WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Victoria Churchill: Congress Ends 40+ Day Shutdown

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

After more than 40 days of government paralysis, Congress moved to restore funding. But this isn’t just a legislative win, it’s a political reckoning. Victoria Churchill, Young Voices Spokesperson and expert on Capitol Hill dynamics, unpacks how this deal exposes deep fractures within the Democratic Party, and what it reveals about the unsustainable brinkmanship defining Washington’s fiscal politics. She joins WRFH to discuss.

Hello and welcome. You're listening to WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Tibido here today with Victoria Churchill, a political reporter with the Daily Mail and spokesperson for young voices. Hi, Victoria. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me, Malia. Always great to be back on Radio Free Hillsdale. Absolutely. So you've recently done a few radio, radio. shows explaining these government shutdown. Can you give a brief summary of the decisions and events that led up to it? Sure. So in my day-to-day role at the Daily Mail, I cover Capitol Hill, primarily the U.S. Senate now actually adding some House coverage into my repertoire as well. So, you know, been a very interesting couple of, or basically almost a couple of months, I guess, for how long this shutdown lasted.

So, of course, what we saw happen was at the end of September, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a package to fund the U.S. government. Then it went over to the Senate where it did not pass. The Senate has a 60-vote threshold out of 100 for fiscal legislation. And so even though there were 53 Republican senators, they still needed a handful of Democrats to side with them. And that was if every single Republican agreed. and there are always a couple of Republicans that are wary, specifically of legislation that they think is not fiscally conservative.

And so for this budget bill to pass, they needed more Democrats to side with Republicans. So originally, we had had three Democrats that had sided with Republicans. And in the end, you had to have eight Democrats that sided with Republicans because Senator Rampal of Kentucky still voted against the budget. bill even, I guess it was the beginning of this past week when it made it out of the Senate. Then it went back to the House because the version of the bill that got passed in the Senate was not identical to the one that got passed in the House. And so the House had to repass the Senate version. And that was where six Democrats sided with Republicans to pass the legislation.

And again, this was a majority of Republicans as two Republicans voted against the legislation, even on the final passage. and then Wednesday night it went from Capitol Hill to President Trump's desk. He signed it within hours of it being passed, which ended up the longest ever government shutdown. It ended up being a total of 43 days, which again broke all records. There were a few impacts that were talked about quite heavily. One was definitely delays on flights. I know you and I right before we went on air, we're talking about that a little bit, how it even ended up disrupting some events on your campus up at Hillsdale and Michigan. And then the disruption to government programs such as food benefits, SNAP, that was another one that was talked about nationwide. And then, of course, I'm based in the northern Virginia area just outside of Washington, D.C. I work in D.C. So in D.C., the shutdown effects are always felt harder because that is where the bulk of our federal workforces is right around where I am. Yeah.

So during the shutdown, there's a lot of talk from Trump about. abolishing the filibuster. And I do know that like even after he was still making some signaling, positive signaling about that. Could you talk a little bit about that? And do you think that's something he's going to continue to advocate even though this bill has passed? This may be something we continue seeing the president advocate for. But here's the thing is that the political pendulum always swings in Washington. You have Republicans that control both the presidency as well as a majority in both houses of Congress. But again, just as I've kind of broken down,

that does not always mean that they get their preferred legislation, or at least not right away. And so the Democrats had this filibuster tool to have power as the minority power. However, there will definitely in the future be a time where the Republicans will be back as a minority party. And I'm not sure they will have, wanted the fellow buster to be completely gone because again it is a tool that the minority

power the minority party can use to wield their power whatever limited amount they may have so you know probably after the midterms and if not you know maybe five six years down the line after we have another presidential election cycle another midterms that may be a time in the future when Republicans have been the minority and so getting rid of the fellibuster, even though that's something that the president advocated for during the government shut down. This is something that faced opposition for members of both parties because members of both parties realize that there will be a point in time in the future where they'll be in the minority and they will want to have that tool at their disposal. Right. So during the

shutdown, both parties kind of played the blame game with each other. Who do you think won the messaging more? Well, I think there's a couple things you can look at. So if you look at polling, most Americans did blame Republicans for the shutdown. If you look at messaging out of Washington, particularly from the president, he believes that Republicans still won the shutdown. And I think there's a couple of points to look at, particularly on that second element. So the Republicans tried to frame this as the Schumer shutdown. Of course, Chuck Schumer being the minority leader in the U.S. Senate, the Democrat leader, the most highest ranking Democrat in that body. And I think framing it as the Schumer shutdown at the end of the day was actually fairly

