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WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown enters its fourth week, Senate Republicans are headed to the White House on Tuesday — not for urgent talks on how to end it but for a display of unity with President Trump as they refuse to negotiate on any Democratic demands.

Senate Democrats, too, are confident in their strategy to keep voting against a House-passed bill that would reopen the government until Republicans, including Trump, engage them on extending health care subsidies that expire at the end of the year.

With both sides showing no signs of movement, it’s unclear how long the stalemate will last — even as hundreds of thousands of federal workers will miss another paycheck in the coming days and states are sounding warnings that key federal programs will soon lapse completely. And the lunch meeting in the White House Rose Garden appears unlikely, for now, to lead to a bipartisan resolution as Senate Republicans are dug in and Trump has followed their lead.

Asked about the message at lunch, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, second in Senate GOP leadership, told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday that it will be, “Republicans are united, and I expect the president to say, ‘Stand strong.’”

Senate Republican leader John Thune, of South Dakota said on Monday that he thinks Trump is ready to “get involved on having the discussion” about extending the subsidies. “But I don’t think they are prepared to do that until (Democrats) open up the government,” he said.

Missed paychecks and programs running out of money

While Capitol Hill remains at a standstill, the effects of the shutdown are worsening.

Federal workers are set to miss additional paychecks amid total uncertainty about when they might eventually get paid. Government services like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, and Head Start preschool programs that serve needy families are facing potential cutoffs in funding. On Monday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the National Nuclear Security Administration is furloughing 1,400 federal workers. The Federal Aviation Administration has reported air controller shortages and flight delays in cities across the United States.

And as the shutdown keeps future health costs in limbo for millions of Americans, most U.S. adults are worried about health care becoming more expensive, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, as they make decisions about next year’s health coverage.

Still, there has been little urgency in Washington as each side believes the other will eventually cave.

“Our position remains the same: We want to end the shutdown as soon as we can and fix the ACA premium crisis that looms over 20 million hardworking Americans,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Monday, referring to the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire in December.

Schumer called the White House meeting a “pep rally” and said it was “shameful” that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has kept the House out of town during the shutdown.

November deadlines

Members of both parties acknowledge that as the shutdown drags on, it is becoming less likely every day that Congress will be able to either extend the subsidies or fund the government through the regular appropriations process. The House GOP bill that Senate Democrats have now rejected 11 times would only keep the government open through Nov. 21.

Thune on Monday hinted that Republicans may propose a longer extension of current funding instead of passing individual spending bills if the shutdown doesn’t end soon. Congress would need to pass an extension beyond Nov. 21, he said, “if not something on a much longer-term basis.”

Democrats are focused on Nov. 1, when next year’s enrollment period for the ACA coverage begins and millions of people will sign up for their coverage without the expanded subsidy help that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once those sign-ups begin, they say, it would be much harder to restore the subsidies even if they did have a bipartisan compromise.

“Very soon Americans are going to have to make some really difficult choices about which health care plan they choose for next year,” Schumer said.

What about Trump?

Tuesday’s White House meeting will be a chance for Republican senators to engage with the president on the shutdown after he has been more involved in foreign policy and other issues.

The president last week dismissed Democratic demands as “crazy,” adding, “We’re just not going to do it.”

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said that Republican senators will talk strategy with the president at Tuesday’s lunch. “Obviously, we’ll talk to him about it, and he’ll give us his ideas, and we’ll talk about ours,” Hoeven said. “Anything we can do to try to get Democrats to join us” and pass the Republican bill to reopen the government, Hoeven said.

Still, GOP lawmakers expect Trump to stay in line with their current posture to reject negotiations until the government is open.

“Until they put something reasonable on the table to talk about, I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,” said Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy.

Democrats say Trump has to be more involved for the government to reopen.

“He needs to get off the sidelines, get off the golf course,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. “We know that House and Senate Republicans don’t do anything without getting permission from their boss, Donald J. Trump.”

