Ted Cruz Predicts When the Schumer Shutdown Will End
Cruz’s theory is entirely plausible and we’ll soon see whether he’s right. … But if Cruz is wrong, there’s no telling how long the shutdown might drag on.
During an appearance on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, host Maria Bartiromo asked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his take on when the government shutdown might end. Now in its 34th day, the ongoing shutdown is poised to surpass the previous record for the longest in U.S. history — the 35-day shutdown that lasted from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019.
“I think it’s likely to open Wednesday or Thursday of this week,” Cruz said. “The Democrats will wait until after Election Day because they think a shutdown is good for energizing the crazies in their party. But I think it will be either late this week or early next week.”
🚨 BREAKING: In an infuriating development, Sen. Ted Cruz just learned Democrats are plotting to reopen the government AFTER this Tuesday's election because they wanted to juice Democrat voter turnout.
"Wednesday or Thursday. The Democrats will wait until after the election day… pic.twitter.com/iY2gQoOm4G
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 2, 2025
Clearly Cruz doesn’t have a crystal ball, but he likely has a more informed sense of what’s motivating his Democratic colleagues than the average observer. He’s also not the first Washington insider to express this view — in fact, the idea that Democrats wanted to keep it going through the election was circulating in the early days of the shutdown.
As I reported last week, several Democratic leaders, including House Whip Katherine Clark (MA) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (VT) and Martin Heinrich (NM), have admitted publicly that their refusal to back a clean Republican spending bill is driven primarily by political considerations. After losing the presidency and control of both chambers of Congress last year, they view this standoff as their only remaining source of leverage. They believe that appearing to fight against Medicaid cuts and for the extension of COVID-era Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year will please their base and drive voter turnout on Election Day.
If Cruz is correct, once the election has passed, Democrats will claim they fought the good fight — but that, faced with the prospect of Americans losing their SNAP benefits, threats to air traffic safety, and military families going without pay, they had no choice but to support the spending bill.
And they will continue to blame the shutdown on the Republicans as former President Barack Obama did during a weekend campaign rally in Norfolk, Virginia, for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger.
He told the enthusiastic crowd, “The government is shut down and the Republicans who currently are in charge of Congress, they’re not even pretending to solve the problem. They have not even been showing up to work, not in session. Where are you? What are you doing?”
He continued, “Our country and our politics are in a pretty dark place right now. It’s hard to know where to start, because every day this White House offers up a fresh batch of lawlessness and recklessness and mean-spiritedness and just plain craziness.”
Of course, Obama seemed to forget his own position during the October 2013 government shutdown, when the situation was reversed. At that time, House Republicans demanded that any spending bill include provisions to defund or delay the Affordable Care Act — the Obama administration’s signature legislative achievement — in the same way that the “Big, Beautiful Bill” serves as the cornerstone of the Trump administration’s domestic agenda.
And just as Trump is currently unwilling to negotiate with Democrats over their demands, Obama flatly refused to negotiate with Republicans then, repeatedly vowing not to pay a “ransom” to secure passage of what should have been routine legislation. The shutdown ultimately ended through bipartisan negotiations in the Senate — without any changes to the ACA.
Cruz’s theory is entirely plausible and we’ll soon see whether he’s right. Prolonging the shutdown may indeed rally support from the Democratic base. However, recent polls have shown that their continued resistance to a clean Republican spending bill is hurting the party among independent voters who have grown weary of their political gamesmanship.
But if Cruz is wrong, there’s no telling how long the shutdown might drag on.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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If it drags on another three weeks, the furloughs can become permanent.
I’m ok with that.
Tbf the furloughs should be for those voting against opening it. Their grifter pocketbooks aren’t affected at all.
Thune has generally done an excellent job running the Senate but he screwed up here. All he needed to do (and what should ALWAYS be done) is to force the dems to actually carry out their filibuster. This idea of an effortless, invisible, virtual filibuster is insane. If one side wants to filibuster some legislation then, fine, but they have to actually do it. THey have to get on the Senate floor and yap on continuously for the entire time. No breaks. Cory Booker did that for no reason, at all (which was really weird).
Make the dems carry out their filibuster so if any American asks, “Who’s holding up this legislation?” all they need to do is look at the Senate floor to see the d-bag yapping on about nothing and understand that that yapping is stopping the Senate.
