On March 15, 2025, President Trump signed a Republican-led stopgap measure to keep the government funded, preventing a potential shutdown. The signing followed a Senate vote of 54 to 46, with one of the key Democratic votes coming from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Initially, Schumer indicated that Democrats would resist the partisan continuing resolution. However, he later softened his stance, committing to support the GOP budget, and warning that a government shutdown would pose a far greater risk to the American public.
In the video above, Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich explains how the GOP strategically boxed Democrats into a corner, leaving them with little choice but to back the measure.
The following is an excerpt from the above video:
On the one hand, they could stop the House-passed, very Republican, very conservative continuing resolution, but if they did, that actually technically gave the president greater ability to reorganize the government. Because in the absence of the continuing resolution, the Office of Management and Budget can decide which programs to pay for and which programs to shut down because there is no money. So all of a sudden, the Democrats had this problem.
The House, with tremendous help from President Trump and extraordinary leadership by Speaker Johnson, had passed an entirely Republican, very conservative continuing resolution for seven months on Republican terms, which meant less spending domestically, some spending for defense, some spending to control the border, but really set the stage for the reconciliation bill later in the spring. Once the House passed that, they went home, leaving the Senate with two choices: pass what the House did or close the government.
Well, the first reaction to Democrats was, we’ll show you. We’ll close the government. And then somebody came to him [Sen. Schumer] and said, “You do realize that if you fail to pass this, that you actually increase the ability of President Trump and his deputy, Elon Musk, to decide what it is they’re not going to pay for. So you’re actually increasing their power to break up the government you’re trying to protect.”