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves and Matt Brown contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Entering the third week of a government shutdown, Democrats say they are not intimidated or cowed by President Trump’s efforts to fire thousands of federal workers or by his threats of more firings to come.

Instead, Democrats appear emboldened, showing no signs of caving as they returned to Washington from their home states Tuesday evening and, for an eighth time, rejected a Republican bill to open the government.

“What people are saying is, you’ve got to stop the carnage,” said Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, describing what he heard from his constituents, including federal workers, as he traveled around his state over the weekend. “And you don’t stop it by giving in.”

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz said the firings are “a fair amount of bluster” and he predicted they ultimately will be overturned in court or otherwise reversed. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, speaking about Republicans, said the shutdown is just “an excuse for them to do what they were planning to do anyway.” And Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said Wednesday that the layoffs are a “mistaken attempt” to sway Democratic votes.

“Their intimidation tactics are not working,” added House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “And will continue to fail.”

Democratic senators say they are hearing increasingly from voters about health insurance subsidies that expire at the end of the year, the issue that the party has made central to the shutdown fight.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said that the impact of the expiring health insurance subsidies on millions of people, along with cuts to Medicaid enacted by Republicans earlier this year, “far outweighs” any of the firings of federal workers that the administration is threatening.

Republicans, too, are confident in their strategy not to negotiate on the health care subsidies until Democrats give them the votes to reopen the government. The Senate planned to vote again Wednesday and Thursday on the Republican bill, and so far there are no signs of any movement on either side.

“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said earlier this week.

Moderate Democrats aren’t budging

In the first hours of the shutdown, which began at 12:01 a.m. EDT Oct. 1., it was not clear how long Democrats would hold out.

A group of moderate Democrats who had voted against the GOP bill immediately began private, informal talks with Republicans. The GOP lawmakers hoped enough Democrats would quickly change their votes to end a filibuster and pass the spending bill with the necessary 60 votes.

But the bipartisan talks over the expiring health care subsidies have dragged on without a resolution so far. Two weeks later, the moderates, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Gary Peters of Michigan, are still voting no.

“Nothing about a government shutdown requires this or gives them new power to conduct mass layoffs,” Peters said after the director of the White House’s budget director, Russell Vought, announced that the firings had started on Friday.

D.C.-area lawmakers see advantages to shutdown

Another key group of Democrats digging in are lawmakers such as like Kaine who represent millions of federal workers in Virginia and Maryland. Kaine said the shutdown was preceded by “nine months of punitive behavior” as the Republican president has made cuts at federal agencies “and everybody knows who’s to blame.”

“Donald Trump is at war with his own workforce, and we don’t reward CEOs who hate their own workers,” Kaine said.

Appearing at a news conference Tuesday alongside supportive federal workers, Democratic lawmakers from Maryland and Virginia called on Republicans to come to the negotiating table.

“The message we have today is very simple,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. “Donald Trump and Russ Vought stop attacking federal employees, stop attacking the American people and start negotiating to reopen the federal government and address the looming health care crisis that is upon us.”

Thousands are losing their jobs, and more to follow

In a court filing Friday, the White House Office of Management and Budget said well over 4,000 federal employees from eight departments and agencies would be fired in conjunction with the shutdown.

On Tuesday, Trump said his administration is using the shutdown to target federal programs that Democrats like and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”

“We are closing up Democrat programs that we disagree with and they’re never going to open again,” he said.

On Capitol Hill, though, the threats fell flat with Democrats as they continued to demand talks on health care.

“I don’t feel any of this as pressure points,” Jeffries said. “I view it as like the reality that the American people confront and the question becomes, at what point will Republicans embrace the reality that they have created a health care crisis that needs to be decisively addressed?”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., held firm that Republicans would not negotiate until Democrats reopen the government.

The firings, Thune has repeatedly said, “are a situation that could be totally avoided.”

