Government Shutdown Update with Ryan Schmelz

Fox News Radio Congressional Correspondent Ryan Schmelz joins us with the latest on the ongoing government shutdown — where negotiations stand, what’s at stake, and how long the standoff could last.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let me get to a quick update on the government shutdown,
then we'll spend the rest of the hour talking about
the situation over in the Middle East on this historic day. Basically,
there was no progress over the past couple of days,
a lot of finger pointing. Howse Speaker Mike Johnson was
on Fox News Sunday. This is what he had to
say about Democrats.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
And right now they're eating up the clock. They're doing
this for political cover. Chuck Schumer, when he voted for
the exact same measure back in March, took a lot
of heat from the left of his party and he
doesn't want to sustain that any longer, so he's doing
this and inflicting pain for his own selfish reasons.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Johnson reiterated that the government has to reopen before negotiations
on anything else can take place.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
We've got to have a handful of Democrats in the
Senate who apply common sense and agree to reopen the
government so that we can continue all these discussions.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
House Minority Leader Kim Jeffers he was also on Fox
New Sunday yesterday morning, and he tried to keep the
focus on what Democrats maintained. The shutdown is all about healthcare.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Friends on the other side of the aisle, they seem
to believe that HEK is an extraneous issue. We don't
believe it's an extraneous issue. It's a central issue. This
is the wealthiest country in the history of the world,
and people throughout this country should be able to afford
to go see a doctor.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
All right, right now, for more on the government shutdown,
I want to bring in Fox News Radio congressional correspondent
Ryan Schmels is coming to us from Capitol Hill. So, Ryan,
doesn't seem like there was any kind of progress whatsoever
over the course of the past couple of days. What
are some of the next steps that we should keep
an eye on this week?

Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, I mean, look, there's a couple of things you
can look at. Number One, they're going to have another
vote this week, looks like so Tuesday will be that
first time that Republicans can bring this floor this bill
back to the floor on the Senate, see if they
can get the sixty votes. We could see if there's
any type of negotiation that that happens, or if there's
any Democrats to ultimately just break and decide that they
want to end the shutdown. And vote with Republicans to

(01:52):
break the filibusters. So Republicans still need to get five
more Democrats to jump on board. They've gotten three so far,
so they're still took time.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
What was the reaction to the announcement by the Trump
administration on Friday of about forty one hundred layoffs across
multiple government agencies.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Well, I mean, look, Democrats believe that this is going
to be illegal and that there will be a some
type of legal challenge you know, going into that. You know,
there's been time to prepare for this, though the administration
has been teasing it for some time now, so it
seems like Democrats at least have some type of legal
ramifications that they're looking at in terms of trying to

(02:32):
sue to get some of these employees their jobs back.
But right now they're still furloughed and it looks like
some of them are going to be permanently terminated unless
they have an opportunity to win back their jobs in
the courtroom.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
And then last question for you. On Wednesday, our service
members will miss a paycheck. Now. President Trump put on
truth social that he was authorizing war Secretary Pete Heigsath
to find a way to make sure the troops get paid.
What have you heard from Congress about that? Because it

(03:03):
had seemed like Congress would have to approve something along
those lines. That's why there was all that talk about
a standalone bill to make sure the troops get paid.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Yeah, so it looks like what the Trump administration is
doing here is that they are able to tap into
either they can just move money around it's already there,
or they can use the money from the One Big
Beautiful Bill Act, which gave the military a pretty hefty
supplemental on the hundreds of billions of dollars, and they
can use that money to essentially provide pay for troops
in the meantime. But of course that money's gonna drive

(03:35):
up at some point, so they can't do this for
every single paycheck. They can do it maybe for this one,
but you know that might not be the case when
the next round of paychecks comes around. So it looks
like the Trump ministration is able to tap into that.
And there have been attempts to bring a military pay
bill to the floor. It has not been successful. You know,

(03:55):
there was an attempt to bring it up by Democrats
the I believe it was Friday or Thursday during a
pro forma session that was not successful, and Speaker Johnson
has been pretty firm that the troop pay bill is
the government funding package, and Democrats keep shooting down in
the Senate, so until something passes, it looks like, yeah,

(04:17):
the true pay is going to be on the chopping block.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
All right. Fox News Radio congressional correspondent Ryan Schmel's coming
to us live from Capitol Hill the latest on the
government shutdown. Ryan, thanks so much, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
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