantles the federal government.
Unless some magic happens over the next two days, it looks like Trump’s strategy will backfire and cause a government shutdown.
Senate Democrats heard the American people, and they will not be caving to Trump. The pressure worked, which is why the American people must keep it up.