Jalonick and Groves write for the Associated Press. AP writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Vice President JD Vance said Sunday there will be deeper cuts to the federal workforce the longer the government shutdown goes on, adding to the uncertainty facing hundreds of thousands who are already furloughed without pay amid the stalemate in Congress.

Vance warned that as the federal shutdown entered its 12th day, the new cuts would be “painful,” even as he said the Trump administration worked to ensure that the military is paid this week and some services would be preserved for low-income Americans, including food assistance.

Still, hundreds of thousands of government workers have been furloughed in recent days and, in a court filing Friday, the Office of Management and Budget said well over 4,000 federal employees would soon be fired in conjunction with the shutdown.

“The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be,” Vance said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “To be clear, some of these cuts are going to be painful. This is not a situation that we relish. This is not something that we’re looking forward to, but the Democrats have dealt us a pretty difficult set of cards.”

Labor unions have already filed a lawsuit to stop the aggressive move by President Trump’s budget office, which goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown, further inflaming tensions between the Republicans who control Congress and the Democratic minority.

The shutdown began Oct. 1 after Democrats rejected a short-term funding fix and demanded that the bill include an extension of federal subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The expiration of those subsidies at the end of the year will result in monthly cost increases for millions.

Trump and Republican leaders have said they are open to negotiations on the health subsidies, but insist the government must reopen first.

For now, negotiations are virtually nonexistent. Dug in as ever, House leaders from both parties pointed fingers at each other in rival Sunday appearances on “Fox News Sunday.”

“We have repeatedly made clear that we will sit down with anyone, anytime, anyplace,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s unfortunate they’ve taken a my-way-or-the-highway approach.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) blamed Democrats and said they “seem not to care” about the pain the shutdown is inflicting.

“They’re trying their best to distract the American people from the simple fact that they’ve chosen a partisan fight so that they can prove to their Marxist rising base in the Democratic Party that they’re willing to fight Trump and Republicans,” he said.

Progressive activists, meanwhile, expressed new support for the Democratic Party’s position in the shutdown fight.

Ezra Levin, co-founder of the leading progressive protest group Indivisible, said he is “feeling good about the strength of Dem position.” He pointed to fractures in the GOP, noting that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly warned last week that healthcare insurance premiums would skyrocket for average Americans — including her own adult children — if nothing is done.

“Trump and GOP are rightfully taking the blame for the shutdown and for looming premium increases,” Levin said. “Their chickens are coming home to roost.”

And yet the Republican administration and its congressional allies are showing no signs of compromise on Democratic demands or backing away from threats to use the opportunity to pursue deeper cuts to the federal workforce.

Thousands of employees at the departments of Education, Treasury, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services as well as the Environmental Protection Agency are set to receive layoff notices, according to spokespeople for the agencies and union representatives for federal workers.

“You hear a lot of Senate Democrats say, well, how can Donald Trump possibly lay off all of these federal workers?” Vance said. “Well, the Democrats have given us a choice between giving low-income women their food benefits and paying our troops on the one hand, and, on the other hand, paying federal bureaucrats.”

Democrats say the firings are illegal and unnecessary.

“They do not have to do this,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They do not have to punish people that shouldn’t find themselves in this position.”

Peoples writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Republican and Democratic lawmakers at an impasse on reopening the federal government provided few public signs Sunday of meaningful negotiations talking place to end what has so far been a five-day shutdown.

Leaders in both parties are betting that public sentiment has swung their way, putting pressure on the other side to compromise. Democrats are insisting on renewing subsidies to cover health insurance costs for millions of households, while President Trump wants to preserve existing spending levels and is threatening to permanently fire federal workers if the government remains closed.

The squabble comes at a moment of troubling economic uncertainty. While the U.S. economy has continued to grow this year, hiring has slowed and inflation remains elevated as Trump’s import taxes have created a series of disruptions for businesses. At the same time, there is a recognition that the nearly $2-trillion annual budget deficit is financially unsustainable, and reducing it would require a coalition in support of potential tax increases and spending cuts.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, among those appearing on the Sunday news shows, said there have been no talks with Republican leaders since their White House meeting Monday.

