Senate Democrats voted against a defense appropriations bill on Thursday which would have included pay for those serving in the military.
The move came the same day as the Democrats voted for a 10th time not to reopen the government until their demands for increased healthcare spending, including for illegal aliens, are met.
The final vote for the bipartisan defense appropriations bill was 50 in favor and 44 against, meaning it did not have the 60 votes needed to end debate required in the Senate.
“I won’t vote just for the defense appropriations bill, even though that’s my bill,” Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations panel that handles the defense budget, said, according to Politico.
“The path out of this shutdown is meaningful negotiations… so that millions of Americans aren’t thrown off their health care in the next 10 days,” he added.
.@SpeakerJohnson: “Yesterday the Senate Democrats took it a step further. They REJECTED a stand alone bill to fund our nation’s defense and PAY our troops. They voted it down.
Now they are on record specifically, exclusively to BLOCK the paychecks of the troops.” pic.twitter.com/WP8Tli3eVn
— Edgar A Barrios (@Edgar_A_Barrios) October 17, 2025
Three Democratic lawmakers voted with Republicans to fund the military, including Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.
Fetterman said in a statement following the vote, “I voted YES to start considering the House’s defense spending bill because I believe the men and women in our military, who put their lives at risk for our country, should not have to worry about their paycheck coming through.”
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“I will continue to vote to end this shutdown and reopen our federal government so all workers can move on from this chaos,” he added.
Fetterman posted on social media, “Our country and servicemembers over party.”
My YES was because our military deserves to be paid.
I fully support extending the ACA tax credits, but the government must be open.
Our country and servicemembers over party. pic.twitter.com/zW9Vy52JEu
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) October 16, 2025
President Donald Trump moved War Department funding around to ensure military service members got paid on Wednesday as the shutdown entered its third week.
One of the Democrats’ demands in order to vote to reopen the government is the extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, due to expire at the end of this year.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday that he has offered to have a standalone vote on extending the Obamacare enhanced subsidies in exchange for the Democrats voting to reopen the government.
Fox News host John Roberts pointed out that it was the Democrats who had voted to sunset the enhanced subsidies at the end of this year in a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
President Trump and Republicans want the government reopened immediately.
Federal workers are missing paychecks, flights are being delayed and canceled, and our economy may be hurting because the Democrats want the government to stay shut down.
They are completely reckless. pic.twitter.com/D2z8ZqclWV
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) October 16, 2025
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Thursday, “We hope every day that sensible Democrats with just a little bit of courage to stand against Bernie Sanders and [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]… stand against the radical nonsense and vote to reopen the government, and then we can have serious conversations about healthcare, about immigration, and about our economy.”
In addition to extending the enhanced subsidies, Democrats also want other changes made to Medicaid eligibility in the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July, which would allow illegal aliens to receive benefits. The total cost of providing illegal aliens with healthcare, Republicans say, is nearly $200 billion.
“Republicans argue that millions of people who entered the U.S. illegally were improperly granted at least temporary legal status under former President Joe Biden, and so should not qualify for the same benefits as other legal immigrants,” Fox News reported.
“Illegal aliens can’t get Medicaid, but that has only been true since July 4, and the reason that is a true statement is because we passed it into law and all the Democrats voted against it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told the outlet earlier this month. “So they want to reverse what we did. I mean, that’s just plain and simple.”
“What we’re trying to do is strengthen Medicaid,” he added, “and one of the very important things we had to do is make sure that the more than 1 million illegal aliens who were collecting that were not allowed on the program.”
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