GOP ‘afraid to do anything’ unless Trump approves, says Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine

Michel Martin | October 14, 2025

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., leaves a Senate Democratic meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Oct. 3. (Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images)

Shutdown negotiations can’t move forward without President Trump getting more involved in them because “Republicans are afraid to do anything unless the president blesses it,” says Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia.

The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1. Congress has been unable to pass either of two dueling measures proposed by both major parties. Republicans want a clean spending resolution to fund the government for seven weeks. Democrats want to fund the government and extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies used by more than 20 million people, undo federal health spending cuts and limit Trump’s power to withhold funds appropriated by Congress.

Both sides have blamed each other for the shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson warned on Monday that the U.S. is “barreling” toward one of the longest shutdowns in U.S. history, “unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and pass a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers.”

In an interview with Morning Edition, Kaine said Democrats’ funding plan is not a demand but an alternative to “fix this health care mess” created by Trump and the GOP. The impasse means that, for now, there is no end in sight to the shutdown,

As it stretches on, federal employees in Virginia may soon feel or already feel the pain of going without pay. More than 4% of the state’s non-farm workers are employed by the federal government, according to the Labor of Bureau Statistics. The state also has the second largest number of active duty servicemembers, according to the Defense Department.

Kaine said that while Virginians are troubled by the federal shutdown, many have also been troubled by “the layoffs, the clawbacks of federal public health funding, [and] the cancellation of economic development projects” made since Trump returned to the White House.

The administration is following through on a plan by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought to lay off more federal employees permanently. Last week, the government said in court documents that more than 4,000 workers began receiving reduction in force notices.

“This didn’t start when the shutdown started,” Kaine said. “It started on Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day.”

Where Kaine shares common ground with Trump is on ensuring troops are paid during the shutdown. Trump directed the Pentagon to use some $8 billion of unused research and development funding to pay troops on their expected Oct. 15 pay date.

Kaine said “Virginians would generally support the notion” of available Pentagon dollars being spent on troop pay, noting that the executive move would make him nervous if money was being shifted away from other government priorities.

On getting the government to reopen, Kaine said his constituents want him to “get a deal that the White House will honor,” and called on Trump and Republicans to be part of productive talks.

“If the president engages, we can solve this in 48 hours,” Kaine said.

You can listen to the full interview by clicking play on the button at the top of this article.

The digital version of this interview was edited by Treye Green.

Transcript:

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

While President Trump shook hands, took pictures and gave a thumbs-up with world leaders in Egypt, the government remained shut down in the United States. House Speaker Mike Johnson said to reporters yesterday he is not ready to negotiate with Democrats.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MIKE JOHNSON: We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history unless Democrats drop their partisan demands and passed a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers.

MARTIN: Workers who have started to receive partial paychecks. A lot of those workers, both civilians and members of the military, live in Virginia. So we’ve called Senator Tim Kaine, who represents the Commonwealth in the Senate. He’s a Democrat, and he’s with us now. Good morning, Senator. Thank you so much for joining us.

TIM KAINE: Hey, Michel. Great to be with you. Thanks.

MARTIN: So it’s now day 14. Virginia, as we said, has a lot of federal workers. More than 4% of the people who don’t work on farms work for the federal government in your state. That’s according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Virginia’s second only to California in the number of active-duty military in this state. That’s according to the Department of Defense. These are your constituents. I have to assume you’re hearing some things from them. What are they telling you?

KAINE: Michel, yeah, I was on the road. The Senate is still in session. Of course, the House has been out for weeks. But we were on the road for the holiday weekend – Friday, Saturday, Sunday and yesterday. And I talked to a lot of Virginians, and they’re very, very troubled by this situation. But they’ve been troubled since Donald Trump became president in January. The layoffs, the clawbacks of federal public health funding, the cancellation of economic development projects – this didn’t start when the shutdown started. It started on Donald Trump’s inauguration day.

And what my constituents are saying to me is, you know, get a deal that the White House will honor and get a deal as a result of some real negotiation between the White House and Congress. You can’t let the White House say, Democrats have to just accept whatever we say. The president has not meaningfully engaged in the negotiation at all, and that’s what always happens when you want to find a funding deal. The president’s got to engage.

MARTIN: So the president says – on one specific issue, the president says he’s identified funds that will ensure that active-duty military get paid tomorrow. The administration is reportedly using some $8 billion of unused research and development funds to pay for this. First of all, do you think this shifting of funds is legal? And if you don’t, what’s the recourse there?

KAINE: Michel, I think it probably is legal. There’s a second set of funds in the reconciliation bill this summer. We added money to the Pentagon budget, and some of it was undesignated. Since Mike Johnson has said he won’t bring the House back even to pass a military spending bill, I think that the president needs to find something with the House absent to make sure military get paid. And I think unallocated funds is a good way to do that.

MARTIN: You support that?

KAINE: Yes.

MARTIN: You’re not concerned that that creates kind of a wedge between military members and civilians?

KAINE: If you were taking money away from other priorities, I would be nervous about it. But I think Virginians would generally support the notion that troops who stand the risk of being in harm’s way, with monies that are available at the Pentagon, those dollars could be used for them.

MARTIN: So the Republicans are framing this, as we just heard, as a partisan demand for an unaffordable program that they don’t agree with. The Democrats are framing this about keeping health care affordable. But even if Democrats were to vote for a so-called clean – CR clean bill, it just kicks the can down the road. I mean, open enrollment starts on November 1. These programs have to be priced out. I’m just trying to understand. What is a scenario where the substance of this actually gets worked out? I mean, is it President Trump getting directly involved in cutting…

KAINE: Yes.

MARTIN: … A specific agreement? Is it members like yourself working across the aisle? How do you envision this actually gets worked out?

KAINE: Michel, it has to be with the president’s engagement ’cause Republicans are afraid to do anything unless the president blesses it. And I want to make clear, this is not a demand. The Democrats put an alternative on the table. President Trump told the House, write a budget deal without Democratic involvement. We didn’t wait around. We put an alternative on the table on September 18 that said, hey, let’s fix this health care mess you’ve created and let’s also make sure that a deal is a deal. If we shake hands, the White House has to follow it and can’t immediately start laying off more people.

We want the president to engage. The only thing he did after canceling one meeting was have a meeting on 29 September, a day before the end of the fiscal year. And as soon as the Democrats walked out of the meeting, he started to put up artificial, AI-generated videos making fun of them, putting sombreros on their heads, etc. You can’t solve this with the president unengaged. And all of the earlier deadlines we’ve reached. When Joe Biden was president, we never had a shutdown because he’d get congressional leaders in the Oval Office and work out a deal. When Donald Trump last shut down the government in 2018, 2019, eventually he realized he needed to forge a resolution, and he did. If the president engages, we can solve this in 48 hours.

MARTIN: So before I let you go, briefly, polls at the moment show that Americans are blaming Republicans more than Democrats for this shutdown. The longer this goes on, do you think that that might change?

KAINE: In Virginia. So in Virginia, folks are very conditioned to believing all these negative consequences are choices by Donald Trump because he started doing it on day one with OMB Director Russ Vought, who says his goal was to traumatize federal employees. They’ve made good on that promise. I think Virginians know who to blame.

MARTIN: That is Senator Tim Kaine. He’s a Democrat from Virginia. And I want to note – we invited several Republican lawmakers to take our questions. We will continue to ask. Senator Kaine, thank you.

KAINE: Glad to be with you. Thanks.