Trump spending clash splits Democrats on fighting or dealmaking

WASHINGTON – Democratic congressional leaders, locked out of power, see the upcoming government funding deadline as their best chance to strike deals in US President Donald Trump’s Washington.

Their increasingly restive left flank is itching for a fight. 

After six months of getting steamrolled by Mr Trump and the Republican Congress, prominent Democrats – including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Chris Murphy – are demanding party leaders take a harder line against Mr Trump as the president circumvents checks and balances and consolidates power. 

“I’m not willing to be a helpmate on another one of Donald Trump’s scams,” Ms Warren said last week. “Do we really look that gullible?” 

The Democratic party is united on its goal: to leverage voter concerns about Mr Trump’s economic and broader political agenda to win a majority in one – if not both – chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. 

Democratic leaders have long insisted that the best way to do that is to present themselves as a moderating force, essentially the grown-ups in the room preaching stability over chaos. 

In that vein, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer focused the last week before the month-long August recess on Mr Trump’s imposition of sweeping global tariffs, the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein matter, looming cuts to health care benefits for millions, and Mr Trump’s self-enrichment with his family’s crypto and other businesses – matters that Democrats consider to be winning issues for them. 

But he also backed a bipartisan spending package without guarantees demanded by progressives that Republicans and Mr Trump will not try and delete some of the funding later on.

“If we don’t stand as Democrats, we deserve to lose,” Mr Booker warned on the Senate floor as he complained some Democrats are too eager to make deals without adequate safeguards.

Spending battle

Mr Trump will need some Democratic support to overcome a Senate filibuster of spending Bills needed to keep the government open after Sept 30.

He also may need Democrats’ votes in the House, where fractious Republicans enjoy the narrowest of majorities.

Mr Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries see the spending showdown as an opportunity to score some legislative victories.

They have requested a meeting this week with their GOP counterparts and want, among other things, to avert cuts to Affordable Care Act subsidies set to take effect Jan 1, 2026, which would result in sharp increases in health insurance premiums for millions.

“You have the responsibility to govern for all Americans and work on a bipartisan basis to avert a painful, unnecessary shutdown at the end of September. Yet it is clear that the Trump Administration and many within your party are preparing to ‘go it alone’ and continue to legislate on a solely Republican basis,” they wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Ms Warren, breaking with party leaders, is urging Democrats to withhold their votes, arguing that Republicans have repeatedly broken deals and will not commit to keeping them in the future.  

The Massachussetts progressive and her allies specifically want to avoid a repeat of March, when Republicans muscled through a GOP-written spending package with Mr Schumer’s reluctant acquiescence. 

Mr Schumer argued then a shutdown would have been far worse for Democratic priorities and undermined court challenges to Mr Trump’s unilateral spending cuts.

But his move fractured Democrats and prompted a fierce backlash from the left.

Progressives were further incensed by a Republican-only vote in July clawing back billions for foreign aid and public broadcasting, the first of what could be several attempts to rescind already appropriated funding.

Unlike the spending Bills, the so-called rescissions packages are not subject to a filibuster. 

Mr Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who has built a strong social media following by tapping into the base’s frustrations, argued Mr Trump could simply ignore them again and seek to rescind the money, or refuse to spend it.

“Republicans have told us that they’re going to ask us to negotiate a budget and then they are going to stab us in the back the minute we walk out of the room,” he said.

Public feud

Mounting frustrations among Democrats spilled out on the Senate floor last week when Mr Booker lashed out at his more moderate colleagues and accused them “complicity” with an authoritarian Mr Trump.  

“It is time for Democrats to have a backbone. It is time for us to fight. It is time for us to draw lines!” he thundered. 

Mr Booker’s comments were directed at Democrats’ acceptance of police grant legislation without requiring Mr Trump to restore police aid withheld from Democratic-leaning states like Mr Booker’s New Jersey.

The tension spilled into the weekend, as Mr Schumer sought to cut a deal with Republicans and Mr Trump to win some concessions on spending in return for swift passage of some of Mr Trump’s nominees.

Mr Trump pulled the plug on the offer and told Republicans to go home for August.

Ultimately, only six Democrats, independent Bernie Sanders and two Republicans voted against the spending package, which included funding for military construction, veterans, agriculture and other items.

The 87-9 vote was a sign the vast bulk of Democrats are aligned with Mr Schumer and prepared to move ahead with bipartisan spending Bills even without guarantees Mr Trump will spend the money.

Top Democratic appropriator Patty Murray, who supported the package, acknowledged concerns that Mr Trump and his budget chief Russ Vought will continue to act unilaterally to cut spending even if the Bills become law. But she does not see an easy fix. 

“There is no magic bullet that will change that unfortunate reality,” she said last week. BLOOMBERG