It's been 29 days since the federal government entered a shutdown. We're now just a week

away from this becoming the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Hello, and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, October 29th, 2025.

As the government has ground to a halt, millions of Americans face financial uncertainty,

while essential services tied to food assistance, heating, and health care hang in the balance.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to call the House back

into session. Meanwhile, the Senate seems hopelessly deadlocked. What will it take to reopen

the government? Here to give us a rundown of where all of this stands is USA Today Congress

reporter, Zach Shermaley, who joins me now from the Capitol.

Zach, as always, it's good to have you on.

Thanks so much for having me.

Zach, let's start with where we are right now.

The current shutdown is already the second longest in U.S. history.

What's going on at Capitol Hill?

So the Senate just took another failed vote on trying to move forward with a short-term

funding extension authored by the GOP. Listen, this has been a shutdown largely like no other in that

members of Congress on both sides are extremely dug in on both of

their respective positions. And, you know, Democrats are trying to use this as an opportunity

to exert what little political leverage they have in Washington these days with Republican

control of both the House, Senate and the White House, to try and get several things accomplished,

namely on the health care front. And we really have not seen much movement from more moderate

Democratic senators as the GOP has forced a number of votes, more than a dozen, votes on a short-term

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