The Senate passed a bill to keep the federal government funded through September Friday evening, avoiding a partial shutdown that would have begun at midnight.
Ten Democrats joined with all but one of their GOP colleagues on a key procedural vote to the advance the bill Friday afternoon. But far fewer Democrats joined Republicans to vote for the bill itself, which shifts some money towards President Donald Trump’s priorities and increases his power over spending. Trump is expected to sign the measure Friday evening.
The vote comes amid a brewing trade war between Trump and international allies, the administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers and where any additional signs of U.S. political dysfunction would only add to economic uncertainty.
Follow along with USA TODAY for live updates.
The funding extension that will keep the government open through the end of September passed the Senate 54-46.
The only Republican to vote against final passage was Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The only Democrat to vote for final passage was New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, along with independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats.
The Senate defeated four amendments that would have changed the bill, including one to eliminate the Department of Government Efficiency that has spearheaded massive changes to the federal government.
Earlier this afternoon, 10 Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill in a key vote to overcome the filibuster.
President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill later today, avoiding a government shutdown at midnight.
– Riley Beggin
At least eight Democratic senators were needed to advance the spending bill for a final vote – and the magic number was reached on Friday.
The Senate Democrats who voted to advance the spending bill include Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., John Fetterman, D-Pa., Gary Peters, D-Mich., Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Maggie Hassan, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
Sen. Angus King, who is an independent from Maine, also voted to advance the bill.
“This is a difficult choice, but with the deadline quickly approaching, I believe Congress must do its most basic job to keep the lights on,” Peters said in a statement after he voted.
Fetterman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that his yes vote was not “an endorsement of this deeply flawed CR.”
“My YES vote is about refusing to shut our government down,” Fetterman wrote. “I refuse to punish working families and plunge millions of Americans into chaos. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever vote to shut our government down.”
Senate Democrats were stuck between supporting the bill and handing a win to President Donald Trump, or voting against the bill and potentially being blamed for the shutdown.
— Sudiksha Kochi
The Senate Democrats who voted to advance the spending bill for a final vote include Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., John Fetterman, D-Pa., Gary Peters, D-Mich., Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Maggie Hassan, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
-Sudiksha Kochi
President Donald Trump praised a longtime adversary, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, after the New York Democrat said he would vote in favor of a Republican bill to fund the government and avert a shutdown.
“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his media platform.
The Senate will begin procedural votes early Friday afternoon on a GOP budget measure that would avert a government shutdown before a midnight deadline − while cutting some federal health and veterans programs.
Schumer stunned some Democrats on Thursday by announcing he would support the GOP-backed funding extension, significantly increasing the chances enough Democratic senators will side with Republicans to pass it.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said she would vote in favor of the spending bill passed by the House – raising the number of yes votes up to three. The other two Democrats who said they would vote in favor of the bill are Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Fetterman, D-Pa.
At least eight Senate Democrats would need to join Republicans to clear a 60-vote threshold and advance the spending bill to the floor for a final vote. Though Republicans have a 53-seat majority in the upper chamber, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was a firm no on the bill.
Cortez Masto in a statement said a shutdown would be “devastating.”
“This was not an easy decision. I’m outraged by the reckless actions of President Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans in control of Congress, so I refuse to hand them a shutdown where they would have free reign to cause more chaos and harm,” Cortez Masto added.
— Sudiksha Kochi
More than 50 House Democrats have signed on to a letter urging Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to oppose the Republicans’ spending bill passed by the House.
“The Republican leadership has deliberately cut Democrats out of the process, and we must not give in to Republican hostage-taking of our vulnerable seniors, veterans, and working-class families to advance their destructive funding bill,” the letter reads.
— Sudiksha Kochi
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who voted against Republicans’ spending bill Tuesday, warned her colleagues in the Senate to do the same, despite fears over a government shutdown.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America,” Pelosi said in a statement Friday, ahead of any Senate vote.
“Let’s be clear: Neither is a good option for the American people,” she continued. “But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said yesterday he plans to vote for the legislation in order to prevent a shutdown, a move several House Democrats have criticized.
“Democrats must not buy into this false choice,” Pelosi said. “We must fight back for a better way.”
— Savannah Kuchar
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met with a number of Canadian officials on Thursday including Minister of Finance Dominic LeBlanc and Ontario Premier Doug Ford ahead of the reciprocal tariff deadline of April 2.
The discussions revolved around the Trump Administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs and “its goal of fair trade with Canada and the province of Ontario, while working to secure America’s border and eliminate fentanyl, according to a readout of the meeting issued by the Commerce department
After the meeting, Ford said he feels like “the temperature’s coming down” after the bilateral talks, according to CBC News.
Canada and the U.S. are in the midst of a trade war.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he didn’t know if President Donald Trump’s tariffs would contribute to inflation that he said had been “a cancer on the American dream.”
“Nobody knows if tariffs are going to lead to inflation,” Kennedy said at the White House, where he was attending a bill signing for a regulation he “knocked into a new ZIP code.” “We just don’t know.”
Kennedy noted that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he believes in free trade. Kennedy suggested a solution to the trade war would be for Canada and the U.S. to each lower the tariffs on all goods to zero, to avoid a $60 billion U.S. trade deficit with Canada.
“Let the businesses in Canada and the businesses in America compete without either the Canadian government or the American government putting their thumb on the scale,” Kennedy said.
–Bart Jansen
U.S. consumer sentiment plunged in March and inflation expectations soared amid worries President Trump’s sweeping tariffs will boost prices and undercut the economy.
The University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers on Friday said its Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 57.9 this month from a final reading of 64.7 in February. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index falling to 63.1.
