Party leaders in Congress have long criticized government shutdowns as toxic and destructive.

"Always a bad idea," former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said of shutdowns in 2024. A potential "disaster," Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said of the shutdown the country narrowly avoided when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open in March.

"I don't think shutdowns benefit anybody, least of all the American people," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said last month.

Yet a shutdown is underway as Congressional lawmakers lawmakers deadlocked and missed the deadline for funding the government.

Here's a look at some previous shutdowns and how they ended:

December 2018 to January 2019

Two years into his first term, President Donald Trump le

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