Trump's Trials - Gov't shutdown continues; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt talks to NPR

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

As the government shutdown enters its third day, the GOP-led Senate will vote for the fourth time on partisan stopgap bills. Meanwhile, the White House is threatening mass layoffs for federal workers.Then, NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about the government shutdown.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detrow, and this is Trump's terms from NPR. We're going to be doing all sorts of things. Nobody ever thought was even possible. President Trump has brought back string to the White House. We can't just ignore the president's desires. This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode, we bring you one of NPR's latest stories about the 47th president, and now he is trying to remake the federal government.

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Not just what they mean, but what they mean for you, all in under 30 minutes. Listen to the weekly roundup every Friday on the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Laila Fulton. Three days into a government shutdown, neither side is showing signs of giving ground. And a few minutes will speak with White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt to hear the administration's view. But first, we'll get the latest from Capitol Hill. The Trump administration has said it will take the opportunity to increase the pain on their fellow Americans by firing federal workers.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not warning the most. Any time you're in this situation, you have to manage a shutdown, decisions have to be made about what to prioritize. Where are you going to spend money? I expect there are going to be some decisions coming out about that. That wouldn't surprise me at all. The Republican-led Senate will vote for the fourth time today on partisan stopgap bills that are expected to fail. NPR, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, has been reporting on all this and joins us now. Hi, Claudia.

Good morning, Leila. Good morning. So why go through the motion of voting on these dueling bills when they don't have the votes. Right. Leader Thune says this is a tactic to pressure Democrats to fold. Let Republicans overcome a filibuster holding up government funding. They need Democrats to reach this required 60 vote threshold today, but we're not expecting them to help. So far, only three have defected to vote with Republicans. And as we know, the GOP only controls 53 Senate seat. So they need at least seven Democrats, probably more, as one.

Republican Kentucky Senator Rampal is expected to vote no. The rest of the Democratic caucus has said they will not help unless Republicans address expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act or ACA program. And this is also a big issue for Americans. 20 million people could see their insurance premium spike in some cases double. If these expire, are Senate Republicans willing to talk at this point? Not really. Not right now. A bipartisan group was in talks this week. I followed up with one member, Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota. He said Republicans were simply trying to convince Democrats first vote on this stopgap, known as a continuing resolution or CR.

If they don't pass a short-term CR, there is no way of getting anything done in time to do the things that they want to with regard to ACA subsidies. So he says these subsidies have to go through a separate bill that's stuck behind this show. down. But for Democrats, there's a chance this is a bait and switch. So most are not budging for now. Now, Vice President Vance was publicly insisting there's no rush to renew the subsidy since they don't take effect until next year. Is there plenty of time on this? Well, Democrats would argue, no, these subsidies don't expire until the end of the year, but they say with open enrollment coming up next month, they say that needs to be handled now. So you could say Democrats are fighting as well for a popular issue. Perhaps there's a political calculation here too. NPR has reported

that 24 million people are enrolled. They include influential voters, active voters, like small business owners, farmers, and ranchers. So lawmakers went into this shutdown feeling it was inevitable. At this point, do they show any urgency about ending it? Well, we didn't see much this week. We just saw a lot of posturing, for example, President Trump threatened mass layoffs, cutting, quote, Democratic agencies and met with the head of management and budget, Russell, vote on the next steps there. But when I asked Republicans about these cuts, like you heard Thune there at the top, they say it's the administration's prerogative. What's partly fueling the stalemate is a lot of government agencies are still running. Federal paychecks haven't been missed yet. So the American

public hasn't noticed much. But as this stretches on, the pressure will only build on Congress and the president. And PR's Claudia Grisellis. Thank you, Claudia. Thank you. We are hearing multiple perspectives on the shutdown, and that includes Caroline Levitt, the White House Press Secretary, who's on the line. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you guys so much for having me. Glad you're on.

Good to talk with you again. As everybody knows, the president likes to make deals. What's his plan to get out of this? Look, the president does love to make deals, and he offered Democrats on Capitol Hill a very simple deal to pass a clean, continuing resolution. That's what the president supported. that's what Republicans introduced. And this is a bipartisan piece of legislation. There were three Senate Democrats who eventually voted for it,

but that is not enough. Not enough Democrats voted for this common sense, clean continuing resolution to keep the government open. So unfortunately, we are now in a federal government shutdown, and this is not what President Trump wanted. So the White House is continuing to work with our colleagues on Capitol Hill. We're in talks with moderate Democrat senators, who know that this is not the right thing to do, who know that they supported this exact same

piece of legislation to keep the government open. As recently as March, they've supported it 13 times in the past. There is zero reason for them to now be pushing this shutdown in the name of health care. Right now we need to keep the government open. Discussions about health care can happen after we do that. And the president is continuing to encourage people on Capitol Hill to vote for this clean. It sounds to me like you're not going, the different paths you could take, you're not necessarily going to the Democratic leadership, you're going to see if you can pick off a few more moderate

