Overview

• The federal government remains partially closed after the Senate failed to clear a short-term funding bill that needed 60 votes.
• Republican leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President JD Vance, assert Democrats’ counterproposal would restore roughly $200 billion in health benefits for noncitizens.
• Democrats such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Jeanne Shaheen reject that characterization, saying they seek to reverse Medicaid cuts and restore hospital reimbursement levels without changing eligibility.
• Television exchanges turned tense as CBS’s Tony Dokoupil pressed Warren, Fox’s Lawrence Jones played a 2019 debate clip of Democrats backing coverage for undocumented immigrants, and MSNBC cut off Johnson to fact-check his claims.
• Fact-checkers at AP, PolitiFact and CNN described GOP statements as false or misleading, while FactCheck.org offered a more nuanced view about terminology and coverage categories, and no funding deal has been reached.