The index has erased all the gains posted in the aftermath of Trump’s election victory in November. Consumers’ 12-month inflation expectations jumped to 4.9%, from 4.3% in February.
Trump has slapped a raft of tariffs on a wide range of goods from key trade partners, who have responded with duties of their own. Some tariffs have been imposed and then suspended for a month.
Trump on Thursday threatened to hit Europe with a 200% tariff on wine, cognac and other alcohol imports. The tariff whiplash and escalation in the trade war has rattled financial markets.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll of Americans conducted March 11-12 showed that 57% believe Trump’s moves to shake up the economy, which include deep cuts in government spending and mass firings of federal workers, are too erratic, and 53% think the tariff war will do more harm than good.
−Reuters
On Thursday night, a second federal judge hearing the cases of fired government workers issued a sweeping order directing the Trump administration to restore thousands of terminated probationary workers.
In Maryland, U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar granted a temporary restraining order in a case filed by Democratic attorneys general in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
Bredar ruled the terminations by form letter didn’t meet the law for notice of mass layoffs, and leaves too great a burden on the states without time to prepare for the services provided to the laid off employees. The federal government is the nation’s largest employer.
Bredar stayed the dismissals of probationary employees across 18 department and agencies and ordered they be returned to work by 1 p.m. Monday. Included in the order were the Commerce, Education, and Health and Human Services departments, as well as USAID.
The judge also stayed what he referred to as the “illegal RIFs,” or reductions in force, for 14 days, and ordered the administration to stop layoffs until they meet the rules requiring adequate notice.
−Dinah Pulver
President Trump commended Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, thanking him for “doing the right thing” as the potential for a government shutdown continues to loom.
“Took ‘guts’ and courage!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday morning.
Schumer announced his intent to vote for Republicans’ spending bill in order to keep the federal government open and operating.
“While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” he said during a speech on the Senate floor Thursday, referring to the measure, called a continuing resolution. “I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country to minimize the harms to the American people.”
Democrats have criticized Schumer for his position. Meanwhile the president is praising the New York Democrat.
“A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights,” Trump wrote online. “Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning!”
−Savannah Kuchar and Riley Beggin
Multibillionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, who’s cutting thousands of federal workers as the head of DOGE, on Thursday reposted a message on X that blamed the Holocaust and mass deaths perpetrated in the Soviet Union and Communist China on civil servants.
The post read: “Stalin, Mao, and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector employees did.”
Musk, who owns X and has more than 219 million followers on the platform, appears to have later taken down his repost.
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, fired back.
“America’s public service workers − our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians − chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich,” Saunders said in a statement. “They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers.”
“Elon Musk and the billionaires in this administration have no idea what real people go through every day. That’s why he’s so willing to take a chainsaw to people’s jobs, Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare,” Saunders said.
−Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy
The Senate is set to vote Friday afternoon on a budget bill called a continuing resolution that will fund the government into September. The vote is expected sometime after 1 p.m.
The bill, which passed in the House of Representatives earlier this week, poses a bitter choice for Senate Democrats, who want to avoid a shutdown but disagree with provisions that could lead to big cuts in Medicaid and other programs.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he’ll vote for the bill. He needs seven other Democrats to join him for the Senate to reach a required threshold of 60 Senators that will allow the resolution to come to the floor for a vote.
−Dan Morrison
China is “laughing” over the tariff war between the U.S. and its allies, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, told Bloomberg Television.
On Thursday, Trump threatened to slap 200% tariffs on Champagne, wine and other alcoholic beverages from France and other European countires. Kallas, speaking Thursday on the sidelines of the Group of Seven meeting in Canada, said the escalating measures would only benefit Beijing.
“Who is laughing on the side or looking at the side is China,” she told Bloombert. “It’s really benefiting from the US having a trade war with Europe.”
−Dan Morrison
U.S. stocks are headed for a higher open, with futures up in pre-market activity.
At 6:40 a.m. ET, futures tied to the broad S&P 500 index rose 0.66%, while blue-chip Dow futures jumped 0.44%. Tech-heavy Nasdaq futures gained 0.91%.
−Medora Lee
Former central banker Mark Carney will be sworn in as Canada’s 24th prime minister Friday morning, taking the reins from Justin Trudeau. Carney, the head of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party, steps into an escalating and bitter trade war with the U.S.
Trump’s aggressive moves have unleashed a furious nationalism in Canada – and revived the fortunes of the Liberal Party, which had not led the opposition Conservatives in national polls since 2022.
−Dan Morrison
Trump won’t say whether he thinks his sweeping tariff plan could help push the country into a recession. But the threat of tariffs and the-already rising costs of everyday items are raising concerns about where the economy is headed.
A recession could happen if more people are out of work, large companies see lower profits, the stock market slips and home prices tumble, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Generally, a recession is marked by an extended period of many months or more of economic downturn. And even when a recession is acknowledged by experts and officials, not everyone agrees on when it started or when it ends.
−Damon C. Williams, Zachary Schermele
A tariff is a form of tax imposed on imports from another country.
Economists generally agree that trade barriers raise consumer prices and negatively impact economic output and income, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy nonprofit.
Tariffs create more demand for domestic manufacturers, but those companies are also part of the global supply chain and therefore also impacted by tariffs, experts have previously explained to USA TODAY.
Trump’s motivation for implementing tariffs is to get help from China, Canada and Mexico to curb the flow of migrants and illegal drugs into the U.S. The president has insisted that the countries have not done enough to help address what he sees as core issues for his administration.
–Kinsey Crowley and Jonathan Limehouse
