Sen. Jeanne Shaheen: Lawmakers must find ‘common ground’ to end the government shutdown
On the seventh day of the government shutdown, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., called on Republicans and her fellow Democrats to find a way forward while warning of consequences for the nation’s health care system.
President Trump on social media said earlier Monday he’s willing to work with Democrats on health care, but only after the government reopens.
When asked on Morning Edition whether anyone from the administration had reached out to her directly, Shaheen said, “No one from the administration.” She added that she has been working behind the scenes with senators from both parties to “find common ground.”
She framed the negotiations as a realistic effort to reopen the government without sacrificing consumer protections and access to care.
Shaheen is not seeking reelection in 2026. The veteran appropriator has long opposed shutdowns and helped broker past bipartisan deals. But negotiations have stalled, as Democrats and Republicans tussle over extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act marketplaces that are due to expire at the end of the year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as many as four million people risk becoming uninsured if the credits are not renewed.
The current stakes are high. “We ought to be able to reopen the government and make sure we’re not kicking four million people off of their health insurance,” she said, adding that this “has real ramifications for the entire health care system.”
With health insurers finalizing premiums in October and open enrollment starting Nov. 1, Shaheen warned that millions could “lose their health insurance.”
In her home state, she said four medical facilities face closure due to spending cuts in the sweeping tax and spending bill passed by Republicans and signed by Trump over the summer.
Shaheen called Trump’s signature bill a “big betrayal of the American people” and said its impacts need to be addressed. The Democrats’ proposal in the Senate includes provisions to reverse some of those spending cuts — a demand Republicans have not supported.
She also pushed back sharply on administration arguments that layoffs are inevitable during a shutdown, calling that narrative “disingenuous.”
“From Day One, this administration started firing federal employees,” she said, and named the Food and Drug Administration and the Veterans Administration, which she says had to rehire staff.
“It is totally inaccurate for this administration to claim that it’s the shutdown that’s causing them to fire people. It’s the shutdown that’s giving them more of an excuse, but this has been happening from Day One.”
Despite tensions and mistrust between the two major parties, Shaheen remained resolute about seeking a bipartisan path forward.
“We ought to all be able to agree that the people who need this help the most are the ones who ought to get it,” she said. “I think more and more people are recognizing that, yes, there is some real common ground that we should be able to find.”
With the shutdown’s effects mounting, she added, “That’s why we need to work together to get this open.”
The digital version of this interview was edited by Obed Manuel, Jason Breslow and Luis Clemens.
Transcript:
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Senate on Monday again voted down each party’s stopgap funding bill to reopen the government. Senator Jeanne Shaheen is with us now on day seven of the shutdown. She is a Democrat, and she represents New Hampshire. Good morning, Senator. Thank you so much for…
JEANNE SHAHEEN: Good morning.
MARTIN: …Joining us. Let me just clarify this one thing. As you’ve just heard – as we’ve all just heard – the Republicans are arguing that Democrats want to give undocumented immigrants free health care. Now, Julie has just told us that is largely not true. It’s tortured logic at best. But I wanted to ask you if you think that argument is resonating with voters in any way.
SHAHEEN: I haven’t heard from anyone in New Hampshire, as in the rest of the country. We don’t provide health care for illegal immigrants. And I think there’s also a law that dates back to the Reagan administration that says that hospitals who receive federal funding can’t turn away anyone who’s there for emergency care. So I think that’s part of where some Republicans are getting that notion. But the fact is, as we heard, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplace do not allow illegal immigrants to enroll.
MARTIN: So one reason we called you is that you were one of the handful of Democratic senators who voted to keep the government open in March. This time you’ve been voting against it. What would you need from Republicans in order to vote to reopen the government?
SHAHEEN: You know, I think we ought to be able to do two things. We ought to both be able to reopen the government, keep the government open, and we ought to be able to make sure that we’re not kicking 4 million people off of their health insurance and raising the costs, as we heard from Julie, almost over doubling for some cases, the cost of health insurance for another 20 million people because that has real ramifications for the entire health care system.
