Federal workers may have missed a paycheck, but they won’t be missing meals thanks to José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen. The organization, which usually feeds victims of war, disaster, and catastrophic need, announced that it’s kicking off a string of free lunches for furloughed workers with food from two D.C. hotspots — Lebanese Taverna and 2Fifty BBQ. While the banner “Chefs for Feds” feels a little less compelling than, say, hurricane relief, it’s another sign that things in the nation’s capital are anything but normal.

Back at the Capitol, Democratic senators are flying back to a pressure cooker of headlines that will severely challenge their ability to shrug off this shutdown as a Republican phenomenon. In a stunning twist, America’s largest federal workers’ union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), publicly called the situation “an avoidable crisis,” arguing that both parties have made their point and it’s time to put workers back on the job. But one party in particular will feel the pain of President Everette Kelley’s statement — and that’s Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) Democrats. “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today,” Kelley chided. 

Of course, passing a clear CR is what Republicans have been asking for all along, making AFGE’s endorsement all the more damaging for Democrats. If even the federal workers’ unions are conceding that Schumer’s party is keeping the government closed, there are rough seas ahead for the New Yorker. 

“No half measures, and no gamesmanship,” Kelley reiterated to NBC News on Sunday night. “It’s time for our leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than on who is going to get the blame for a shutdown that Americans dislike.” As far as AFGE is concerned, “It’s long past time for our leaders to put aside partisan politics and embrace responsible government. A strong America requires a functioning government — one that pays its bills, honors its commitments, and treats its workforce with respect by paying them on time.”

For Schumer’s party, the “first major fraying” of their coalition is problematic. “It has a lot of impact,” Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) conceded Monday. “They’ve been our friends.” Republican Keith Self (Texas) put it more bluntly on Monday’s “Washington Watch”: “When you lose the largest federal union, you’ve lost part of your base.”

Making matters worse in Democratic headquarters, the dominoes are starting to fall in areas well beyond government employees. If the two sides don’t come to an agreement before Saturday, Democrats will be risking the entire food stamp system, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), on the altar of their wrongheaded political strategy. Unlike other agencies, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it doesn’t have the ability to move funds around to accommodate the hungry families that rely on SNAP for meals. 

In a memo circulated over the weekend, USDA leaders warned, “Due to Congressional Democrats’ refusal to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR), approximately 42 million individuals will not receive their SNAP benefits come November 1st.” Quite simply, the letter said, “The well has run dry.” 

For the more fortunate, air travel is also on the verge of a meltdown. The nightmare scenarios of air traffic shortages are exactly what Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned about before last weekend, when 22 “triggers” indicated certain airports were too short-staffed to operate at full capacity. “According to FlightAware, a flight tracking website, there were more than 5,300 U.S. flight delays on Saturday and more than 2,500 by 12 p.m. ET on Sunday. Delays have often been above average since the shutdown began.” It’s all a sign “that the controllers are wearing thin,” Duffy reiterated.

Los Angeles’s airport, one of the West Coast’s biggest hubs, came to a complete stop for hours, as the Federal Aviation Administration struggled to find the staff it needed. On Fox News, Duffy explained that more “controllers were calling in sick as money worries compound the stress of an already challenging job.”

Rep. Bob Onder (R-Mo.), a private pilot himself, told Family Research Council’s Jody Hice on Friday’s “Washington Watch” that the situation is “very, very serious.” “The air traffic controllers, especially when you get into these very busy airspaces, have to be at peak performance all the time. They have very stressful jobs,” he insisted. “They are multitasking like no other job on this planet, and lives are at stake.” When you add a lack of cash flow into their home lives, “when they have to pay their bills, when they have the utilities threatening to cut off power, or they have to pay for school supplies for their children or food to put on the table, they’re going to have to be … taking second jobs. Like driving Ubers late at night. This is not good. It’s not safe. And the economic impact of, uh, flight cancellations and flight delays is enormous.”

And for what, Onder asked? So Schumer can spend another $1.5 trillion America doesn’t have. “We’re nowhere near being able to afford [these health care credits they want]. What are they thinking?” He paused before answering his own question. “What they’re thinking is they value radical left social programs. They value giving health care to illegal aliens.” And that “health care,” FRC has been quick to point out, includes outrageous spending on taxpayer-funded abortion and gender transition procedures. 

It all overshadows what Democrats were hoping the country would take away from this drama, which is that Republicans don’t want to fix Obamacare’s tax subsidies — an ironic claim, many point out, since any sort of progress on that front would require Congress to be in session. Instead, Punchbowl cautions, “The fallout from the shutdown is getting worse every day,” and while Schumer’s party has invented creative excuses for not paying federal workers — they blocked a bill to do exactly that last week — the look is a bad one. 

And the hole they’re digging will only get deeper if Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) pushes forward with two bills this week to specifically fund air traffic controllers and the military. Despite the surprise $130 million gift from Trump friend Timothy Mellon to float some servicemembers until the end of the shutdown, the donation only covers a fraction of what’s needed. That alone is creating cracks in the Democratic façade. Asked Monday if he would support a proposal to pay air traffic controllers and other essential personnel, even Schumer’s number two, Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) admitted he would.

Others are publicly fuming at Schumer’s flawed approach to the shutdown. “What they’re doing is wrong,” Democratic Rep. Jared Golden (Maine) emphasized. In a statement on the first day of the shutdown, The Wall Street Journal notes, the Marine “accused Democratic leaders of falling prey to the demands of ‘far-left groups’ who wanted them to ‘put on a show of their opposition to President Trump’ while hurting Americans in the process.”

Leadership’s entire soapbox about Republicans destroying health care for millions of Americans isn’t even true, Golden wanted people to know. After all, it was the Democrats’ legislation that established 2025 as the year for the subsidies to end. “I’m just uncomfortable lying about the strategy to win and shutting down the government,” he shook his head. “We’ve never been the party that does that.”