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WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Bipartisan talks in the U.S. Senate to end the federal shutdown have taken a positive turn, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Saturday, with lawmakers working on deals to temporarily reopen the government and introduce three longer-term funding bills for some agencies.
Asked by reporters whether there have been bipartisan talks within the last 24 hours that have been positive in nature, Thune, a South Dakota Republican, responded, “Yeah. I’d say so.”
Saturday marked the 39th day of the federal shutdown, which has already sidelined many federal workers and affected food aid, air travel and national parks. After weeks of faltering talks, Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate seemed to start negotiating in earnest late this week.
Lawmakers on Saturday had hoped to unveil the full text of three fiscal 2026 full-year funding measures for agriculture, food and nutrition programs, along with money for military construction projects, veterans’ programs and funding to operate Congress, according to Republican senators. The proposals would fund those operations through September 30, 2026.
But the workday ended with no bipartisan deals announced on reopening the government and no release to the public of full-year funding bills.
Aaron Schwartz via Getty Images
The Senate will try again with a rare Sunday session.
Meanwhile, senators have been working on a stopgap measure that would buy them more time to reach a deal on the remaining nine “discretionary” spending bills for the rest of the federal government, such as agencies for homeland security, defense, housing and health.
North Dakota Republican Senator John Hoeven told reporters that the short-term funding, now set to expire on November 21, would be updated with new legislation to reopen the government and keep it funded through late January.
Despite Thune’s upbeat talk, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Saturday attacked the Trump administration for withholding SNAP food stamp funding and accused it of playing “politics” by imposing reduced airline flights at certain airports. Schumer on the Senate floor complained that Republicans “stormed out of the gate” on Friday to reject Democrats’ call for a one-year extension of an expiring health insurance subsidy as part of legislation to reopen the government.
The support of at least eight Democrats is likely needed for the shutdown logjam to be broken. Thune did not say how Republicans would handle Democrats’ demands to extend subsidies used by 24 million people in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces.
President Donald Trump “wants to have a solution to the healthcare crisis in this country, which is skyrocketing premiums,” Thune said. But Republicans have said they will not negotiate on health insurance subsidies until the shutdown ends.
Trump on Saturday urged Republican senators to redirect federal money used to subsidize health insurance under the Affordable Care Act toward direct payments to individuals. While some Republican senators have voiced support, Democrats so far have largely been silent.
“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without offering details.
The ACA marketplaces allow people to buy policies directly from health insurers and mainly serve people who do not have coverage through employers or the Medicare and Medicaid government programs.
Representatives for the White House did not respond to a request for comment on Trump’s post.
Trump’s comments came after the Senate rejected legislation on Friday that would have resumed paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal workers during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The record-long shutdown was taking its toll on many programs.
For example, some 10,000 young children and families have been left without Head Start early-learning and nutrition programs because of closures in 18 states and Puerto Rico, according to the First Five Years Fund, which advocates for childcare and early learning programs at the federal level.
These programs had October 1 and November 1 deadlines for the federal government renewing their grants. Those approvals froze with the start of the shutdown on October 1 when appropriated funding ran out.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Sergio Non, Alistair Bell and Chizu Nomiyama )