On Thursday, Democrats insisted they were sticking to a bipartisan spending deal struck with Republicans earlier this week. By Friday morning, just hours ahead of a government shutdown, Democrats had dramatically changed their tune.
Instead of the all-or-nothing line Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his flock repeated time and again Thursday, Democrats were now saying they were open to negotiations to keep the government funded over the holidays. And given a new strategy from Speaker Mike Johnson, where Republicans would divide parts of the CR and let the House vote them up or down, Congress could very well avert a shutdown that looked almost inevitable just hours ago.
Asked if Democrats were open to compromise, Rep. Don Beyer was definitive. “Absolutely,” he told NOTUS. “We’ve always been. I mean, the word that Hakeem uses again and again is, ‘reasonable.’”