effective for Republicans because there are members of the Democrat Party, both on Capitol Hill and activist groups that are calling for Schumer to resign. I think across the board, whether you're a Democrat or the Republican, you think that Schumer is the, for lack of a better term, the biggest loser in this whole situation. And on the left, he's getting calls to step down from groups like, for example, our revolution, that's a Democrat socialist Bernie Sanders aligned grassroots group. They delivered millions of signatures to Capitol Hill. I believe it was this morning. Today, Friday, November 14th when we're recording this, they delivered all those signatures as a sign of faith that, I guess really a sign that Schumer has lost the faith. He does not represent Democrats. And the fact that, you know, in their eyes, he lost those eight Democrats that voted. for the Republican bill. And this is not the first time that people have faced or that Schumer has faced frustration

from his own party, particularly since Trump's been back in office. So earlier this year, he agreed to some smaller funding legislation that was pushed by Republicans in the White House. He faced reprimands from some members of his own caucus in the Senate, as well as other vocal outspoken Democrats, for example, Jasmine Crockett of Texas. You know, she's one that really sees herself as a prime, prime voice of opposition to Trump, but she's also not afraid to call out frustrations that she has with her in her own party. And then, you know, even looking more at the youth level, the college Democrats in New York and the college Democrats nationally also are calling for Schumer to step down.

So I think that's also interesting to note. So, you know, again, I don't know if I can necessarily point a biggest winner because I think that depends. but I think across the board, Schumer is definitely the biggest loser. Yeah. So with Schumer, that's obvious. But we've also seen, you know, Nancy Pelosi has also just announced that she'll be stepping down after this next election cycle. Do you think that, you know, the leaving of the old guard for the Democratic Party, does that leave room for a lot of more left-leaning, newer, Democrats to come about? Or what do you think is going to be the future of the Democrat Party?

Oh, boy, that's a big question. You know, if I could answer that, absolutely. I probably wouldn't be reported or I'd probably be a political consultant. But, you know, I think there's a couple of interesting things to note. So, of course, we're looking at Schumer has not, I think, finally decided whatever his fate is going to be. Pelosi has obviously recently announced that she's retiring. Jerry Nadler announced in the last few months. that he's retiring. But I think it's also interesting to note who is looking to fill those shoes. So, for example, in Nadler's district right in the center of New York, New York City, you have Jack Schlossberg running. He has a Kennedy heir. Obviously, his predecessors were, you know, Robert F. Kennedy as well as JFK. But even his mom, Caroline Kennedy, was, I believe, an ambassador in the Biden administration. So, you know, even though these candidates may be younger in their 30s, 40s, even some of them in their 50s, I don't know if they necessarily represent a new guard of the Democrats, particularly if they come from some of these storied families.

And Schlossberg is not the only one. Nancy Pelosi's daughter is also running for office. You have Janine Shaheen's daughter. And so Senator Shaheen is actually one of the Democrats that actually supported. the Republican funding package. And now her daughter is campaigning against a vote that her own mother took. And so, I mean, maybe that is a sign of dissonance from the new guard. But, you know, you also have people like your Abigail Spanbergers and Mickey Sherrill's

that, you know, of course, her former congressional Democrats now both won their governor's races in New Jersey as well as Virginia just in the last few weeks. when Spamberger was a congresswoman, Pelosi named her kind of the chair of the moderate caucus, if you so will. And Spamberger, even though I think there's a lot of things that are things that I don't particularly think are great ideas in her policy portfolio. You know, at the end of the day, she's no AOC, she's no mom-dami, even though they are of the same party and more or less of the same generation of being, you know, in their 30s and 40s as opposed to their 70s and their, 80s. This is WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Tibido here today with political reporter and Young Voices spokesperson Victoria Churchill discussing the government shutdown and its consequences on both the political parties. Do you think we could talk about going back to the

shutdown, what are some consequences that both the long-term consequences that both the American people might face from this? And what are some things that both parties can come away from this with? In terms of long-term consequences for the American people, one of kind of the media impacts has been a stoppage of flow of federal dollars. Because if you believe in trickle-down economics, which is definitely more of the camp that I'm in, you know, you had these government workers that weren't getting paid, then they weren't spending in their local communities. And I know that's an immediate impact that we have seen here in the greater D.C. area, a lot of those folks are going to get back pay. Another part of the government funding reopening bill

