No Kings Rally arises as latest flashpoint in shutdown standoff
Plus: Thune sets up vote on federal back pay legislation and New Jersey Democrats host Black girls empowerment conference.
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👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to Day 17 of the government shutdown, the third-longest in U.S. history—eclipsing the 16-day federal funding lapse in 2013. The Senate is gone for the weekend, ensuring the shutdown will extend to at least 20 days. Democrats remain more or less united around withholding their support for turning back on the lights unless Republicans meet a series of health care demands, including extending the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits set to expire at the end of the year. Republicans seem flummoxed that Democrats haven’t folded yet. More on the state of play heading into the third full shutdown week below.
But let’s start with the upcoming No Kings Rally on Saturday, which is shaping up as a historic rebuke against the Trump administration’s sweeping agenda and the rapid slide toward authoritarianism that many fear is already underway. Spearheaded by progressive coalitions, the rally aims to channel public outrage into a show of unity and resolve to defend American democracy. The event comes amid the prolonged shutdown that has laid bare the stakes of unchecked executive power and doubles as a warning that resistance to Trump 2.0 must be loud, sustained and collective if democratic norms are to survive.
Republicans have seized on the rally as a political foil and argued that Democrats are prolonging the shutdown to appease an energized base demanding a confrontation at any cost.
“I think there are a lot of these guys who need to get that behind them before they can get serious,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Thursday.
After a closed-door conference lunch earlier this month, several GOP senators told reporters that Democrats refused to compromise on government funding because the rally is looming and they can’t cave before tomorrow without alienating their most vocal supporters.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Republicans are disparaging the rally because they know they’re losing the shutdown fight.
“The people know that they’re to blame. They’re worried about their premium increases, and so Republicans are desperate for a new narrative,” Murphy, who plans to attend a rally, told reporters earlier this month. “So yeah, it’s not a coincidence that they all came out of their lunch with instructions to start changing their message because their old message wasn’t working.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has gone even further, branding the event as a “Hate America” rally in an attempt to conflate protesting the Trump administration as an unpatriotic act.
“The notion that the No Kings Rally is anything other than a patriotic act consistent with the First Amendment right to express yourselves and petition the government for a change in policy continues to reveal that Republicans are clueless as it relates to the Constitution in the United States of America,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who has not confirmed whether he will attend a rally, said on Thursday afternoon. “But they continue to lie for political reasons.”
The first No Kings mobilization in June marked a turning point in the broader pushback against Trump 2.0. Branded as a “Day of Defiance,” it drew crowds in cities nationwide to protest what organizers described as the president’s creeping authoritarianism, which they say has only worsened since and was timed to counter Trump’s planned military parade and his administration’s early attempts to consolidate power.
The protests offered establishment Democrats an early glimpse of the base’s impatience with caution and compromise following the 2024 election, signaling that the appetite for confrontation extended far beyond Washington. In the months since, party leaders have worked to prove they could meet the energy of a movement unwilling to normalize a president who governs as if checks and balances are optional.
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Thune moves on federal worker back pay bill
The Senate will vote for the 11th time on Monday evening to advance the House-passed Republican continuing resolution to reopen the government. All signs point to it failing in the same fashion as the previous ten votes.
In a shift in shutdown strategy, Leader Thune will bring legislation to the floor next week to provide back pay to furloughed federal employees and military servicemembers. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.). Thune has also scheduled procedural votes on several Trump judicial nominees while rank-and-file senators continue informal bipartisan discussions on possible off-ramps to ending the shutdown.
The Big Four leaders aren’t talking to their counterparts across the aisle, although Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) met on Thursday morning to discuss strategy. The two leaders emerged reaffirming party unity.
“We’re on the same page. The American people are in crisis in health care and we are fighting for them,” Schumer said. “We are on their side. The American people are seeing that we are on their side, doing everything we can to get the Republicans to negotiate and address this crisis.”
