NYT: Six Takeaways From the Senate Deal to End the Shutdown [View all]

Trump’s pressure tactics worked, even as voters blamed his party.

Mr. Thune had been offering for weeks to give Democrats a vote on extending the health care subsidies. They only relented after the Trump administration had made the consequences of the shutdown too painful to ignore.

Asked what finally persuaded enough Democrats to break with their party, Senator Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats and helped negotiate the deal, offered a simple answer: the harm was growing too acute.

“I think people were saying ‘We’re not going to get what we want,’” on the health subsidies, Mr. King said. “But in the meantime, a lot of people are being hurt.”