Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for a crunch White House meeting with Donald Trump in an 11th-hour bid to avert a potentially damaging federal government shutdown.
Monday’s gathering is aimed at reaching an agreement over funding the government and largely hinges on Democrat demands for an extension of funding subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, beyond the end of the year, when they are due to expire.
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat leader in the House of Representatives, and Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the Senate, will meet Trump along with their Republican counterparts, Mike Johnson, the House speaker, and John Thune, the Senate majority leader, for talks that are expected to be tense if not confrontational.
It will be Trump’s first meeting with the two Democrats since his return to the White House in January. Jeffries and Trump have never previously met in person.
Expectations for the encounter are low, with failure likely to result in large swathes of the federal government shutting down from 1 October.
Trump and the Republicans have signaled that they are unfazed at that prospect, calculating that the public will blame Democrat intransigence.
The White House office of management and budget (OMB) has also indicated that it will exploit a shutdown to carry out more mass firings as part of its crusade to slash government bureaucracy.
An OMB memorandum said government agencies have been instructed “use this opportunity to consider reduction in force (RIF) notices for all employees in programs, projects, or activities”, The Hill reported.
Republicans have also warned that Trump could make a shutdown politically costly by targeting spending programmes that are disproportionately used by Democrat-run states and cities.
CBS, citing a source close to Trump, reported that he privately welcomes the prospect of a shutdown because it would “enable him to wield executive power to slash some government programs and salaries”.
“I just don’t know how we are going to solve this issue,” Trump told the network in a telephone interview. “They [the Democrats] are not interested in waste, fraud and abuse.”
Some Democrats have acknowledged that they have “no good options” in trying to end the standoff.
“It’s doubly made no good because it’s very clear that Republicans want [a shutdown]. Trump wants it. He’s fine with that, happy to have it,” The Hill quoted a Democratic Senate aide as saying.. “I don’t really know what your good option here is when they want one.”
However, Schumer is under pressure to be seen taking a more actively confrontational stance after being fiercely criticized by fellow Democrats for backing a Republican funding packing in March to avert an earlier government shutdown.
With Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican senator, likely to vote against the funding package, it would need the support of eight Democrats to overcome a Senate filibuster.
