SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
lindsey graham
'Nonstarter': Senate GOP Rejects New Dem Deal to End Government Shutdown
"Mr. President, the ball is in your court right now," Sen. Bernie Sanders implored President Donald Trump. "Show us what a great dealmaker you are."
Nov 07, 2025
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday offered—and Republican leadership rejected—a compromise deal to end the longest federal shutdown in US history, an agreement under which Democrats proposed to vote to reopen the government in exchange for a one-year extension of expiring Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies.
"It's clear we need to try something different," Schumer (D-NY) asserted on the Senate floor, noting the 14 failed upper chamber votes on the short-term continuing resolution passed by the House of Representatives in September to fund the government through November 21.
“All Republicans have to do is say ‘yes’ to extend current law for one year," he said. "This is a reasonable offer that reopens the government, deals with healthcare affordability, and begins a process of negotiating reforms to the ACA tax credits for the future. Now the ball is in the Republicans’ court. We need Republicans to just say yes."
.@SenSchumer: "Democrats are ready to clear the way to quickly pass a government funding bill that includes health care affordability. Leader Thune just needs to add a clean one-year extension of the ACA tax credits to the CR so that we can immediately address rising health care… pic.twitter.com/HvgLZHhhhb
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 7, 2025
Schumer's proposal involved a “clean” extension of the ACA tax credits that are set to expire at the end of this year, meaning they would exclude new eligibility restrictions that many Republican lawmakers are seeking to impose. Schumer also floated the creation of a bipartisan committee tasked with negotiating a further extension of ACA subsidies.
After consulting with GOP colleagues, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) rejected the Democrats' offer as a "nonstarter." Republicans have repeatedly balked at voting on the ACA subsidies before the shutdown—now in its 38th day—ends.
"The Obamacare extension is the negotiation. That's what we're going to negotiate once the government opens up," Thune said. "We need to vote to open the government—and there is a proposal out there to do that—and then we can have this whole conversation about healthcare."
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also dismissed Schumer's proposal, writing on social media that "health in$urance companies applaud Schumer’s proposal to extend Obamacare subsidies for one year."
"Another year of insane profits at the expense of consumers and American taxpayers," added Graham, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the health insurance industry during his congressional career.
The Democrats' new offer came as a legal battle over Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits plays out, as hundreds of thousands of federal employees are working without pay, and hundreds of commercial airline flights have been delayed or canceled.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joined Democrats in urging his GOP colleagues to accept the new offer.
"We are now in the 38th day of a government shutdown," Sanders said on the Senate floor Friday. "That means that federal employees all over this country who have to feed their families are not getting paychecks. It means that air traffic controllers are forced to work crazy hours, and we worry about the safety of our flights right now. We worry about Capitol Police officers right here in DC who are having a hard time feeding their families."
LIVE: Donald Trump claims to be a dealmaker. The ball is now in his court. Help negotiate a deal which protects the health care of tens of millions of Americans and let us end the shutdown today. https://t.co/f9Gpi7wd8W
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 7, 2025
Sanders continued:
These are hardworking people who are doing important work. They deserve respect. They deserve to be paid. This shutdown must end as quickly as possible.
And on top of the fact that we have hundreds of thousands of workers not getting paid, we now have a president who—for the first time in the history of this country—is willing to allow our kids, low-income, working-class children, to go hungry in order to try to make a political point. A point, by the way, that the American people are seeing through.
Despite appealing a judge's Thursday directive to fully fund November SNAP benefits, the Trump administration told states on Friday that it would release funding for the food aid in compliance with the court order.
"Well, Mr. President, the ball is in your court right now," Sanders added. "Show us what a great dealmaker you are. Help us negotiate a deal which protects the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans and let us end this shutdown today. We can end it in the next few hours."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Lindsey Graham Again Endorses 'Lawless' Third Term Run for Trump
The senator previously called for an illegal "Trump 2028" presidential run after the president's address to Congress in March.
Sep 24, 2025
International leaders and diplomats gasped and were seen shaking their heads as US President Donald Trump gave his address at the United Nations General Assembly—attacking the UN itself, migration, and climate action—but Sen. Lindsey Graham gave the speech an obsequious review on Fox News Tuesday night, going so far as to say Trump's performance made a compelling case for him to run for an illegal third term.
“Trump 2028," Graham (R-SC) told Sean Hannity. "I hope this never ends.”
He repeated Trump's baseless claim that he has ended seven "unendable" wars since taking office in January and praised the president for "standing up in the UN and telling the world the way it is."
"We don’t have to live this way," said Graham, before emphasizing, "I hope he runs again."
Graham's comments represented "Republicans just openly calling for unconstitutional, lawless behavior" from the president, said journalist Mehdi Hasan.
