Langworthy’s October Telephone Town Hall: Part 2

Langworthy’s October Telephone Town Hall: Part 2

The Government Shutdown Could End Today If Republicans Wanted It To.

In Part 1, I reviewed Rep. Langworthy’s (R-NY23) claim during his October telephone town hall that the SNAP (food assistance) reserve fund cannot be used to fund food benefits during the current government shutdown. I showed that his statement is incorrect. The Trump administration could, as early as today, use the SNAP reserve fund to continue SNAP benefits as it did during the 2018 shutdown.

In Part 2, I debunk Rep. Langworthy’s claim that Senate Democrats caused the current shutdown and clarify why the Trump administration wanted the shutdown.

“…a majority of senators have voted each and every vote to reopen the government, but it is because of the filibuster, the mechanism within the Senate where you need 60 votes rather than 50% + 1 in order to move on with debate. So, it’s really the filibuster that’s got us in this position that [Democrat] Senator Schumer’s been using that for his leverage as [Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell did repeatedly when he was ahead of the Senate. But I don’t believe that he kept the government closed like this … In the history of the country, there’s never been a shutdown over a clean continuing resolution.”

Langworthy’s description of the Senate’s 60-vote rule and its role in the shutdown is inaccurate. The filibuster is a Senate rule, and Senate majorities have changed it when it served their interests. The Senate’s Rule XXII requires 60 votes to end debate, but it can be suspended, amended, or ignored by a simple majority, which the Republicans have. The Senate’s rules are self-imposed, not dictated by law.

Republicans have changed Senate rules in the past:

• 2005: Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened the “nuclear option” to end filibusters of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees.
• 2017: Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell abolished the filibuster for Supreme Court confirmations to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch.
• 2019–2020: Republicans shortened post-cloture debate time to push through Trump’s judicial and executive appointments.
• 2021: Republican Majority Leader McConnell and Democrats negotiated a one-time exception allowing the debt ceiling to be raised with a simple majority.

Currently, Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress. With 52 senators, they could suspend or modify the filibuster to pass a funding bill. However, they chose not to.

Langworthy also claimed there has “never been a shutdown over a clean continuing resolution.” That’s incorrect. There have been shutdowns over a clean continuing resolution many times.

• 1995–1996: The Clinton-Gingrich shutdowns over spending limits.
• 2013: House Republicans tied government funding to delaying the Affordable Care Act.
• 2018–2019: President Trump rejected a bipartisan clean funding bill over border-wall money, causing the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

Langworthy’s response depicted the filibuster as an unbreakable barrier. It isn’t. When controlling the Senate is more important than following the rules, both parties—especially Republicans in recent years—have been willing to change it. The ongoing shutdown continues not because of Senate rules but because political leaders choose to use it as a bargaining chip.

Why the Shutdown Benefits the Trump Administration

For the Trump administration, the shutdown isn’t a failure; it’s a tool. The aim is a “unitary presidency” where federal agencies report directly to the president, and Congress has limited oversight. Russell Vought, Trump’s budget director and the main author of Project 2025, clarified this:

“The President must set and enforce a plan for the executive branch… a President today assumes office to find a sprawling federal bureaucracy that all too often is carrying out its own policy plans and preferences.” — quoted in The Guardian, Nov 2024

“There are no independent agencies. Congress may have viewed them as such … but that is not something that the Constitution understands.” — interview with WBUR, Feb 2025

The Trump administration is using the government shutdown to:

1. Create a crisis to justify structural change: “We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible … like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.” — Donald Trump, Sept 30 2025 (New York Post)
2. Shrink the federal workforce: Trump and his allies have spoken openly about cutting or reclassifying large parts of the federal workforce under the proposed Schedule F order. A prolonged shutdown accelerates attrition. Workers leave rather than face repeated furloughs.
3. Eliminate or restructure programs: “We’re closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we were opposed to. And they’re never going to come back in many cases.” — Donald Trump (Politico, Oct 2025)
4. Weaken Congress and centralize power: “The Trump administration is using the government shutdown as an opportunity to implement Project 2025’s goals, including mass layoffs of federal workers and cancellations of major Democrat-supported projects.” (Reuters, Oct 2025) “We want to be very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy—not just the funding, but the bureaucracy—and we now have an opportunity to do that.” — Russ Vought (Politico, Oct 2025)

References

1. Congressional Research Service, Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate, 2023.
2. U.S. Senate Historical Office, Rule XXII and the Nuclear Option, 2017.
3. Senate Vote 111 (2017), Gorsuch confirmation.
4. Politico, “Republicans Change Rules to Confirm Gorsuch,” Apr 6 2017.
5. Congressional Budget Office, History of Federal Shutdowns, 2023.
6. AFGE, “Project 2025 Seeks to Dismantle Agencies,” Apr 2024.
7. New York Post, “Trump Threatens Irreversible Actions if Dems Force Government Shutdown,” Sept 30 2025.
8. AP News, “Trump Uses Shutdown to Dole Out Firings and Political Punishment,” Oct 2 2025.
9. WBUR, “Russell Vought and Radical Constitutionalism,” Feb 12 2025.
10. The Guardian, “Project 2025 and Trump’s Picks,” Nov 22 2024.