As of five a.m. on Wednesday Nov. 5 2025, the United States government shutdown is now the longest one in the country’s history lasting, and counting, 36 days. Before the current shutdown, the longest one was in Dec. 2018 to Jan. 2019 during Trump’s last term, lasting 35 days.
The government shut down on Oct. 1 2025 after Congress failed to break a stalemate over funding negotiations. Before now, only three funding lapses shut down the government for more than two weeks.
Republicans control both chambers of the U.S government, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, meaning they need 60 votes to pass a spending bill in the Senate. Democrats are using that as a push for an extension of the “Affordable Care Act” that is due to expire at the end of 2025, leaving millions of Americans without health insurance.
Over one million federal workers around the country are not getting paid. Roughly a dozen Senate Democrats have privately signaled they are willing to support a stopgap funding deal in exchange for a future vote on health care, according to CNN.
Not only is loss of healthcare an effect of the shutdown, air traffic control shortages have caused delays and disruptions at airports across the country. National Parks are letting less people in to visit, and Smithsonian museums are closed. Federal food and nutrition benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) stopped over the weekend, meaning tens of thousands of low-income families lost access to meals provided by the government.
The Trump administration says it will restart the funding for those things, but only about half of the people who lost it will get it back and the funding will be delayed.
In an interview with CBS President Trump continued to place blame on the democrats for the shutdown.
“I mean, the Republicans are voting almost unanimously to end it, and the Democrats keep voting against ending it.” Trump said. “You know, they’ve never had this. This has happened like 18 times before. The Democrats always voted for an extension, always saying, ‘Give us an extension, we’ll work it out.’”
“I’m not gonna do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way,” Trump said.
Although Trump has acknowledged that his involvement helped bring an end to the previous shutdown, he doesn’t seem to agree on a compromise as he did last time.
