Trump pressures GOP senators to end the government shutdown, now the longest ever

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at Senate Republicans to end the government shutdown, now the longest ever at 36 days, blaming the impasse for the party's defeat in closely-watched elections while Democrats, emboldened by their off-year victories, dug in for a fight.

Trump, whose first term at the White House set the previous government shutdown record, said this one was a “big factor, negative” in Tuesday's races. He revived his demands for Republicans to end the Senate filibuster as a way to reopen government — something senators have refused to do.

At the same time, Democrats hardened their resolve after sweeping governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey and the mayor's race in New York. The Democratic leaders said Trump needs to get serious about negotiating an end to the stalemate and resolve the problem of expiring health care subsidies that are central to the debate.

“The election results ought to send a much needed bolt of lightning to Donald Trump that he should meet with us to end this crisis,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Now into a sixth week, the shutdown and its impacts have deepened nationwide. The federal closures are disrupting the lives of millions of Americans with program cuts, flight delays and workers scrambling to make do without paychecks. Officials have warned of a worsening climate to come, including chaos in the skies. The Federal Aviation Administration said it will reduce air traffic starting Friday in major markets.

Expectations were high that the logjam would break once results were tallied in elections that were widely watched as a gauge of voter sentiment over Trump’s second term.

But Trump's demands on Wednesday that Republican senators get rid of the filibuster as a way to end the shutdown complicated an already difficult situation. And Democrats facing divisions within their progressive and moderate ranks said the results showed that voters will reward them for the fight.

“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump said during a breakfast meeting Wednesday with GOP senators at the White House.

Trump told the GOP senators they could bring the shutdown to a close by ending the Senate rule, which requires a 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation, and steamroll the Democratic minority. Republicans now hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and Democrats have been able to block legislation that would fund the government, having voted more than a dozen times against.

That push from Trump is likely to go unheeded by Republican senators — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said later changing the filibuster does not have support and is “not happening” — but it could spur them to deal with the Democrats.

Trump’s approach to the shutdown stands in marked contrast to his first term, when the government was partially closed for 35 days over his demands for money to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall. At that time, he met publicly and negotiated with congressional leaders. Unable to secure the money, he relented in 2019.

This time, Trump stayed out of the shutdown debate, instead keeping a robust schedule of global travel and events, including at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. And it’s not just Trump declining to engage in talks. The congressional leaders are at a standoff, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sent lawmakers home in September after they approved their own funding bill, refusing further negotiations.

A “sad landmark,” Johnson said at a news conference Wednesday about the record shutdown.

The speaker dismissed his party’s election losses and said Democrats need to drop their demands on health care until after the government reopens.

While talks have intensified among a loose coalition of centrist senators trying to negotiate an end to the shutdown, Democrats are also doubtful that any deal struck with the Republicans will be upheld unless Trump also agrees.

The Democrats said Trump's postelection unease with the shutdown should spark talks. But they also question whether the Republican president will keep his word, particularly after the administration restricted SNAP food aid despite court orders to ensure funds are available to prevent hunger.

And while moderate Democrats are quietly working toward an offramp, progressive Democrats are holding out for the best deal possible.

“It would be very strange for the American people to have weighed in, in support of Democrats standing up and fighting for them, and within days for us to surrender without having achieved any of the things that we’ve been fighting for,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

In the meantime, food aid, child care money and countless other government services are being seriously interrupted. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or expected to come to work without pay.

“Can this be over now?” Thune, R-S.D., said as he returned from the White House breakfast. “Have the American people suffered enough?”

Central to any resolution will be a series of agreements that would need to be upheld not only by the Senate, but also by the House, and the White House, which is not at all certain.

Senators from both parties are pushing to ensure the normal government funding process in Congress can be put back on track, eyeing a smaller package of bills that has widespread support to fund various aspects of government such as agricultural programs and military construction projects at bases.

More difficult, a substantial number of senators also want some resolution to the standoff over the funding for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.

With insurance premium notices being sent, millions of people are experiencing sticker shock on skyrocketing prices. The loss of enhanced federal subsidies, which were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and come in the form of tax credits, are expected to leave many people unable to buy health insurance.

Republicans are reluctant to fund the health care program, also known as Obamacare, without changes, but negotiating a compromise with Democrats is expected to take time, if a deal can be reached at all.

Thune has promised Democrats at least a vote on their preferred health care proposal, as part of any deal to reopen government. But that’s not enough for some senators, who see the health care deadlock as part of their broader concerns with Trump’s direction for the country and want assurance it will be resolved.

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Joey Cappelletti and Matt Brown contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks during a breakfast with Senate and House Republicans in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Vice President JD Vance and others, listen to President Donald Trump speak as they attend a breakfast with other Republicans in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump speaks during a breakfast with Senate and House Republicans in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., attends a breakfast with other Senate Republicans in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump speaks during a breakfast with Senate and House Republicans in the State Dining Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., center, joined by Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, left, returns to his office after meeting with reporters on day 35 of the government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Amanda Salter loads a pallet with food for her women's shelter at Second Harvest Food Bank, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arrives to meet with reporters following a closed-door session with fellow Democrats, on day 35 of the government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., joined at left by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the GOP whip, talks with reporters following a closed-door strategy session, on day 35 of the government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up one of the term's most consequential cases, President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. Trump plans to be in attendance.

In arguments Wednesday, the justices will hear Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them. They have not taken effect anywhere in the country.

A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.

Trump will be the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court.

The case frames another test of his assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court that has largely ruled in the president's favor, but with some notable exceptions that Trump has responded to with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.

The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship is the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs' decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He issued a preemptive broadside against the court on Sunday on his Truth Social. “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!,” the president wrote. “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!”

Trump's order would upend the longstanding view that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The 14th Amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as illegal, or likely so, under the Constitution and federal law. The decisions have invoked the high court's 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

The administration argues that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

The court should use the case to set straight “long-enduring misconceptions about the Constitution’s meaning,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.

No court has accepted that argument, and lawyers for pregnant women whose children would be affected by the order said the Supreme Court should not be the first to do so.

“We have the president of the United States trying to radically reinterpret the definition of American citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director who is facing off against Sauer at the Supreme Court.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would be affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright restrictions also would apply to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The U.S. Supreme Court is seen as the moon rises Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)