The US government shutdown has stretched into its 20th day with no clear resolution in sight.
As federal workers brace for another day under shutdown, the Senate will vote later today, for the 11th time, on a House-passed funding bill that would reopen the government.
The lower chamber is still out of session, as both parties continue to trade barbs over the lapse in funding.
In a press conference on day 20 of the government shutdown, House Speaker, Mike Johnson, said that the shutdown is about “one thing and one thing only, Chuck Schumer’s political survival.”
Republican lawmakers have maintained that the Senate’s top Democrat is being squeezed by progressive members to stall passing a House-passed stopgap funding bill.
Johnson also cast the weekend’s nationwide No Kings protests, which largely criticized the Trump administration, as a Democrat-led stunt, and repeated many Republican leaders’ claims in recent days blaming the demonstrations for prolonging the shutdown.
Johnson claimed that Democrats wanted to wait for the No Kings protests across the country to take place before passing a funding extension. He also took aim at the name of the protests.
“They called it No Kings rally. With great irony, of course, as we pointed out over and over, was if President Trump was a king, the government would be open.”
Mike Johnson
Democratic leaders have condemned the characterizations, and several prominent party figures attended the non-violent protests, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, among others.
Millions of protesters attended roughly 2,700 rallies around the country on October 18, 2025, to celebrate free speech and protest many of the Trump administration’s actions.
White House Economic Adviser Says Shutdown Likely To End This Week
Meanwhile, Kevin Hassett, the White House’s Economic Adviser, said in an interview that the ongoing government shutdown, which entered its 20th day, is likely to end this week.
“There’s a shot that this week, things will come together, and very quickly. The moderate Democrats will move forward and get us an open government, at which point we could negotiate whatever policies they want to negotiate with regular order.”
Kevin Hassett
He added that if it doesn’t happen, the White House will look at “stronger measures to bring them at the table.”
Hassett based his optimism on the nationwide “No Kings” protests now being over. Republican Senators and Trump officials accused Democrats of wanting to keep the government closed while they held the “No Kings” rallies in cities across the nation on Saturday.
Hassett added that it would have been “bad optics” for Democrats to pass a funding bill to reopen the government before the No Kings protests that swept the country over the weekend.
Last week, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire became the fourth Democratic senator to join Republicans to vote for a Republican-backed bill to reopen the government.
Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, have also voted for the bill. “It means there are sort of cracks in the Schumer armor,” Hassett said.
If the shutdown reaches 21 days, it will tie the 1995-1996 standoff during the Bill Clinton presidency as the second longest in US history. The longest shutdown, 35 days, occurred during President Donald Trump’s first term in late 2018 and into 2019.
With Trump leaving October 26 for a multi-country visit through Asia that could last five or six days, the shutdown is at risk of lasting much longer if a deal is not reached before the weekend.
READ ALSO: Zenith Bank Ghana at 20: CEO Henry Onwuzurigbo Pledges New Era of Innovation and Excellence