In New Hampshire, we’re already looking at four facilities that are closing because of the law that was passed back in the summer, the president’s big bill that I call as big betrayal of the American people. So this is going to have an impact on hospitals, on providers, on health clinics, and we need to address it. And I’m encouraged that more and more of my Republican colleagues are saying, yes, we do need to address it. We recognize this. If you look at the data, 76% of people who benefit from these premium subsidies are in states that President Trump won in November. So the president, as we heard in his remarks yesterday, also is beginning to recognize that this is something that we need to address.
MARTIN: So the president on social media last night said he’s willing to work with Democrats on health care. Leader Jefferies, Leader Schumer say that Republicans have not reached out, or at least White House has not reached out to them. But has anybody reached out to you directly, any of your fellow senators or the administration, for that matter?
SHAHEEN: Well, no one from the administration, but I am talking, as many of us are, with our fellow senators about where can we find common ground? What do we think is agreeable to enough people on both sides of the aisle that we can reopen the government and we can get this done? Because there is urgency to addressing these – the cost of health insurance. People are going to start getting their bills because insurance companies are setting their rates in October, and the marketplace opens on November 1. And what we’ve heard from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is that if we don’t address this until December, a million and a half people will lose their health insurance, and it’s going to cost the federal government a lot more.
So there’s – there are real reasons why getting this done quickly is important. And, you know, it shouldn’t be that difficult because nobody wants to see people who don’t really need that help benefit from a program. We ought to all be able to agree that we don’t want waste, fraud and abuse in the system. We ought to all be able to agree that the people who need this help the most are the ones who ought to get it. And I think more and more people are recognizing that, yes, there is some real common ground that we should be able to find.
MARTIN: But as you just pointed out, these cuts were part of the president’s bill that was passed in early July. If this was such an important issue, why wasn’t this negotiated in the time since that seven-month funding bridge was passed in March? I mean, it’s not like people didn’t talk about this.
SHAHEEN: Well, we tried to…
MARTIN: Go ahead.
SHAHEEN: No, we tried to negotiate it back in the summer. But as we saw, that bill was passed with only Republican votes, and there was no interest in talking to Democrats about what we might need in order to protect people’s health care.
MARTIN: So White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke with our co-host Steve Inskeep about the administration’s plans to lay off or fire federal workers during the shutdown. Let me just play a short clip of what she said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
KAROLINE LEAVITT: Unfortunately, we have to do things we don’t want to do because the government is completely shut down and there’s zero money coming into the federal government’s coffers.
STEVE INSKEEP: People are still paying taxes.
LEAVITT: And so right now, the Office of Management and Budget is taking a hard look at the balance sheet and having to understand, what agencies do we have to cut? Who do we have to lay off in order to keep this thing running?
MARTIN: Do you believe that?
SHAHEEN: No. She’s being disingenuous because the fact is, the Trump administration, from Day 1, started firing federal employees. I’m the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and I watched the painful exercise with DOGE when they came in and cut all of – virtually all of USAID and the foreign assistance programs that the United States has. I’ve watched the Veterans Administration cut people, and then have to hire people back, the Department of Agriculture fire people, and then have to hire people back ’cause they didn’t know what people do, the Food and Drug Administration fire people, and then have to hire people back ’cause they didn’t have enough inspectors for food safety. So it is totally inaccurate for this administration to claim that it’s the shutdown that’s causing them to fire people. It’s the shutdown that’s giving them more of an excuse to fire people, but this has been happening from Day 1.
MARTIN: But the longer you keep the government closed – sorry, not you. But the longer the government stays closed, do you risk giving more power to the administration to keep doing that?
SHAHEEN: That’s why we need to work together to get this open. And…
MARTIN: That is Senator…
SHAHEEN: …Many of us are talking.
MARTIN: That is Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Senator, thank you for talking with us. And I do want to mention we reached out to a number of Republican lawmakers to join our program, but they declined. And we do want to say the invitation remains open. Senator Shaheen, thank you so much for talking with us today.
SHAHEEN: Good to talk to you. Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF VALIUM AGGELEIN’S “BIRD WINGS”)
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