Senate Republicans to lunch in Rose Garden as shutdown continues [View all]

Source: Roll Call

Posted October 20, 2025 at 5:56am


President Donald Trump is expected to host Senate Republicans for a Rose Garden lunch Tuesday, while the ongoing partial government shutdown continues to have no end in sight. A GOP source confirmed the plan for the White House visit, which comes as the Senate majority will also try this week to call up a bill that would pay federal workers who are on the job during the shutdown. The Senate this week is also expected to continue to confirm Trump’s judicial nominees.

The House, meanwhile, continues to be out of session. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has showed no signs of changing course toward recalling lawmakers before the Senate passes government funding legislation. The Senate is voting again Monday evening on a motion to try to break a filibuster on proceeding to the House-passed short-term continuing resolution that would reopen the government, but there was no sign over the weekend that the measure was any closer to picking up the additional Democratic support needed to clear the 60-vote threshold.

The stalemate has led Senate Republicans to ponder other options, including a proposal from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., that would allocate money to federal employees who must work without pay during the shutdown, funding the payments through the relevant departments and agencies once Congress acts to reopen the government.

“We are going to have a vote on Ron Johnson’s bill that is basically going to say we are going to pay you during a shutdown,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And I’m hoping that our Democrat friends will join with us on this one, because to me — another easy one, although the simplest solution, as I’ve said numerous times already this morning, is to just reopen the government.” Johnson’s bill would apply not only to the current shutdown but also to future lapses in appropriations. Democratic support for that proposal does not seem likely, since it could give additional flexibility to Trump and his administration to operate without appropriations.

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2025/10/20/senate-republicans-to-lunch-in-rose-garden-as-shutdown-continues/

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"Regular Order" is to pass each of the 12 appropriations bills (or as they have done in the recent past, pass bundles as "Minibus" or "Omnibus" appropriations, combining multiples in a bill). But they didn't do that and spent all their time and capital on the Brutal Barbaric Bill and doing bogus "investigations" instead.

And even if the Senate did this, would the House come back into session to actually follow through and pass it (leaving them open to have to swear in Adelita Grivllva, which would then force the Epstein Files vote, because the Senate is NOT "Congress", it is just 1/2 of it)?