A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Millions of Americans rely on the health care tax credit to afford their coverage, but it’s set to expire this year. Without action from Congress, families across the country could see their health care costs skyrocket.

Congress: Extend the health care tax credit or families will lose coverage.

Understand the impact if it expires. 

On Sunday, Ezra Klein dropped the needle on a 2,500-word essay (and accompanying podcast… and 18-minute video monologue…) entitled “Stop Acting Like This Is Normal,” that sent Capitol Hill into a tailspin. For the past several weeks, Senate Democrats had been quietly discussing how to handle the upcoming showdown over government funding, which is set to run out on September 30. Chuck Schumer had yet to publicly articulate a strategy for how to exercise his party’s meager leverage. But Klein, seizing on his stature as a true influencer in Democratic media circles, reframed the debate in practically existential terms—essentially demanding that Democrats shut down the government rather than be complicit in Trump’s “authoritarian takeover.”

The essay, which was splashed across two pages of the Times print edition—something that may seem irrelevant but actually still matters in Washington—alongside photos of all 47 senators that caucus with Democrats, immediately set the party on edge. “Sad but true,” one member texted in the centrist New Democratic Coalition group chat. It’s “the most discussed thing in the caucus,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin told me.

For the many Democrats who text Klein, his argument to dramatically raise the stakes of the shutdown fight was right on the money. One senator stood up in the Democrats’ closed-door caucus lunch this week to voice agreement with Klein, according to one person who attended the meeting. Some are staying tight-lipped: Pete Aguilar, the third ranking House Democrat, told me Ezra’s manifesto was just “an opinion.”

But other members are straight-up pissed. “Fuck Ezra,” said one House Democrat, pointing out that the pundit is, well, just that—he has never had to face voters himself and appears to be pitting members against their leadership. “Why in God’s name did you spend three pages putting out a playbook that helps Republicans?” this person told me. “I am over Ezra Klein.”

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Millions of Americans rely on the health care tax credit to afford their coverage, but it’s set to expire this year. Without action from Congress, families across the country could see their health care costs skyrocket.

Congress: Extend the health care tax credit or families will lose coverage.

Understand the impact if it expires. 

Among the Democrats I spoke to, however, nearly every one agreed that there will be a shutdown this fall, whether it’s in three weeks or later this year after a temporary extension of funding. The only question is when the government’s money runs out, and how Democrats justify it.

In his Times manifesto, Klein wrote that shutting down the government this month would, at the very least, “make people listen,” even if Democrats don’t “have the leaders they need” to convince voters that Trump is “corrupting the government” and must be stopped. But as I’ve heard repeatedly on the Hill, Democrats are divided on if they should go to war over abstract notions like corruption or authoritarianism, especially in a funding fight. “We are almost universally concerned about the Constitution,” one Democratic chief of staff told me. “But… it’s not the way we’re going to be successful in the midterms.”

It’s déjà vu for many Democrats, who walked up to the shutdown precipice last winter but blinked when the issue arrived in the Senate, where enough Democrats supported the Republican funding bill to meet the 60-vote threshold. As Klein pointed out, Democrats should have had six months to come up with a new plan for the next shutdown fight. Yet if Democratic leaders Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have a plan, they haven’t shared it with their colleagues. Both men have been asking for over a month to meet with their Republican counterparts, John Thune and Mike Johnson, to discuss the funding issue, but haven’t managed to secure a meeting—leaving Democrats with a sense of urgency to come up with a strategy and a message.

This week, I obtained a memo from the Democratic firm Navigator, sent to Democratic congressional offices, which argued that lawmakers need to “make clear what part of the Republican agenda you’re fighting to stop”—specifically, “substantive priorities” like stopping Medicaid cuts. In other words, pocketbook issues for families, not constitutional principles like Congress’s power of the purse. Many of the Democrats I’ve spoken with agree that healthcare is their best issue with voters, which is why Jeffries declared in his weekly news conference today that the party won’t support a funding bill that “continues to rip healthcare” away from people. (There’s been a lot of chatter about extending expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits, or rolling back cuts to Medicaid, as a condition for supporting a funding bill.) “You win New York Times readers if you focus on democracy,” one Democratic strategist told me. “You win regular people when you talk about costs.”

But many Democrats also agree with Klein’s larger philosophical concerns, and worry that focusing solely on healthcare won’t do justice to the gravity of this unprecedented democratic crisis. Trump, after all, has taken a veritable wrecking ball to government institutions, ignored the congressional funding process, bullied universities into submission, profited off his presidency, pressured states to engage in mid-decade gerrymandering, and empowered masked ICE agents to grab people off the street. “This is what they have to try to stop,” Klein wrote.

Some senators have embraced this more expansive set of goals. During yesterday’s lunch, Democrats discussed trying to use government funding to constrain Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, who has been a key architect of the president’s push to erode congressional budget power. But Republicans may simply refuse Democrats’ demands around presidential guardrails and force them to either cave or own a shutdown. After all, it’s hard to imagine Trump would comply with demands to rein in ICE or divest from crypto. And it’s equally hard to imagine that Democrats have the stomach for a prolonged shutdown fight, even if Senate Democrats only have one incumbent, Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, to protect in a competitive seat in 2026. As Klein suggested on Sunday, the party doesn’t just need a new approach; it needs a personality transplant, too.

Meanwhile, Schumer is under an immense amount of pressure—from his caucus, from House Democrats, from his base, and yes, from Ezra. Much like during the last funding go-round in March, his caucus is waiting for him to present a plan, lay out a strategy, and provide talking points for how to address the funding deadline. But he’s still in listening mode, and the only advice he’s dispensed so far, according to several Senate aides, is to avoid openly pushing for a shutdown and getting in front of messaging. With only 20 days to go, the caucus is getting anxious.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Schumer’s political future is on the line. After the March debacle—in which he promised a fight, demanded nothing, and ultimately backed down—his caucus was more angry about the lack of strategy than his vote for the Republican funding bill. House Democrats are still harboring hard feelings about being burned—they went out on a limb, and all but one of them voted against the funding bill, only to have Schumer fold. Leaving their closed-door caucus meeting yesterday, House Democrats told me that Schumer and Jeffries need to get on the same page pronto.

Jeffries was supposed to meet with Schumer today to discuss a strategy, but the meeting was canceled because of House votes. They’ll attempt to meet again first thing in the morning. Sure, things happen, and leaders are busy, but the clock is ticking. Some Democrats hope that when they eventually meet, Jeffries will remind Schumer how vulnerable he left House Democrats in the spring, and encourage him to fight harder this time. One House Democratic aide told me they want Jeffries to relay a simple message to Schumer: “Don’t fuck this up.”

For his part, Jeffries is still in his infancy as a House leader, and trying to figure out how to meet the moment. But that doesn’t mean the stakes aren’t high for him, too. Both he and Schumer will certainly have scoffed at the concluding line of Klein’s piece: “If there’s a better plan than a shutdown, great. But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need new leaders.”

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