By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
As the government shutdown exceeded the two-week mark, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., warned that military pay may run out and that service members could miss their next paycheck later this month.
“If it weren’t for the bold leadership of President [Donald] Trump helping us to protect our military, everyone needs to understand that 1.3 million active-duty service members would be missing a paycheck,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday. “They’ll get their check, thankfully, because President Trump has shown strong leadership.”
Members of the military were due to get paid on Wednesday after the Trump administration announced it would shift funding from other programs to them. Their next pay date is Oct. 31, according to a schedule released by the Defense Department.
Johnson said that Democratic lawmakers were to blame for the situation and called on them to vote on a package to reopen the government.
“If the Democrats continue to vote to keep the government closed as they have done now so many times, then we know that U.S. troops are going to risk missing a full paycheck at the end of this month,” Johnson said. “And that means service members on deployment who’ve left their young families back home, reliant upon these checks; it means service members who are thousands of miles away from home; it means service members trying to make their rent and those who have ailing relatives who need to be taken care of — none of those people will be paid.”
Democrats say that any funding measure should include an extension of health care subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of 2025. Republicans say it’s a separate issue and the government should first be reopened before such a measure is considered.
Democrats showed few signs of caving as they returned to Washington from their home states on Tuesday and, for an eighth time, rejected a Republican bill to open the government.
“What people are saying is, you’ve got to stop the carnage,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said on Wednesday, referring to what he had heard from his constituents, including federal workers, as he traveled around his state over the weekend. “And you don’t stop it by giving in.”
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said that threats of federal firings are “a fair amount of bluster,” and he predicted they ultimately will be overturned in court or otherwise reversed, while Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said that the shutdown is merely “an excuse for them to do what they were planning to do anyway,” referring to firings.
In a court filing last week, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget said that more than 4,000 federal employees from eight departments and agencies would be fired in conjunction with the shutdown.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters his administration is using the shutdown to target federal programs that Democrats support and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.” He also said that programs supported by Republicans will be kept, although he did not elaborate.
“We are closing up Democrat programs that we disagree with, and they’re never going to open again,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