Democrats and get up to 60 votes to get out of this. Is that the idea? Well, the president did go to the Democratic leadership. We had Senator Chuck Tumer and the House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the White House just last week, and the president offered them an opportunity to come to their senses, and unfortunately they chose a different path. They remained defiant, and they picked the partisan fight over how. health care funding, which, by the way, is a fight in a discussion worth having, but we can't have it at the 9th hour when the federal government is shutting down. And now our troops are going without pay.

We have federal staff that have been furloughed from their jobs, federal staff that are working without pay, and that's unacceptable and it's deeply unfortunate. Now, let's talk about this assertion that is made on the Democratic side. They are wanting to extend tax credits for Obamacare health insurance subsidies, health insurance premiums, rather. And I just want to put out some numbers that NPR has reported, because there's a lot of heat about this. I want to try to bring some light. There are 24 million Americans, roughly, who use these marketplaces. They benefit from these tax credits. The enrollment is not for next year. The enrollment actually comes in a few weeks, November 1st,

and those millions of people are citizens and taxpayers who are about to be faced with much higher premiums. Does the president have a plan to address that concern before they start enrolling November 1st? Look, the president, the vice president, the White House has consistently said, we are very much going to engage on this issue and have robust discussions about it and figure out what is the best policy for our country moving forward. But right now, we need to reopen the government, so those discussions can continue. But the clean resolution would push you back November 1st. I do understand that the calendar is the clean resolution would push you back beyond November 1st. You wouldn't be able to do it in time. Well, the premiums that you're

discussing don't expire until the end of the calendar year. And so right now we need to keep the government open. We want to pass a clean continuing resolution for the next seven weeks, then we'll address the budget fight once again when that seven weeks lapses. But at least in those seven weeks, those discussions on health care and all of the other issues our country is facing can continue. And you've had the vice president of the United States say numerous times. As soon as we reopen the government, he will go to Capitol Hill right away to discuss this very important topic of health care. But right now, again, the government needs to reopen. We have people who cannot afford critical food assistance.

You look at members of our military, air traffic controllers, federal law enforcement officers, all of whom are having to work without pay right now. That's absolutely true. They're not being paid, but I want to ask about something else here. The administration says it's preparing to fire people. I know there was a meeting about that earlier in the week. and the president said before the shutdown, quote, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible that are bad for them.

What is the reason to do bad things here and what bad things are planned? Well, 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. People are still paying taxes. 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 and in order to be good stewards of the American taxpayer dollar. But I'm trying to figure that out. I mean, first, tax money is still coming in. This does seem to be a short-term issue. It's not like the government is about to run out of money. There's an authority not to spend money or not.

Well, we're $37 trillion in debt. This, I understand. Granted, granted, granted. But the president has talked about shutting down what he calls Democrat agencies. Which agencies are the Democrat agencies? Well, that's something that the White House is currently discussing and the president is meeting with the Office of Management and Budget to try to understand what agencies are essential, what agencies do not align with the administration's priorities and values. I think every single one of your listeners would agree the federal government is way too big. And so where can we cut back to save money in a responsible way that respects the American taxpayer's money, especially when we are in this financial crunch right now in the midst of a Democrat shutdown?

When the administration canceled an $18 billion spending on infrastructure projects in New York City, was that a shot at Chuck Schumer of New York and Democrats in general in a blue state? Well, look, this is one of the many things we're taking a look at. What are these wasteful projects doing? And by the way, the reason for that is because the Department of Transportation workers who were working and pushing out the funds for that were all furloughed. They can't show up to work right now. So that project is currently temporarily halted because of Chuck Schumer's.

shutdown. So Chuck Schumer did that to himself. He did that to his constituents in New York. If the government remained open because Chuck Schumer and the Democrats voted for it, that project, that infrastructure project would be ongoing. Oh, interesting. I thought it had been canceled. So you're saying it's only temporary. That's helpful. We just got a few

seconds left, but I want to ask one of the thing. Ms. Leavitt, because we have another guest on the program coming up in a little while. We're going to hear from Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. If you had an opportunity to ask him a question, what question would you ask? I would ask. I would ask please, please, why don't you do the right thing by your constituents in Georgia and vote to keep

the government open? Let's reopen the government and then we can have a robust debate on the issue of health care. That's where I would pass along to the senator. Caroline Leavitt is the White House Press Secretary. Thanks for joining us this morning. I hope to have you back sometime. Thank you. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more

at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR. Thank you.