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(WASHINGTON) — As the government shutdown enters its second day on Thursday, there’s no end in sight, with the Trump administration potentially firing some federal workers in the next day and Republican senators looking to peel off wavering Democrats to support the GOP’s government funding bill.

The Senate will not hold votes on Thursday. After the failing of government funding bills Wednesday, the Senate adjourned for Yom Kippur. The next votes are scheduled for Friday.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are working to recruit more Democrats to back their House-passed, GOP-backed seven-week stopgap funding measure that would allow the government to operate.

Majority Leader John Thune said that he believes rank-and-file Democrats will eventually break with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to pass a short-term funding bill to reopen the government. 

“I think there are a lot of rank-and-file Democrats who are regretting letting Schumer lock them down into this rat hole,” Thune said in an appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” Wednesday night. 

Democrats hung together Wednesday afternoon to block, for the third time, a stopgap funding bill offered by Republicans. Democrats are insisting that any solution address their demands on health care before they vote to advance it.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House that the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump, are continuing to talk to lawmakers on Capitol Hill with aims to “encourage Democrats” to acquiesce and support the GOP short-term continuing resolution. 

“The president, vice president, the entire team here will continue to work and talk to members on the Hill to try and come to a resolution to try to encourage Democrats to muster up the courage to do the right thing,” Leavitt said.

On Fox News Thursday morning, Leavitt said those discussions were happening specifically with “moderate Democrats and also with ally Senate Republicans who have good relationships with these moderates.”

Still, finger pointing continues as Democrats and Republicans trade blame for the shutdown.

On Thursday morning, Speaker Mike Johnson slammed Democrats and Schumer for the ongoing shutdown, calling their stance “selfish” and “reprehensible.”

“I don’t have anything to negotiate,” Johnson said, after saying the House sent a clean continuing resolution to the Senate that funds the government for seven weeks.

Democrats are hitting back with Schumer saying in a social media post that “Republicans shut down the government because they can’t be bothered to protect health care for Americans across this country.”

The blame-casting is extending online, too. In addition to the public statements on federal websites blaming the “radical left” for the government shutdown, the Office of Management and Budget encouraged federal employees to create out-of-office email messages denouncing “Democrat senators” for causing the government shutdown, sources told ABC News.

Trump said he has a meeting scheduled with OMB Director Russ Vought on Thursday to determine which agencies he “recommends” be cut — either temporarily or permanently.

Last week, the Trump administration threatened mass layoffs of some federal workers during the shutdown. Vought warned House Republicans on a conference call Wednesday that the administration will start firing federal workers in the next “day or two,” multiple sources told ABC News.

It wasn’t yet clear which departments and agencies could first be impacted, though the Trump administration has said it would go after projects in Democratic states — including putting on hold $18 billion in infrastructure funding for New York City and cancelling $8 billion for energy projects in 16 states that voted with Democrats in the last presidential election.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump said in a Thursday social media post about cuts during the shutdown.

Trump also wrote on social media late Wednesday night that he wants Republicans to use the shutdown as an “opportunity” to save billions of dollars by clearing out “dead wood, waste, and fraud.”

ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — One of the preeminent U.S. attorney’s offices in the country is facing mounting turmoil in the wake of the move last week by a Trump-installed prosecutor to indict former FBI Director James Comey.

Two top attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia have been fired from their jobs in recent days, sources told ABC, and lawyers in the office believe their removals were driven by political vengeance on behalf of President Donald Trump.

The office’s top national security official, Michael Ben-Ary, was informed Wednesday of his termination just hours after a MAGA-aligned activist posted on social media about his past work in the office of former Biden-era Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, sources told ABC News.

Ben-Ary, who had risen through ranks of federal law enforcement over the past 20 years, was the lead attorney on the case of Mohammad Sharifullah — an alleged plotter who is accused of assisting ISIS-K in the bombing of Abbey Gate whose case and extradition to the U.S. was announced by Trump in a joint address to Congress earlier this year. Sharifullah is set to stand trial in early December.

Another prosecutor, Maya Song, the former deputy to Erik Siebert — who was ousted two weeks ago under pressure from Trump — was fired last Friday by Siebert’s replacement Lindsey Halligan, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. 

Song had opted to accept a demotion as a line prosecutor in the wake of Siebert’s resignation after he resisted pressure to bring charges against both Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, sources previously told ABC News.

It’s not immediately clear whether Song was given a specific rationale for her removal, but it followed a torrent of criticism from right-wing influencers who had similarly highlighted her previous service during the Biden administration under Monaco.

In a Truth Social post last week, Trump demanded Microsoft immediately fire Monaco from her recently announced role as the company’s president of global affairs, citing what he alleged was her direct involvement in the prosecutions he faced after leaving his first term in office.

Ben-Ary and Song’s removals are likely to further sink morale inside the already embattled office, sources told ABC. The office, considered among the most important prosecutorial offices in the country, handles the bulk of the federal government’s most sensitive national security cases.

ABC News has reached out to the DOJ, Ben-Ary and Song for comment.