that I haven't seen too many people talking about, but one that I think is important is that part of the agreement was the reversion of all the rifts. So that was the reductions in force. So everybody that had been laid off during the shutdown. gets their jobs back. So I think, you know, those people are going to be saying dollars back in their pockets. But, you know, for example, for businesses in communities with high government workers, which may not necessarily be the D.C. Metro and the Northern Virginia Metro, there was a story that I saw ran by another news outlet that, for example, you know, people that run breweries and food trucks down in the Virginia Beach area, that obviously is a very high military and government contractors. population, you know, smaller businesses were feeling the effects of that shut down. And I think

it's uncertain whether they will see a full recovery. Now again, you can kind of debate the merits of, you know, should those dollars or should those communities be dependent on government dollars in the first place? I'm probably more of the camp that would argue no. But I think regardless of how you feel about that, it's undeniable that there will be effects and there have been effects that have been adverse. But in terms of the future for both parties, I mean, right when he was signing the bill to reopen the government, Trump said that he wants voters to remember the Democrat shutdown in the midterms.

I'm not sure if they're necessarily going to buy into that messaging. Again, because if you looked at polling over the last few weeks, the Republicans did bear more of the brunt of the government shutdown, at least in the eyes of most Americans that were pulled. again you can kind of question the validity of that if you know for example if you're unhappy are you more likely to answer the poll versus if you're happy there's more debates to be had there I'm not quite sure if this is the time and place to do that so you know we'll just talk about those numbers as they are not necessarily how they came about but I also think another thing that's been interesting is that some of those Democrats that caved particularly in the House were Democrats that are in Trump district So districts that Trump won, but also had Democrats win in their congressional races. It will be interesting to see whether those Democrats are able to go back home, particularly in next year's midterm elections. And will, differentiating themselves from the rest of their party, will that be a benefit to them electorally?

Will that potentially open up them for potential primary challengers because they split with the bulk of the Democrats? those are, I think, all conversations that will be very interesting to see how those play out all across the country. Right. I want to get back to the shutdown itself. But first, I want to talk about, you touched on, you know, the Democrats going back to their own constituency and how they're voting with the federal shutdown might affect them locally. There's been a lot of talk about how the Democrats might have used the federal shutdown as tools for the recent Virginia and New York City elections. Do you think that has some merit? I think you can't look at the numbers that came out of the election and say that the shutdown played no part. I mean, again, as somebody that lives in Northern Virginia, I can tell you that, you know, if my neighbors were sitting around twiddling their thumbs for months and raising their fists at the TV every single time that Donald Trump came on and they had an opportunity to, at least in their eyes, do something about it, they probably went to the polls.

I mean, I'm sure outside of going to the polls, they also showed up to quite a number of the protests that we had, for example, the No King's protests. But, you know, in terms of showing civic discourse and civic engagement, particularly when you're frustrated, going to the polls is a very natural, very American thing to do. And so, you know, I think it definitely did have an effect, you know, again, particularly here in Northern Virginia. You know, particularly, I think also at a time when Republicans have traditionally branded themselves as the party of, you know, new jobs and bringing industry into the, state, you know, like I said, particularly here in Virginia, it's, it was very easy for Democrats to capitalize on that and say, well, we have so many jobs that depend on the federal government and you're fighting with Trump or you're not speaking out for all these federal workers that either have been laid off or have been furloughed or are working without pay.

So really, you know, in none of those situations where people happy, regardless of whether even they had a job in that moment or not. And so I think if they're frustrated, I think they definitely went to the polls. And, you know, it definitely had knock on adverse effects. There is currently no Republicans elected from Northern Virginia going into next year's legislative session in the House of Delegates. So there was a couple of Republican, remnant Republicans, you know, in the areas for about an hour to hour and a half outside

of D.C. Those seats all went to Democrats. And just about every single area where, you know, this time last year, we were talking, particularly in northern Virginia, about Kamala Harris underperforming Joe Biden's previous results in a bunch of different areas. That completely shifted the opposite direction. Democrats overperformed a lot of the areas, particularly, you know, again, looking down at House of Delegates districts and things like that. Democrats overperformed Kamala Harris's 2024 numbers in terms of a percent swing. And so I think when you talk about voter motivation, I think the Democrats, particularly in Northern Virginia, were a lot more motivated to turn out than their Republican counterparts.

