Senate clears key hurdle in march to final vote on ending shutdown

The Senate on Monday cleared a key procedural hurdle toward greenlighting a package to reopen the government, the first of a series of planned back-to-back votes.

Senators voted 60-40 to grease the skids toward final passage of the funding bill Monday night.

The eight senators who crossed party lines to vote to advance the funding bill Sunday night once again voted with every Republican except Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

The package would keep the governmen...

Angry Democrats call on Schumer to resign after eight vote to end shutdown

Some lawmakers and progressive groups blame minority leader after eight senators defect

Democrats are seething after news emerged on Sunday that eight members of their Senate caucus had collaborated with Republicans on crafting a compromise to end the longest government shutdown in US history, without winning any healthcare concessions that they had sought.

But one name is coming in for more opprobrium than any other: Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader who had led the Democrat’s weeks-long stand against reopening the government without an extension of tax credits that lower premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.

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Senate on cusp of ending shutdown, without extending ACA credits

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Shaheen: Shutdown deal critics ‘need to train their fire’ on Trump, Johnson, Republicans

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), one of eight Senate Democratic Conference members who voted to advance a measure to reopen the government, said Monday that critics of the group should “train their fire” on President Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and congressional Republicans. 

“All those people who opposed this agreement, staying in a shutdown mode was not getting us anywhere,” Shaheen told CNN’s Kate Bolduan. “And they need to train their fire on the people who are...

Liberal fury over shutdown deal convulses Democrats

Tensions in the Democratic Party are boiling over this week after a group of mostly moderate Democratic senators joined Republicans to advance a bill to reopen the government.

The Democrats’ support for the spending bill all but ensures that the history-making shutdown will soon end, but it came without Republicans giving any ground on the Democrats’ central demand for an extension of ObamaCare subsidies.

The stunning development Sunday night has infuriated libera...

Trump says Marjorie Taylor Greene has ‘lost her way’

President Trump on Monday responded to criticisms by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who accused the president of focusing more on foreign affairs than matters at home on a day when he met with the new Syrian leader.

Trump said he was surprised by Greene’s statements and suggested she had some “act going.”

"I don't know what happened to Marjorie. Nice woman, but she's lost her way,” the president said in the Oval Office when asked about Greene’s criticism.

Trump signals support for Senate agreement to end shutdown: ‘I’ll abide by the deal’

President Trump on Monday signaled his support for a Senate agreement to end the government shutdown and said he would abide by the deal, which includes a reversal of mass layoffs.

"It depends what deal we’re talking about," Trump said when asked in the Oval Office if he supported the Senate deal, which advanced on Sunday.

"But if it’s the deal I heard about ... I would say so," Trump continued. "I think based on everything I’m hearing they haven’t changed anythi...