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(NEW YORK)– Sarah Manasrah has received aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — commonly known as WIC — since her first child was born six years ago.

The 37-year-old mother who lives with her husband and two girls, who are 6 and 3 years old, in Brooklyn, New York, told ABC News in an interview on Wednesday that she didn’t even know that the federal government shutdown could possibly affect WIC benefits — which supplements nutritious foods for low-income families — for her and her children.

“They do not care about families. They say they do to push through their political agenda,” Manasrah said of Republican and Democratic members of Congress, who failed to reach an agreement to fund the government, effectively shutting it down on Wednesday.

Manasrah said she uses WIC benefits to provide about $27 for fresh fruits and vegetables, and allowances for a certain amount of specified nutritious foods like eggs, whole-wheat bread, milk and baby formula free of charge using a government-provided expense card that replenishes once a month.

The mother of two also used WIC’s breast-feeding support program through a peer counselor who assisted her with her first child.

How will the shutdown impact WIC?
Experts told ABC News that they were unsure of the exact impacts a shutdown will have on WIC beneficiaries, since individual states will each have to decide if they can supplement the funds, and the amounts can vary depending on the state.

Ali Hard, director of public policy for the National WIC Association, told ABC News on Tuesday that WIC recipients may start to see their benefits impacted after the first or second week of the shutdown.

She said that WIC has $150 million in contingency funding in the event of a shutdown and $135 million in monthly baby formula rebate checks that would help the program run smoothly for about a week or two.

After that, both new and current WIC beneficiaries will start to see their benefits impacted, especially those in areas without state funds to supplement the loss of federal dollars, Hard said.

“The timing of this shutdown at the start of the new fiscal year puts WIC at risk of rapidly running out of funds,” Hard’s group said in a statement released on Tuesday. “This failure needlessly jeopardizes the health and nutrition of millions of pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and young children who rely on WIC. … Every day of inaction brings us closer to a crisis. Failure to rapidly reopen the government could result in State WIC directors being put in the horrible position of trying to manage their programs with insufficient funds.”

With the federal government shuttered, some states will have to dip into their own coffers to pay for WIC benefits.

Democratic Reps. Bobby Scott and Suzanne Bonamici sent a letter on Wednesday to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department oversees the WIC program, urging the secretary to lay out a plan on how the department plans to replenish state funds used to supplement WIC benefits once the shutdown is over.

“The WIC program serves as a lifeline for families; the program’s caseload increased by 5 percent in Fiscal Year 2023 from 6.4 million participants to 6.7 million, underscoring the need to fully fund the program each year without delay or uncertainty,” the representatives stated in their letter.

In 2013, during a 16-day government shutdown, “states relied on their general funds to continue WIC services and were then reimbursed with federal funds once the shutdown was over; however, there is uncertainty over whether the federal government would take the same action this time,” the letter stated.

A spokesperson with the USDA sent ABC News a letter from the department, was dated Oct, 1, 2025, and addressed to directors of the Supplemental Nutrition Division in all regions saying that state agencies could pull funding from rebates, state-appropriated or general funds, and contingency funds. But they were not permitted to use any extra FY 2025 funds for FY 2026 costs, according to the letter.

“Nutrition programs will operate based on State choice and the length of a shutdown,” the USDA spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News Wednesday. “If Democrats do not fund the government, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) will run out of funding and States will have to make a choice.”

A spokesperson with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget also lay the blame on Democrats.

“By instigating a government shutdown, Democrats are turning their back on WIC recipients,” an OMB spokesperson said in a statement. “The program will run out of money in October and women and children could no longer receive benefits. The White House and Republicans in the House-passed CR added $600 million so there will be no loss of benefits–clearly Democrats are ok with women and children losing WIC benefits.”

Democrats have blamed Republicans for the shutdown, citing what they say is an unwillingness to negotiate over health care provisions. 

President Donald Trump’s administration has made notable attempts to promote families and reiterated that more babies need to be born in the United States.

According to the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again Report, WIC provides exclusively nutritious foods for pregnant and breastfeeding women, women who recently had a baby, and infants and children up to 5 years old. WIC supplies nutrition education and support for approximately 6.7 million women and children nationwide, according to the MAHA Report.

“WIC has a proven track record of improving children’s health,” according to the MAHA Report. “Research has shown that recipients experience improved pregnancy outcomes, better birth weights, higher immunization rates, improved diet quality, and cognitive gains. … A study showed the 2009 WIC food package change may have helped reverse increasing childhood obesity rates.”

Manasrah, the Brooklyn mother of two, is a doula who supports pregnant women before birth and provides them post-partum assistance. She also works for the non-profit Bridge Project that gives money and assistance to low-income mothers during pregnancy, birth, and the earliest days of their babies’ lives.

She says a vast majority of the women she works with receive WIC benefits.

“Most families I know, rely on WIC for their formula, if they’re using formula, and that’s literally keeping babies alive,” Manasrah said. “So, it’s not an exaggeration to say that WIC is a lifesaving program for families.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate on Wednesday — the first day of a government shutdown — once again failed to pass bills aimed at funding the government as congressional leaders continue to trade blame for the shutdown.

