September 17, 2025

Hi readers, happy Wednesday! Cameron Peters here. 

As the government funding deadline — and a potential government shutdown — creep ever closer, Vox's Noel King spoke with Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland about where he stands, plus his recent endorsement of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and other topics. Read on for an excerpt of their conversation: 

⮕ Start here

Should Dems shut it down?

Noel King

Schumer and minority leader Hakeem Jeffries have set their terms for avoiding a government shutdown. They want Republicans to reverse Medicaid cuts and to extend the Obamacare subsidies. What's your position on a shutdown?

Sen. Chris Van Hollen

Well, first and foremost, we should not be giving President Trump a blank check to continue his lawless activities, including his illegal withholding of funds from — for example, NIH [the National Institutes of Health], where people are undergoing clinical trials for cancer — and he's withholding funds that could literally mean a death sentence for them. And the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, has found that he is illegally impounding, withholding these funds. And so, we can't give them a blank check without guardrails and safeguards to make sure that that won't happen.

Noel King

What do guardrails and safeguards look like? What specifically are you after here?

Sen. Chris Van Hollen

So, for example, the Republicans in the Senate and the House voted for this so-called rescission package, meaning that they voted to undo resources, appropriations that they previously voted for. You can make that much harder to do by requiring, for example, a 60-vote margin to pass it. 

You can also do other things, Noel. For example, if the president were to engage in an illegal rescission, you could have an across the board immediate cut in White House appropriations. So, there are things you can do if Republicans were willing to join us, but so far, they're not willing to take on President Trump in any way.

Noel King

The country was in a very similar position back in March of this year. And the concern back then was that, if Democrats shut down the government, they would end up taking the blame. They would end up alienating voters. Is that a concern this time around?

Sen. Chris Van Hollen

Well, this would be the Trump administration and Republicans in the Congress shutting down the government, because they decide to go it alone. They decide to have a one-way street. They decide to give President Trump a blank check for his lawless activity. And I don't think the American people want to see President Trump get a total blank check, because they've seen that he's withholding monies from things like FEMA and places that have been hit by disasters and refuse to provide funding for disaster relief. He's withholding funds from the National Institutes of Health. In fact, by our calculation right now, they're withholding about $400 billion of funds for important priorities for the current fiscal year we're in, which ends in just a few weeks. So, if they're doing that now, he will do it again unless we stop it.

Noel King

After the conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was killed by a shooter last week, President Trump in a speech from the Oval Office blamed, quote, “the radical left.” He vowed to, quote, “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.” 

This strikes people as a potentially very concerning threat to free speech, civil liberties. Have the events of the past week changed your mind at all about how you approach the Trump administration? What do you think the president is saying here?

Sen. Chris Van Hollen

I'm very, very alarmed by what the president's saying. There's no room for political violence in our discourse. We can have robust debates without it veering into violence, and there should be no vengeance. President Trump had a chance to bring the country together to say that political violence is unacceptable regardless of its source, but instead, he's decided to engage in finger pointing. Instead, he is weaponizing this awful tragedy, this murder, to advance his political goals, which include going after what he calls folks on the left, which, in Trump world, means anybody who disagrees with Donald Trump. So yes, it's very concerning that he would threaten to use the full power and instruments of the federal government to literally go after people who disagree with him.

Noel King

There is a lot at stake for Democrats here. As you've been saying, polling shows that Americans are really displeased with the party and not just the general public. Democrats themselves are not happy with the party. In August, an Associated Press poll of Democrats saw people using words like “weak,” “tepid,” “ineffective,” and “broken” to describe their own party. What do you think is going on here?

Sen. Chris Van Hollen

Well, I don't think the Democrats have done enough to stand up to Donald Trump's lawlessness, nor do I think Democrats have done enough to put forward our own positive vision of what we would do, including taking on very powerful special interests and fighting instead for the common good and the public interest. 

I was invited just over the weekend to speak to the Polk County, Iowa, Democratic Party, and I laid out exactly that argument: that more needs to be done to stand up to Donald Trump in this moment. But clearly in 2024, the American people, the majority of the American people, did not trust us to take on the status quo and take on these special interests. And so, I believe we need to be much more clear not only about what we're fighting against, but what we are fighting for.

Noel King

At that event on Saturday, you also endorsed Zohran Mamdani. You criticized other Democratic leaders for delaying on endorsing him. You referred to something that you called “spineless politics.” What's going on? What's Mamdani doing that you like?

Sen. Chris Van Hollen

What I said was, as we prepare to try to win majorities in the House and the Senate in 2026, we need to first win the 2025 races. We have big races in Virginia and New Jersey for the governor seats, great candidates, and we also need to win the mayoral race in New York City. I pointed out that Donald Trump has spent a huge amount of time and resources trying to defeat Mamdani. Mamdani’s platform was people who work in New York should be able to afford to live in New York, which would be good for people in New York City; and Des Moines, Iowa; and in Maryland; and throughout the country. And yet, you have these very powerful big money, special interests — financial interests combining with Donald Trump to try to defeat Mamdani. And so, I do think this is a moment where Democrats need to stand up for the person who is fighting to reduce costs and make sure that people can afford to live where they work.

Today’s edition was produced and edited by me, staff editor Cameron Peters. Thanks for reading!