Democratic New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim were divided on Sunday about using the upcoming deadline to pass a spending budget, thereby avoiding a potential government shutdown, in order to leverage concessions from the Trump administration.

Newsweek has reached out to Booker and Kim via email on Sunday for comment.

Why It Matters

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, last week laid out his plan to hit back at the Trump administration following the intense flurry of executive orders and policy enactments that President Donald Trump has made since returning to office.

In a letter to House Democrats, Jeffries said he would seek to have any effort to defund programs such as Medicaid “choked off in the upcoming government funding bill, if not sooner.” Many have understood this to mean the Democrats would use the threat of a government shutdown to obtain concessions from the White House.

However, Republicans hold narrow majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, with only a three-seat majority in the latter. The Senate would require 60 votes to pass the spending bill, and it has the filibuster, which could help Democrats delay debate and voting.

Republicans could rely on reconciliation to pass the spending bill, which would require a simple majority, but it would limit what they can include in the spending bill, even though it would allow them to avoid an outright shutdown.

Congress narrowly avoided a total shutdown on December 20 after agreeing to an 11th-hour stopgap bill and push the deadline back to March 14. If Congress does not agree to a new spending bill, a government shutdown will occur.

What To Know

Booker and Kim appeared on Sunday morning shows to discuss the Trump administration and Democratic efforts to push back against Trump’s agenda. However, each took a different position on whether the party should make use of the budget deadline as part of that counterpunch.

CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash confronted Booker about this strategy on Sunday’s State of the Union, asking if he was willing to use the March 14 deadline to try and leverage Trump concessions, to which Booker said Democrats are “not looking to shut down the government.”

“The Republican Party has shown year after year that they’re the party of shutdowns. They’re the party of government chaos. They’re the party that can’t even within their own ranks pass these funding bills,” the senator responded.

Bash pressed him on the issue, asking if “strategically” the Democrats should consider using the strategy.

Booker replied that the strategy is “to look at every single tool in our toolbox” and focused on the “crisis” that Democrats and the country face as Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) runs rampant across the federal government and gains access to “America’s most personal information.”

DOGE is a nongovernmental task force created by Trump that is aimed at cutting unnecessary federal spending.

“We are in a crisis right now, and Democrats will use every tool possible to protect Americans, to drive down costs, to make us safer,” the senator said. “These are the very opposite that Donald Trump is doing to Americans right now.”

However, Kim said that the Trump administration is looking to “dismantle” the government, and that he would be ready to shut down the government if it came to that.

“If we have to take steps to be able to hold them accountable, use the levers that we have to force it, I cannot support efforts that will continue this lawlessness that we’re seeing when it comes to this administration’s actions,” Kim told NBC News’ Meet The Press host Kristen Welker.

“For us to able to support government funding in that way, only for them to turn around to dismantle the government, that is not something that can be allowed,” Kim stressed, adding that “this is on” Republicans.

“They are the majority, and if they cannot govern, that’s for the American people to see,” Kim added, saying he was the “last person” who would want to see a shutdown, but he said Democrats cannot “assist” in “clearly illegal” actions from the Trump administration.

What People Are Saying

Manu Raju, anchor and chief congressional correspondent at CNN, posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday: “Democrats in fierce debate over how firm of a line to draw in their first piece of leverage over Trump: March 14 deadline to keep government open. Some push for a showdown,” adding, “Dem leaders — at moment — are much more cautious amid shutdown fears. Jeffries says bill targeting Musk not currently one of their demands.”

NBC News senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur last week wrote on X: “Negotiations stall ahead of shutdown deadline as Democrats slam Trump for subverting spending laws Trump’s attempts to freeze money and nix agencies have damaged already fraught bipartisan talks. Democrats are discussing ways to use a March 14 deadline to push back on Trump’s unilateral moves.”

What Happens Next?

Congress has a little over a month to come to an agreement for at least a partial spending bill or face a shutdown, which could significantly hamper Trump’s agenda and Democrat efforts to fight back against DOGE’s push to gut federal government spending.