Do you think that the motivations will stay the same in things like future elections? Well, I think any time we talk about an election, you talk about what the motivation. motivating factors are, right? So, for example, looking back to four years, and again, I know I keep talking about Northern Virginia, but I think it is really important because there are so many eyes on it nationally. I think, you know, obviously in part due to the fact that so much of the DC media lives in Northern Virginia or hears about it all the time. But, you know, for example, in the Yonken election, there was a lot of national issues that were localized things like, you know, parents' rights, things like, you know, transgender individuals competing in women's sports.

Those were national issues that were localized. And I think here we kind of saw the opposite. We saw local issues that were nationalized. And I think that any time you have that go one way or the other, that's very easy to motivate people with. That's things that are, you know, if things are being covered in the media, then they'll probably be regurgitated in political advertising. or they'll probably be regurgitated even in kind of the kinds of stories that the media picks up on. And so I think all of those are factors when it comes to what actually

motivates a voter to go out to the polls. So these shutdown dominated newsfeeds for probably the past as long as it was in effect. But were there some decisions, actions, stories that the shutdown, shielded from attention that you think should be highlighted? I mean, the obvious answer was the Epstein files. That's one thing that now that the shutdown is over, that will be taken up in the U.S. House of Representatives next week. That's one thing that, so there was a representative from Arizona who was elected the week

before the shutdown started and she was not sworn in for what amounted to 50 days and that definitely garnered some national attention and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson's justification for that was, well, the House is out of session. So we're not going to swear into representative while we're out of session. That representative Adelaidehra Grijalva from Arizona, she became the final vote or the final signature, excuse me, on what's called a discharge petition. So this is a procedural tool in the U.S. House of Representatives. that is available to be used anytime a bill is introduced, that is a way to bypass the committee process. So typically bills are introduced, they're sent to committee, they're passed out of committee,

then they go to the House floor. The discharge petition discharges that bill out of the committee and presents an opportunity for it to come up for a full floor vote. So that's what happened with this Epstein follows legislation. So that 218 signature means that that bill to release the Epstein, files or to what it actually technically does is it tells the department of justice to release the Epstein files, which is also a notable little kind of caveat because it tells the Department of Justice to do that, but it doesn't tell them what exactly they have to release, which I think

will be a very interesting thing going forward. But again, that's something that's going will be happening on Capitol Hill next week. But when we started off this conversation, we were talking about how I primarily cover the Senate, which I think is interesting because actually in a lot of committees in the Senate, it was kind of business as usual. There were judicial nominations that were passed. There were nominations for ambassadorial roles that the Senate was able to usher through, even though their House counterparts, the majority of them, were not in D.C. because the House was out of session. And, you know, I think I even remarked to a couple of my friends and even my my sources on the house side. I'm like, you know, I don't know

what life is over there on the other side of the capital for y'all, but I'm over here in the Senate and I'm as busy as ever going to all these committee meetings and writing up all these little things that were still going on. So I think that's also interesting to note. But I also do think that in terms of the media coverage, I think some of those things in the Senate maybe got potentially a little bit less media coverage because so many Capitol reporters were focused just uncovering the shutdown as well. All right. Yeah. Before we leave, where can people follow your work? Sure, absolutely. So you can find me on X at Snits underscore Churchy. That's S-N-I-T-S-U-R-C-H-Y.

Or you can find me on any other social media at my full name, which is Victoria Snitsar-Churchel. That's also my website, Victoria Snitsar-Churchal.com. And of course, at the The Daily Mail. You can find me under Victoria Churchill. I'm writing typically two to three stories a day. Like I said, primarily on Capitol Hill, but also I think a lot of interesting. I like to call them like inner conservative movement drama stories. So, you know, things with, you know, the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's death and what's going on with Turning Point, things like the, some drama with like in Republican groups, other kind of tits and cats with social media personalities. things like that on the American right.

So those are kind of some other areas that I'm covering when I'm not on Capitol Hill as well. All right. Thank you very much. This has been a chat with political reporter and young voices spokesperson, Victoria Churchill. I'm Malia Tibido, and thank you for listening on WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. I don't know.