“And unfortunately, since that point in time, Republicans, including Donald Trump, have gone radio silent,” said Jeffries (D-N.Y.). “And what we’ve seen is negotiation through deepfake videos, the House canceling votes, and of course President Trump spending yesterday on the golf course. That’s not responsible behavior.”

Trump was asked via text message by CNN’s Jake Tapper about shutdown talks. The Republican president responded with confidence but no details.

“We are winning and cutting costs big time,” Trump said in a text message, according to CNN.

His administration sees the shutdown as an opening to wield greater power over the budget, with multiple officials saying they will save money as workers are furloughed by imposing permanent job cuts on thousands of government workers, a tactic that has never been used before.

Even though it would be Trump’s decision, he believes he can put the blame on the Democrats for the layoffs because of the shutdown.

“It’s up to them,” Trump told reporters Sunday morning before boarding the presidential helicopter. “Anybody laid off, that’s because of the Democrats.”

Republicans on Sunday argued that the administration would take no pleasure in letting go of federal workers, even though the GOP has put funding on hold for infrastructure and energy projects in Democratic areas.

“We haven’t seen the details yet about what’s happening” with layoffs, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on NBC. “But it is a regrettable situation that the president does not want.”

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said that the administration wants to avoid the layoffs it had indicated might start last week, after a Friday deadline came and went without any decisions being announced.

“We want the Democrats to come forward and to make a deal that’s a clean, continuing resolution that gives us seven more weeks to talk about these things,” Hassett said on CNN. “But the bottom line is that with Republicans in control, the Republicans have a lot more power over the outcome than the Democrats.”

Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California defended his party’s stance on the shutdown, saying on NBC that the possible increase in healthcare costs for “millions of Americans” would make insurance unaffordable in what he called a “crisis.”

But Schiff also noted that the Trump administration has withheld congressionally approved spending from being used, essentially undermining the value of Democrats’ seeking compromises on the budgets as the White House could decline to not honor Congress’ wishes. The Trump administration sent Congress roughly $4.9 billion in “ pocket rescissions” on foreign aid, a process that meant the spending was withheld without time for Congress to weigh in before the previous fiscal year ended last week.

“We need both to address the healthcare crisis and we need some written assurance in the law, I won’t take a promise, that they’re not going to renege on any deal we make,” Schiff said.

The television appearances indicated that Democrats and Republicans are busy talking, deploying internet memes against each other that have raised concerns about whether it’s possible to negotiate in good faith.

Vice President JD Vance said that a video putting Jeffries in a sombrero and thick mustache was simply a joke, even though it came across as racist mocking as Republicans insist that the Democratic demands would lead to healthcare spending on immigrants in the country illegally, a claim that Democrats dispute.

Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for any federal healthcare programs, including insurance provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Still, hospitals do receive Medicaid reimbursements for emergency care that they are obligated to provide to people who meet other Medicaid eligibility requirements but do not have an eligible immigration status.

The challenge is that the two parties do not appear to be having productive conversations with each other in private, even as Republicans insist they are in conversation with their Democratic colleagues.

On Friday, a Senate vote to advance a Republican bill that would reopen the government failed to notch the necessary 60 votes to end a filibuster. Johnson said the House would close for legislative business this week, a strategy that could obligate the Senate to work with the government funding bill that was passed by House Republicans.

“Johnson’s not serious about this,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on CBS. “He sent his all his congressman home last week and home this week. How are you going to negotiate?”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Sunday that the shutdown on discretionary spending, the furloughing of federal workers and requirements that other federal employees work without pay will go on so long as Democrats vote no.

“They’ll get another chance on Monday to vote again,” said Thune on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“And I’m hoping that some of them have a change of heart,” he said.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.