Democrat-aligned senator who voted to reopen the government admits the party's shutdown strategy 'didn't work

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, admitted to MSNBC on Monday that the Democratic Party’s federal government shutdown strategy has failed.

During an interview with MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, stated that the Democratic Party’s two-fold strategy of standing up to President Donald Trump and getting Republican lawmakers to negotiate with them on Obamacare subsidies "didn’t work."

"It’s now the longest shutdown in American history, and there was no prospect that it was going to work," King told MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

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King and seven Democratic senators voted to advance a short-term spending package on Sunday evening and put the government on the path to re-opening.

The shutdown, which has become the longest in U.S. history, started on Oct. 1 when Democrats rejected a short-term spending bill advanced by Republicans in the House meant to keep the government afloat until Nov. 21. 

Democrats demanded that lawmakers first consider renewing COVID-era Obamacare subsidies set to phase out at the end of the year. Republicans, who saw spending and the tax credits as unrelated, refused to negotiate on the tax credits during the shutdown.

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The package advanced by the Senate on Sunday looks to reopen the government through Jan. 30, 2026. Republican lawmakers avoided any substantive concessions on the Obamacare credits.

King admitted to Scarborough that there was no point in continuing the shutdown because the Democratic Party wasn’t achieving any of its aims in pursuing the record 40-day impasse.

"Well Joe, you have to go back to what the strategy was at the beginning of the shutdown. There were two goals, both of which I support. One was standing up to Donald Trump; the other was getting some resolution on the ACA premium tax credit issue. The problem was, the shutdown wasn’t accomplishing either goal."

King added that there was "zero likelihood" that the shutdown plan would have worked in the first place.

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He continued to break down the failures in the Democratic plan.

"In terms of standing up to Donald Trump, the shutdown actually gave him more power — Exhibit A being what he’s done with SNAP and SNAP benefits across the country… And then secondly, and I’ve been a big supporter of the ACA, the idea of forcing the Republicans to the table to negotiate on that issue by virtue of a shutdown didn’t work," King said.

After his vote Sunday evening, King explained why he and the Democratic lawmakers broke the stalemate.

"After six weeks — going on seven weeks — that path wasn’t working," he said. "It wasn’t going to happen. The question was: Does the shutdown further the goal of achieving some needed support for the extension of the tax credits? Our judgment was that it will not produce that result."

Fox News Digital’s Leo Briceno contributed to this report.