The House is scheduled to vote next week, but an announcement that the session is canceled will likely come during this afternoon’s pro forma session. Jeffries sent Johnson a letter on Thursday demanding the speaker swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today, who was elected more than three weeks ago to succeed her late father.
House Democrats will hold a virtual caucus meeting at 2 p.m. this afternoon where leaders are expected to announce whether they want members in town next week. The House has been out since Sep. 19, but Jeffries has held a daily press conference and Democrats have hosted several events in Washington mostly focused on the looming ACA subsidy cliff.
“We will continue to lean in aggressively here in Washington, D.C. and across the country, in communicating our fight to reopen the government while decisively addressing the Republican health care crisis,” Jeffries told me and a small group of reporters in his office on Thursday.
Senate Democrats tanked a procedural vote on Thursday afternoon to open debate on a full-year spending bill to fund the Pentagon, despite the bill advancing out of the Appropriations Committee by a bipartisan 26-3 margin in late July. Just one Democrat who hasn’t voted for the House-passed continuing resolution—Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.)—voted to proceed to the Defense bill.
“It’s always been unacceptable to Democrats to do the Defense bill without other bills that have so many things that are important to the American people, in terms of health care, in terms of housing, in terms of safety,” Schumer said ahead of the vote, which failed in 50-44, well below the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.
But the result left Thune visibly infuriated on the Senate floor.
“Now, there’s a path forward here to do appropriations: Get on the bill. And then we’ll try and add other appropriations bills as we work with both sides to clear objections and concerns that people have,” he said. “The fact of the matter is they didn’t have to block us from even moving to the bill, because there are multiple opportunities—60-vote threshold opportunities—for them to block it later on if they don’t like what happens. This is politics.”
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Watson Coleman, McIver spotlight Black girl empowerment amid DEI rollback
At a time when the federal government is retreating from diversity and equity initiatives, two New Jersey Democrats are leaning in.
Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and LaMonica McIver on Saturday will headline the annual &Girls Conference, an event devoted to empowering Black girls in middle and high school across the state.
McIver, one of the newest members of Congress, has made representation central to her early tenure. Her participation this weekend offers a glimpse of the next generation of Black women lawmakers shaping their own approach to power that’s grounded in community, focused on the long game and determined to show young girls what leadership looks like in an era defined by its absence.
“In the moment that we’re in, the number one message I want to send to young girls and continue to send to women, honestly, all over the nation, and anyone that I cross paths with, is for them to continue to show up and be confident as themselves,” McIver told me in a phone interview. “I think it’s important to remind young girls to show up as themselves and be confident in doing so. And at the same time, know that the sky is the limit and opportunities exist out there for them.”
Watson Coleman, the first Black woman to represent New Jersey in Congress, told me in a statement that she created the conference almost a decade ago to empower young women in her district and beyond to become the best version of themselves.
“I hope this year’s speakers and breakout sessions will allow these promising young ladies to come away from Saturday’s program with some tools they can use in their homes, in their classrooms, in their neighborhoods,” she added. “Because protecting your mental health is just as important as protecting your physical health.”
The event blends mentorship and policy with a simple premise that the future of Black women in leadership starts long before adulthood. It will take place at The College of New Jersey and be hosted by the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls. The gathering also comes against a national backdrop of retrenchment. President Trump’s second term has gutted programs focused on racial and gender equity, narrowed Title IX protections and stripped funding from federal offices dedicated to women’s advancement.
And while Watson Coleman’s focus will undoubtedly be on ensuring the experience is transformative for participants, McIver also views the occasion as an opportunity to uplift her mentor and colleague as a legislative trailblazer.
“She is a steadfast advocate, a steadfast activist and legislator, and we need to give her her flowers in this moment while she can smell them,” McIver said of Watson Coleman. “I’m so grateful for her doing the work that she’s doing, and for me to be able to learn from her and shadow her and be in this fight. It really is a true blessing.”