WASHINGTON – On day 15 of the government shutdown, a U.S. senator hosted a well-attended birthday party for his bulldog.
Dozens of Hill staffers lined up inside the Capitol on Wednesday to wish Republican Sen. Jim Justice’s puppy a happy birthday as she sat under a balloon arch wearing a pink and white hat. They ate cakes and dozens of cake pops in the shape of 6-year-old Babydog.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Donald Trump gathered some of the country’s richest people for dinner at the White House. There was beef Wellington, caramel ice cream and gold-edged china, but no mention of the government shutdown during Trump’s 37-minute remarks in which he thanked his guests for their donations to a new White House ballroom.
“This is truly a spectacular crowd,” Trump said Wednesday night, noting that their collective donations have exceeded the ballroom’s $250 million price tag.
And the same has happened to the powerful in Washington during a government shutdown that seems to have no end in sight. As thousands of federal workers are furloughed (or laid off) and trying to stay afloat without pay, those responsible for the shutdown are, literally and figuratively, eating cake.
The nature of business as usual for elected officials in Washington, and some of their aides, contrasts with the experience of others in the nation’s capital, where federal offices, as well as many parks, monuments and museums, are closed, and of many people across the country. It also solidifies what now appears to be a bygone era of government shutdowns, a time when elected officials wouldn’t want to be caught close to parties or other non-essential indulgences.
“Everything seems to be the same, except it’s not. Except most of these people aren’t getting paid,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told NBC News, noting that the Senate has continued its committee hearings, constituent meetings and normal voting schedules despite the shutdown. “I don’t think that’s right. I just don’t think that’s right. And so, yeah, it is… and it feels different than any other shutdown.”
The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1 after Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and the president, couldn’t agree on a spending bill to keep it funded.
Since then, lawmakers have certainly been working. They are making speeches blaming the opposition party for the shutdown and repeatedly voting on the same two resolutions to reopen the government that they know don’t have enough support. Some lawmakers have been holding informal discussions about possible ways to break the impasse, but Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told NBC News on Thursday that while those talks had been “productive … they are over.” Members of Congress also continue to be paid, since their salaries are protected by the Constitution.
But his staff members and the many people who keep the Capitol running are not. One congressional staffer, who asked not to be identified to protect their privacy, said that while Congress does not appear to be in a big rush to reopen the government, the shutdown is urgent for them and their family.
“My husband is also a federal worker, so for us this is definitely urgent. We have a family to support,” the employee told NBC News.
Like Congress, Trump has been busy with government business, holding an average of nearly one event a day since the shutdown began. He has traveled to the Middle East to celebrate an agreement aimed at ending the war in Gaza. He is receiving foreign leaders. Later this month, he plans to take a multi-day trip to Asia to attend summits and meetings of world leaders.
Trump also moved forward this week with a previously scheduled Rose Garden ceremony honoring conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last month, on what would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday. On Friday, he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House to discuss the war with Russia before flying to Florida to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The White House has recalled several aides who were initially suspended back to work in recent days. While those employees work without pay, military personnel serving the presidency, such as pilots, flight attendants and other Air Force One staff, are expected to continue receiving paychecks. The Defense Department diverted funds from other parts of its budget to ensure members of the military were paid during the shutdown.
The White House also said Thursday that federal law enforcement agents, including those with Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service and the DEA, will be paid during the shutdown.
Trump will also continue to receive his salary under federal law, although he has said he donates his salary.
At the same time, the White House has used the shutdown as cover to lay off some federal workers. The Trump administration has already issued layoff notices to more than 4,000 government employees, although a federal judge has blocked the move for now. The White House has said it plans to appeal.
If the layoffs are allowed to go forward, White House budget chief Russell Vought said, the total could “grow higher” and “probably end up being over 10,000.”
Millions of tourists visit the US Capitol each year, but tours are closed to the public due to the lockdown. However, private tour groups organized by senators and members of the House of Representatives have continued in abundance. Unlike previous shutdowns, Capitol cafeterias are open, trash is being picked up, grandfather clocks are still being wound and some lawmakers have yet to fire a single staff member.
Previous shutdowns have led members of Congress to work frantically in weekend legislative sessions and hold late-night pizza dinners to try to end impasses. But this time, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has kept his members out of Washington since the shutdown began, and senators have consistently taken three-day weekends.
When asked about the Senate’s weekend breaks, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told NBC News that he will continue to allow senators to return home at the end of the week until there is real movement in negotiations.
“If it seems like there’s a productive reason to do it, of course I’ll do it,” Thune said of keeping members in session for a weekend. “But if it’s just no, no, no, no, no and we don’t move forward, then I’m not sure what the point would be. But I’m open to any suggestions that might help get the government open again.”
Once the government reopens, federal workers will receive back pay to cover the shutdown, whether they worked or not. But that wasn’t always the case. In 2019, Congress passed a law guaranteeing back pay to federal workers furloughed during shutdowns. That assurance appears to have led lawmakers and the executive branch to suspend fewer staff members this time, the senators said.
“I think the environment is a little different this time because of the late payment guarantee,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in an interview this week.
Some Republicans, who were present during the 16-day government shutdown in 2013, said they believe then-President Barack Obama and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., deliberately made the Capitol complex and federal agencies less hospitable during that funding crisis, hoping the pain would prompt lawmakers to end that shutdown.
“I think it was intentional,” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who told NBC News he has not laid off any of his staff over this shutdown.
Obama, he said, was focused on shutting down “as many things as possible, making it as difficult as possible for everyone, and Harry Reid did the same thing here in the Senate.”
And while lawmakers continue to be paid during the shutdown, Justice, RW.Va., the owner of Babydog, said he will donate his salary to his state’s National Guard.
“There are people who depend on us and right now it’s a disaster,” Justice said in an interview Wednesday. “A government shutdown is the most ridiculous thing on the planet, and we really, really, have to work together and get across the finish line.”
Babydog had no better answer than the humans at the Capitol had about when the shutdown might end.
“Snort,” he responded when asked at his birthday party how Congress and the White House could come to a resolution to reopen the government.