Most Americans are totally unaware that there is even a filibuster going on right now. FORCE THE DEMS TO ACTUALLY FILIBUSTER so that America has no doubt what is actually happening.
That is how this should be handled and that is the actual rule of the Senate, too – not this “cashless filibuster” BS. You want to filibuster,m then DO IT!
It would be two (I think) votes required to make it work. One to alter cloture votes to allow a simple majority to move the question to the floor and the other to require a speaking filibuster. The sequence would be call for the vote to move the question (go to a floor vote) any objecting Senator or group of Senators could then be recognized and hold the floor with a speaking filibuster till they wear out or the other Senators cave. My parliamentary procedure might be off but I think that’s how it would work.
This would allow far more than fig leaf of a filibuster to remain in place but it would definitely require a much higher level of individual commitment by opposing Senators. It should be noted that a group of even 6-8 Senators could conceivably hold the floor indefinitely with just 3-4 hour shifts to speak depending on number of Senators available.
The problem with much reasoning about the dems and the government shutdown is that taking America down is the actual goal of the dems. They want damage and disaster. After all, dems have been ginning up rebellion against the federal government for all these months (in no uncertain terms). They are pushing for a civil war and everyone knows it.
The only way to stop them in the Senate is to force them to actually filibuster. They’re too lazy for that and would give up after a week, if that. But counting on the dems worrying about any fallout of the shutdown … not gonna happen. THey are looking to destroy America and they’re already at the bottom, in terms of popularity, so they have nothing at risk.
Of course, if the GOP can nuke the filibuster for this that would be best but I doubt the GOP could even get that, given the handful of dirtbag backstabbers we have there.
Polls say GOP more to blame but that’s because Dems care more about shutdown than GOP and are more likely to cast a vote in the first place. Sampling bias at its finest.
I saw Dems were polling at 16%.
Is that an echo chamber number?
Yet
They will win every race tomorrow
Do not concede anything to the Democrats. They’re giving illegal aliens our hard earn tax dollars and benefits our veterans and elderly need. F them!
Keep flashing all the fraud and criminals that surrounds illegal immigration.
Most voters are just fine w/out the federal government… so keep it shut down for as long as it takes. An illegal immigrant is collecting full benefits from Social Security now… but I’m doing math on whether to wait till 70. I don’t see this as an issue
On the open market, health insurance will run me and my family 1500/month, but an illegal gets it for free?
This is the hill. This is the hill. Do not give an inch. Do not blink. Do not negotiate.
It’s all so disgusting
And maybe take advantage of the opportunity to reevaluate Obama care as a whole once the CR is in place. After all if the program requires (according to d/prog) even more generous temporary premium subsidies to function affordably for those using it then problem is the design. Toss it out entirely along with Medicaid. Replace with HSA for all, a far smaller govt contribution into that HSA to allow the US Citizen or lawful permanent resident alien (green card holders) the freedom to buy the sort of health IN they need. Minimum plan would be a catastrophic care policy. Those with super expensive medical conditions could be further subsidized on an individual basis. Lots of cost savings from junking existing Ocare and Medicaid and the fraud. Require hospitals and providers to have transparent prices …as in one price for a service, RX, device ..not different prices for different IN programs. The IN companies can compete on quality of their service.
Democrats are indeed hoping for chaos and street rioting, funded by wealthy manipulators who are literally banking on a Federal collapse that will facilitate takeover by a loyal activist core, supported by a minority of useful idiots. If this sounds similar to the tactics used by the Nazis in 1933, it is because it worked then, so why not try it again now? The problem is that their Brownshirts are just an undisciplined and rather incompetent mob of Antifa anarchists who simply want to tear things up and scare the normies, and who really aren’t capable of doing that much damage except in the Blue urban enclaves. So rendering those places ungovernable, hoping for a National Guard takeover that inspires the masses to rise up and overthrow the oppressors sounds exhilarating but requires a level of widespread misery far beyond anything they are capable of generating. But it is likely to get rather tumultuous for a while, until they manage to get themselves crushed by the realities.
Nothing has changed in my life with the shutdown although I will likely experience a flight delay this weekend.
Democrats aren’t feeding their constituents.
Downsizing the government would be great. Way to many mouths to feed!
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