Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is coming under fire for remarks he made that would effectively guarantee a lengthy shutdown.

Johnson sent House members home earlier this week, leaving the Senate with a “continuing resolution” to fund the federal government. The House bill did not pass the Senate.

Now senators on both sides of the aisle are quietly attempting to craft new legislation to reopen the federal government.

But the Speaker is strongly suggesting his bill is the only one that he will allow to end the impasse.

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On Friday, Scripps News congressional correspondent Nathaniel Reed asked the Speaker whether he would bring a Senate bipartisan deal to a vote in the House.

Johnson twice indicated that he would not.

“There’s some talks right now that could be going on in the Senate floor. Democrats, not so much of the leadership level, but kind of within the ranks of the Democratic Party, having conversations with their Republican colleagues about a path forward,” Reed told Johnson. “If they reach a bipartisan agreement, a negotiation is successful, and they vote on something over there, would you put it up for a vote over here?”

“Well, the House has done its job,” Johnson responded. “All they have to do is pass the clean, continuing resolution, and then we can talk about all this substance, but, I mean, I can’t project the future of what would happen — all the devil’s always in the details.”

Reed then pressed Johnson: “I just want to be clear here. Are you ruling out putting up a compromise on the floor for a vote if the Senate reaches one?”

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“I am right now,” the Speaker replied, “because we sent a clean, continuing resolution.”

Critics blasted the Speaker.

Justin Slaughter, a former federal government official commented, noting that “Dems are actually successfully starting to fracture GOP on health care; that’s the only reason Johnson needs to say this.”

He added, “I see minimal chance [government] reopens before the 15th.”

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) noted, “Democrats want to work across the aisle to end the shutdown and protect Americans’ health care. Speaker Johnson is very clear that House Republicans have no interest in that.”

Michael Linden, a former Senate aide, wrote: “EVERY enacted appropriations bill for the last decade has been bipartisan. It has to be because it needs 60 in the Senate. By ‘ruling out’ a bipartisan compromise, Johnson is promising to extend the shut down.”

U.S. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) added, “Translation: House Republicans are RULING OUT reopening the government. The American people can’t afford your inaction, Mr. Speaker.”

NEW: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R) tells me @scrippsnews that he is “right now” RULING OUT putting any future bipartisan Senate compromise to reopen the government on the House floor.

WATCH: pic.twitter.com/H7HgZxW4J0

— Nathaniel Reed (@ReedReports) October 3, 2025

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Image via Reuters

A powerful Democratic senator is blasting President Donald Trump and his Budget Office director Russell Vought for canceling or pausing tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure projects in states that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

“More blatant extortion attempts coming out of the White House this morning,” U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) declared on Friday. Murray is the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“Trump and Vought are targeting projects in blue states to punish their political opposition by hurting regular people. Everyone can see these crooks for what they are & none of us should be intimidated.”

On Wednesday, Office of Management and Budget Director Vought paused or canceled approximately $18 billion in two New York City infrastructure projects — one of which also directly impacts New Jersey residents. He claimed it was to “ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Late-Night Rant Brands Dems ‘Party of Satan’ Weeks After Kirk Rhetoric Blame Game

Vought then went on to cancel nearly $8 billion in funding for what he labeled “Green New Scam” projects across sixteen states that did not vote for Trump in 2024: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.

On Friday, as Murray mentioned, Vought paused billions in infrastructure projects for Chicago — a top Trump target.

“$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects–specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project–have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,” Vought declared.

Politico’s E&E News reported this week that the Department of Energy “has been reviewing the nation’s portfolio of research and development projects for months now, freezing funding that was largely obligated, according to one agency staffer granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.”

“Lists of projects that are supposed to get cut have been wafting around the building for weeks,” a staffer told E&E. “Most of the time, they are very partisan in terms of what states canceled projects are from. It’s just naked politics.”

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Image via Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

In a late-night social media posting spree, President Donald Trump promoted a meme that declared Democrats are the “party of hate, evil, and Satan.” The attack on his political opposition comes just weeks after the President and his allies blamed Democratic rhetoric for the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, despite providing no evidence to support their claims.

The meme the President posted also stated that the Democratic Party is “dead,” and has “no leadership,” “no message,” “no hope,” and, “their only message for America is to hate Trump.”

In an Oval Office address just after Kirk’s assassination, Trump declared:

“It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”

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“For years,” he continued, “those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”

HuffPost reported on Friday that Trump “presumably” had been in “a snit over the continued partial government shutdown,” and “literally demonized his political opponents while his allies promote lies about Democrats wanting to give health insurance to undocumented migrants.”

Overnight, the President also posted several other memes and videos, including one that The Daily Beast on Friday described as “presumably an AI-generated cover of Blue Öyster Cult’s 1976 hit ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,’ portrays … OMB director and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought as the reaper in question.”

“The visuals, which are also AI-generated, show Vought as the Grim Reaper, cavorting around Washington, D.C., while wielding his scythe. Interspersed throughout are shots of a band led by Trump playing a cowbell—one is famously used on the original track—accompanied by Vance on the drums.”

Trump, who had disavowed any knowledge of Project 2025 throughout his 2024 campaign, on Thursday announced he was meeting “with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

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Image via Reuters