Negotiations appear to be underway, and Friday is the next opportunity for the Senate to vote on government funding — leaving many Americans to wonder what’s next with the shutdown.

The Senate held two votes on funding bills that mirrored the failed votes they took on Tuesday, resulting in a government shutdown that took effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Both failed — resulting in the government shutdown continuing.

What’s next?

After the failing of the bills Wednesday morning, the Senate is expected to take votes on other matters in the afternoon and then they’re expected to depart for Yom Kippur. Though things could always change if some sort of deal is struck.

The Senate is not expected to hold any additional votes on government funding until Friday at the earliest, all but assuring this shutdown stretches on at least until Friday. 

Bipartisan path forward?

During Wednesday’s vote on whether to advance a seven-week stopgap funding bill, a large bipartisan huddle of senators gathered. The group included a number of closely watched moderates including Sens. Gary Peters, Jacky Rosen, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Ben Ray Lujan and more.

Lawmakers who left that huddle told ABC News that the conversations they were having were preliminary. But it’s clear a bipartisan group is coming together that’s looking for some sort of shutdown off ramp.

“The Democrats who you saw there are trying to find a good faith way to move forward, get the ACA tax credits that we want, and also some of the appropriations that they are asking for,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, who was part of the group, told reporters. 

One of the possibilities being floated among the group include trying to pass a shorter-term government funding bill to allow some additional breathing room for negotiations on the Affordable Care Act tax credit extensions that Democrats say they want, according to sources.

Sen. Mike Rounds, who appeared to be among the key GOP negotiators in the huddle, said Republicans are trying to convince a group of Democrats that opening the government back up would create the best avenue to continue negotiations on health care. 

“We’re trying to convince them this is the right thing to do: find the path forward, get the 10 votes or more to move forward with this, and then let’s go right to work on fixing the issues that they were concerned about,” Rounds said. 

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that there’s “a lot of bipartisan hope” that the shutdown would be as “short and costless as possible” — adding that negotiations would be ongoing. 

“There are real and significant glimmers of hope that we could have a meeting of the minds,” Blumenthal said. 

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has been leading Senate Democrats in their blockade against a short term funding bill unless health care needs or met, was not in the huddle. But he seemed encouraged by it. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Wednesday that he was aware of the bipartisan huddle and that he’s also engaged in discussions with members of both sides to come up with a solution to fund the government. 

Wednesday’s votes

The first vote that failed in the Senate was, once again, a procedural vote on the Democrats’ government funding proposal that includes the health care provisions they’ve been seeking. It failed by a vote of 47-53. As was the case on Tuesday night, every Democrat voted for it and every Republican voted against it. 

The second vote in the series was a procedural vote on the clean, House-backed Republican stop-gap funding bill that failed Tuesday night. Democrats continued to hold the line during Wednesday’s vote, leading it to fail with a vote of 55-45.

Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and John Fetterman, as well as independent Angus King, voted — as they had Tuesday — with Republicans to advance the GOP funding solution. But no additional Democrats broke ranks during the vote series. Republican Sen. Rand Paul voted no, so Republicans would have needed to pick up at least five more Democrats to advance this bill, which needed 60 votes to pass.

Thune said that Republicans are on the hunt for those few additional Democrats to support their clean, short term funding bill.

Senate leaders place blame on opposing party

In floor remarks ahead of the Wednesday votes, both leaders opened by blaming the other party.

“Here we are, Democrats have bowed to the far left and they’ve shut down the federal government,” Thune said on the floor. “As of this morning critical federal employees including members of the military, border patrol agents and air traffic controllers are working without pay and a number of government services are unavailable or at risk.”

Schumer, meanwhile, said “Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect America’s health care.”

Schumer, in his speech, said Republicans won’t be able to “bully” Democrats into stepping down from their demands that health care be addressed as part of government funding. 

At a press conference Wednesday morning, Thune said Democrats “have taken the American people hostage in a way that they think benefits them politically, at the consequence of the cost of what’s going to happen to the American families if this government shutdown continues.”

Speaker Mike Johnson slammed Democrats during the Wednesday morning press conference.

“Every single bit of this was entirely avoidable,” Johnson said, adding that Democrats should pass the clean CR as they did in the House.

“Democrats in Congress have dragged our country into another reckless shutdown to satisfy their far-left base,” Johnson said. “Whether or not the government remains open or reopens is entirely up to them.”

Democrats hit back during a press conference of their own Wednesday morning.

“Republicans control the Senate, the House and the White House. They need Democratic votes to fund the government, so it’s on them to talk with us,” House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Pete Aguilar said.

On Tuesday, Schumer urged Republicans to come to the negotiating table.

“So, we want to sit down and negotiate, but the Republicans can’t do it in their partisan way, where they just say ‘It’s our way or the highway,’” Schumer reiterated at a news conference following Senate votes Tuesday night. 

Schumer rehashed the failed votes on the Senate floor — placing the blame on Republicans who “have failed to get enough votes to avoid a shutdown.” 

ABC News’ Lauren Peller and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.

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