The top four congressional leaders will head to the White House on Monday for a meeting with President Donald Trump in a last-ditch effort to prevent a partial government shutdown.
The meeting, confirmed by sources familiar with the plans, comes after the president scrapped a separate discussion planned with just the two Democratic leaders. After House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer initially secured White House approval for a meeting Thursday, Trump abruptly canceled it after determining Democrats’ asks to be “ridiculous.”
Since then both sides have only dug in more, with the White House budget office putting federal agencies on notice to consider killing entire programs and laying off all their workers if they won’t receive funding during a shutdown. Jeffries called Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, who spearheaded the layoffs memo, a “malignant political hack.”
[Shutdown pain may not be evenly spread as OMB readies hatchet]
A Schumer aide said the meeting got rescheduled, with GOP leaders now included, after Schumer called Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Friday and “urged him to get President Trump to meet because the deadline for a government shutdown is fast approaching.”
The Senate is back in session on Monday with 48 hours until agencies would have to start shutting down Oct. 1. The House, which on Sept. 19 passed a partisan GOP-drafted stopgap funding bill that would keep the government operating for seven weeks until the Thanksgiving recess, isn’t planning to return until at least Oct. 7.
Speaker Mike Johnson wrote Friday on X that House Republicans “have done our job” and now it’s the Senate’s turn to act. Senate Democrats, who initially blocked the House-passed bill on Sept. 19, had countered with their own version that Republicans rejected.
The Democrats’ bill would require the administration to unfreeze foreign aid funding that they had held up and restore cuts to public broadcasting. It would also repeal over $1 trillion in cuts to health insurance programs enacted in the GOP’s July budget package and make permanent expanded subsidies for health coverage purchased on government-run exchanges that are set to expire.
The key to any deal on stopgap funding is likely an agreement on some type of extension for the expiring exchange subsidies. If the provision is allowed to lapse, over 20 million beneficiaries could face sharply higher premiums or lose eligibility for subsidies altogether because they earn too much.
Democratic leaders have said they could accept the seven-week stopgap bill if Republicans and the White House would commit to a pathway for legislation to extend the subsidies.
GOP leaders have said they are open to discussing an extension, which has support from a number of rank-and-file members and swing-district incumbents. But the tax credits are opposed by the party’s conservative wing and any deal may need to include tighter income limits and antifraud restrictions.
“We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis,” Jeffries and Schumer said in a statement Saturday night after Monday’s scheduled meeting become public. “Time is running out.”
Senate Democrats are set to hold a caucus-wide conference call on Sunday at 4 p.m. to discuss shutdown strategy.
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