Trump is barred from running for a third term by the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution, which states: "No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice."
Graham has previously called for the president to run for a third term in 2028, saying on the social media platform X, "Trump 2028!" after praising Trump's address to Congress in March.
The comment was "a joke," Graham later said.
The president has also made comments about attempting to serve a third term, and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) introduced a resolution days after Trump was sworn in to amend the Constitution, aiming to clear the way for a 2028 presidential run.
Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research said the latest comments from Graham—who loudly denounced Trump at the beginning of his political career—suggested that "Trump must have some big-time dirt" on the senator.
"He used to have pretenses of being a serious person," said Baker.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Lawyer Linked to Netanyahu Gov't Warned ICC Prosecutor Israel Would 'Destroy' Him Over Arrest Warrants
A British-Israeli lawyer told ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan he'd spoken to a top Israeli legal adviser and warned he should have gone after "lower-level suspects."
Jul 16, 2025
One international human rights expert said Tuesday that a new report of alleged threats made against the International Criminal Court's prosecutor regarding his arrest warrants for Israeli officials were "extremely worrying," noting that the reported threats were just the latest show of intimidation against authorities who aim to hold Israel to account for its abuses of humanitarian law.
"The Commission of Inquiry on the [occupied Palestinian territories] quit, Francesca Albanese was sanctioned, and now we have reports of threats against Karim Khan," said London School of Economics human rights fellow Alonso Gurmendi, referring to the mass resignation of three United Nations human rights experts, U.S. sanctions targeting the U.N. special rapporteur on the OPT, and the news about the ICC prosecutor.
The Middle East Eye (MEE) reported that a British-Israeli defense lawyer linked to Israel's government, Nicholas Kaufman, delivered a warning to Khan at a meeting in May, as Khan was facing pressure over the arrest warrants he'd issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Along with Hamas leader Mohammed Deif—since confirmed dead—Netanyahu and Gallant were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Netanyahu's government began a military assault on Gaza in October 2023 that has been called a genocide by top human rights experts and groups.
Days before the meeting in May, Kaufman reportedly told Khan that he'd spoken to Roy Schondorf, a legal adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
When they met at a hotel in The Hague, Kaufman told Khan to apply to the ICC to have the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant reclassified as "confidential" and submit them as part of a "noncriminal, noninvestigative process," allowing Israel to access the details of the allegations and privately challenge them without the outcome of the case being made public.
"This looks like a coordinated attack on international accountability on a scale never before seen."
Kaufman also told Khan that issuing more arrest warrants for Israeli officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over their support for illegal settlements in the West Bank, as the ICC was considering at the time, could result in more U.S. sanctions against the ICC; the Trump administration imposed travel and economic sanctions against Khan earlier this year. More sanctions would "risk destroying the court," said Kaufman, MEE reported.
"All options would be off the table" for Khan if he issued the new arrest warrants, warned Kaufman. "They will destroy you, and they will destroy the court."
Kaufman told MEE that he requested a meeting with Khan in early May "because as an Israeli ICC lawyer, who had experienced the shock of October 7, 2023, I was well placed to understand the matter" and because Khan was "under fire" over his investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Netanyahu's government in Gaza.
At the time of the meeting, Khan was also facing an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct; he has denied the allegations.
He also told Khan that he should have gone after "lower-level suspects" and that his indictments of Netanyahu and Gallant had "basically indicted Israel."
Kaufman told the outlet that he had simply "told Mr. Khan that he should be looking for a way to extricate himself from his errors" but denied that he'd made a proposal to amend Khan's case against the Israeli officials on behalf of the government—despite his contact days earlier with Netanyahu's legal adviser.
Khan and his wife, lawyer Shyamala Alagendra, who also attended the meeting, told Kaufman his warning that Israel would "destroy" Khan over more warrants "was a clear threat."
Gurmendi said that if MEE's report is true, "this looks like a coordinated attack on international accountability on a scale never before seen."
Khan has faced other threats from officials allied with Israel since investigating Israel's assault on Gaza. In April 2024, the United Kingdom's then-foreign secretary, former Prime Minister David Cameron, had a tense phone call with Khan in which he threatened to defund the ICC and withdraw the U.K. from the court if it issued warrants for any Israeli leaders.
In May 2024, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) threatened sanctions against ICC officials is Khan applied for more warrants.
Graham "was screaming at us," ICC lawyer Andrew Cayley, who oversaw the court's investigation into Palestine, told The Observer.
After Khan announced later that month that's he'd requested warrants for the Israeli and Hamas leaders, Cayley "began receiving anonymous, threatening phone calls saying, 'You're in a very dangerous position.'"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular