Schumer

Nov. 7 (UPI) — Democrats are ready to end the federal government shutdown if Republicans agree to extend Affordable Care Act credits for another year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Friday afternoon.

Schumer, D-N.Y., said Senate Democrats favor passing a temporary funding measure and three other bills that would fund the federal government for one year, CNN reported.

“Democrats are offering a very simple compromise,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

“Now, the ball is in the Republicans’ court,” he added. “We need Republicans to just say yes.”

Schumer’s announcement came after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., earlier said the Senate will work through the weekend to negotiate reopening the federal government and possibly vote after a bipartisan effort failed Thursday.

Thune wanted to hold another vote on the House-approved continuing resolution to fund the federal government through Nov. 21, but Senate Democrats aren’t on board, he told media earlier Friday.

“Our members are going to be advised to be available if, in fact, there’s a need to vote,” he said.

“We will see what happens and whether or not, over the course of the next couple of days, the Democrats can find their way to re-engage again,” Thune added.

Thune earlier this week expressed optimism that a funding agreement would be made this week, but that ended after Senate Democrats met on Thursday.

“All I know is that the pep rally they had at lunch yesterday evidently changed some minds,” he said Friday.

“We had given them everything they wanted and had asked for,” Thune explained. “At some point, I was gonna say they have to take ‘yes’ for an answer, and they were trending in that direction.”

The impasse is due to Senate Democrats not trusting President Donald Trump to agree to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire after December and to stop firing federal employees, The Hill reported.

Senate Democrats held a working lunch on Thursday, as referenced by Thune, during which they rejected a bipartisan proposal to reopen the government.

Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Angus King, I-Maine, had worked out a deal with the GOP, which buoyed Thune’s hope of ending the government shutdown on its record 38th day.

Senate Democrats discussed the bipartisan proposal during their Thursday lunch and rejected it due to their distrust of the president.

The proposal would have included a short-term funding measure to reopen the government and a three-year appropriations bill that would have funded the Agriculture Department, Veterans Affairs, military construction and the legislative branch.

The USDA funding would have meant full funding for currently suspended Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

Lacking strong guarantees that the president would support extending Affordable Care Act credits that initially were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic and that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, the Senate Democrats said they won’t support the bipartisan plan to move forward.

Despite the continued opposition from Senate Democrats, Thune doesn’t expect the shutdown to continue into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend at the end of the month, he said while appearing on Fox News Friday.

Thune needs at least five more Senate Democrats to join with Democratic Party Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and King, who caucuses with Senate Democrats, to approve the continuing resolution.

Fetterman, Masto and King consistently have voted in favor of continuing the 2025 fiscal year budget while negotiating the budget for the 2026 fiscal year, which started on Oct. 1.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is the only Republican senator to continually vote against the measure.

The House-approved continuing resolution consistently has received a majority of support in the Senate, but it has not received the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate’s filibuster rule for passage.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Charles E. Schumer, an influential voice on U.S.-Israel relations, endorsed the nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to become Defense secretary Tuesday, giving the White House a key vote for its choice to lead the Pentagon.

The New York Democrat had initially expressed reservations about Hagel’s nomination. But after a 90-minute meeting at the White House on Monday, Schumer said in a statement that Hagel had distanced himself in their talks from controversial positions on Israel and Iran that were threatening to hold up his confirmation by the Senate.

Schumer’s extraordinary statement improves the likelihood that Hagel will win confirmation, putting a key supporter of Israel in his camp and committing him to a series of specific positions on Israel and Iran that seem likely to win the votes of other key senators.

According to Schumer, Hagel promised to make planning military options against Iran his “top priority,” if confirmed, disavowed a past call to open negotiations with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and said further unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran may be necessary — positions that are seemingly at odds with stances the former Nebraska lawmaker has previously taken.

QUIZ: How much do you know about presidential inaugurations?

Hagel also told Schumer he regretted once using the term “Jewish lobby” to refer to Israel supporters in Washington and promised to work for “on-time delivery” of F-35 fighters and other military equipment to Israel, the statement said.

Schumer is unlikely to have issued such a detailed description of their conversation without the approval of the White House and Hagel himself. It was an indication of just how nervous the nomination had made many pro-Israel senators. Several Republicans, who have not forgiven Hagel for his harsh criticism of the George W. Bush administration’s war in Iraq, have already announced their opposition to the nomination.

Hagel issued no public comment on the meeting. In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) released Tuesday, he outlined many of the same positions and voiced support for last year’s repeal of the law that barred homosexuals from serving openly in the military.

Referring in the letter to his use of the term “Jewish lobby,” Hagel called it “a very poor choice of words,” adding, “I recognize this language can be construed as anti-Israel.”

“I know some will question whether Senator Hagel’s assurances are merely attempts to quiet critics as he seeks confirmation to this critical post. But I don’t think so. Senator Hagel realizes the situation in the Middle East has changed, with Israel in a dramatically more endangered position than it was even five years ago. His views are genuine, and reflect this new reality,” Schumer said.

PHOTOS: Past presidential inaugurations

Hagel promised in the meeting to do “whatever it takes” to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, including taking military action, Schumer said, adding that the nominee had promised that his “top priority” as Defense secretary would be planning “military contingencies related to Iran.”

Hagel opponents have pointed to Senate votes he made against some legislation imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran, and his support for negotiations with Tehran, as signs that he might be unwilling to use force to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

But Schumer’s lengthy release on their meeting suggested that Hagel had retreated from a longstanding opposition to unilateral sanctions.

“Senator Hagel clarified that he ‘completely’ supports President Obama’s current sanctions against Iran. He added that further unilateral sanctions against Iran could be effective and necessary,” the statement said.

Schumer also referred to Hagel’s decision not to sign a letter calling on European governments to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. “Senator Hagel stressed that — notwithstanding any letters he refused to sign in the past — he has always considered the group to be a terrorist organization,” Schumer said.

Referring to a 2009 letter in which Hagel urged Obama to open direct talks with Hezbollah, Schumer said Hagel “today believes there should be no negotiations with Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terrorist group until they renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist.”

Schumer added, “Senator Hagel realizes the situation in the Middle East has changed, with Israel in a dramatically more endangered position than it was even five years ago. His views are genuine, and reflect this new reality.”

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WASHINGTON — A president looking to seize power beyond the executive branch. A Congress controlled by Republican lawmakers unwilling to directly defy him. And a minority party looking for any way to fight back.

The dynamic left Washington in a stalemate Thursday — the ninth day of the government shutdown — and lawmakers openly venting their frustration as they tried to gain traction without the trust that is typically the foundation of any bipartisan deal.

“To have good-faith conversations, you have to have trust. There’s a real challenge of trust,” said Rep. Brad Schneider, chair of the New Democratic Coalition, a pragmatic group of House Democrats.

Groups of lawmakers — huddled over dinners, on phone calls, and in private meetings — have tried to brainstorm ways out of the standoff that has shuttered government offices, kept hundreds of thousands of federal employees at home and threatened to leave them without a scheduled payday. But lawmakers have found themselves running up against the reality that the relationship between the two parties is badly broken.

The frustration was evident this week as House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, on separate occasions, engaged in tense exchanges in the Capitol hallways with members of the opposing party.

“We’re in an environment where we need more than a handshake,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat who has engaged in talks with Republicans.

President Trump and Republicans have so far held to the stance that they will only negotiate on Democratic demands around health care benefits after they vote to reopen the government. They also say Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer is beholden to the left wing of his party and only staging the shutdown fight to stave off a primary challenge.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, told Punchbowl News in an interview that Democrats were winning the shutdown fight, saying, “Every day gets better for us.”

Republicans quickly seized on those comments, arguing it showed that Schumer is approaching the shutdown with purely political motives.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune stood on the Senate floor flanked by a poster printed with Schumer’s words.

“This isn’t a political game. Democrats might feel that way, but I don’t know anybody else that does,” said Thune, a South Dakota Republican. “The longer this goes on, the more the American people realize that Democrats own this shutdown.”

Schumer, in his own floor speech, responded that it was Trump and Republicans who are “playing with people’s lives.”

“Every day that Republicans refuse to negotiate to end this shutdown, the worse it gets for Americans and the clearer it becomes who is fighting for them,” said the New York senator.

When a handshake deal is not enough

Democrats have insisted they can’t take Trump at his word and therefore need more than a verbal commitment for any deal.

Conflicts over spending power had already been raging before the shutdown as the White House pushed to assert maximum power over congressionally approved budgets. The White House budget office had canceled scores of government contracts, including cutting out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.”

That enraged Democrats — and disturbed some Republicans who criticized it as executive overreach.

“I hate rescissions, to be honest with you, unless they’re congressionally approved,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican.

Matt Glassman, a fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, said the president’s use of rescissions was “blowing up the underlying dynamic of the bargaining” because it inserts intense partisanship into the budget appropriations process that otherwise requires compromise, particularly in the Senate.

Then, as the government entered a shutdown, Trump’s budget director Russ Vought laid out arguments that the president would have even more power to lay off workers and even cancel pay due to furloughed federal workers once the funding lapse is solved. Vought has also announced that the administration was withholding billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in states with Democratic senators who have voted for the shutdown.

Trump has cast Vought’s actions as the consequences of Democratic obstruction, even sharing a video that depicted him as the grim reaper. But on Capitol Hill, there has been an acknowledgment that the hardball tactics are making it harder to negotiate.

“I think with senators, carrots work better than sticks,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican.

One Democratic idea may win GOP support

Before they vote to reopen the government, Democrats’ main demand is that Congress take up an extension of tax credits for health plans offered on Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Trump has sounded open to a deal, saying that he wants “great health care” for Americans.

What’s received less attention is that Democrats also want new safeguards in the law limiting the White House’s ability to claw back, or rescind, funding already approved by Congress. While final appropriations bills are still being worked out, Republicans have been open to the idea.

“When you end the shutdown and get back to regular order within the appropriations bills, there’s very clear language about how we feel about rescissions,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I think you’ll find hard, solid support from Republicans to see that what we agree to will be executed on.”

In the meantime, the main sticking point for lawmakers this week has been finding any agreement on extending the health care subsidies.

The consequences of an extended shutdown

As the shutdown drags on without sign of significant progress to ending the impasse, lawmakers are looking ahead to the dates when federal employees will miss a payday.

Active-duty military troops would miss a paycheck on Oct. 15. Some lawmakers are getting nervous about both the financial implications for the troops and the political blowback of allowing soldiers to go without pay.

As House Speaker Mike Johnson fielded questions on C-SPAN Thursday morning, one caller pleaded with him to pass legislation that would allow the military to get paid during the government shutdown.

The woman, identified as Samantha, said her husband serves in the military and that they “live paycheck to paycheck.”

She pleaded with Johnson to call the House back to Washington, saying, “You could stop this.”

Johnson said he was sorry to hear about her situation, blamed Democrats for refusing to pass a stop-gap spending bill and added, “I am angry because of situations just like yours.”

Groves, Jalonick and Brown write for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Halfway through President Trump’s inaugural White House meeting this term with congressional leadership days before a government shutdown, the red hats appeared on the president’s desk.

“Trump 2028,” they said, situated across from the seated lawmakers, Vice President JD Vance and several untouched Diet Cokes.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries leaned over to Vance, a potential 2028 contender, and quipped, “Hey, bro, you got a problem with this?”

The room chuckled in response.

“It was the random-most thing in the world, because we’re sitting there, we’re having a serious conversation, and all of a sudden these two red hats appear,” Jeffries recalled later at the Capitol.

“It was all so unserious,” the New York Democrat said, describing a roving cameraman capturing the moment. “We were there for serious reasons that it wasn’t really a big part of, you know, the discussion. It was theatrics.”

The moment was vintage Trump — grabbing the attention and seeking to throw negotiators off their game — but it also underscored the president’s disregard for Congress, a coequal branch of the government, and in particular his opponents across the political aisle.

From historic first meeting to viral trolling

What was once considered a historic occasion — the president of the United States convening his first “big four” meeting of congressional leaders from the House and Senate — was reduced to another viral souvenir of Trump trolling his opponent.

And after the more than hourlong session, the president failed to strike a deal with the leaders to prevent a federal government closure.

“We don’t want it to shut down,” Trump said at the White House the next day, hours before the midnight deadline.

This wasn’t just a routine meeting of the president and congressional leadership. It was the first time Trump had gathered the leaders of Congress, more than eight months into his presidency — and the first time he and Jeffries had officially met.

But more surprising was how little came from it.

Healthcare funds

During the White House meeting, Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer laid out their arguments for saving healthcare funding as part of the shutdown talks.

Trump said very little, doing more listening than talking, the leaders said.

“He didn’t seem to know about the healthcare premiums going up so much,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.

With the Republican leadership, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the conversation ranged across their views of the healthcare situation.

“Lively,” Thune (R-S.D.) later said.

The discussion included the Democrats’ demands to ensure subsidies to help people buy private insurance on the exchanges run by the Affordable Care Act are made permanent. The subsidies were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and are set to expire at year’s end, which would cause premiums to skyrocket, nearly doubling in some cases.

The conversation also touched on the new rural hospital fund that is important to Republicans, set up under Trump’s big bill as a way to compensate for its cuts to Medicaid healthcare providers.

Johnson (R-La.) said Trump showed “strong, solid leadership. He listened to the arguments.”

Trying to catch the president’s attention

This is the best the Democrats could have hoped for — to have an airing before the president that began to turn the dial toward their demands. And it is what the GOP leaders had tried to avoid as each party tries to blame the shutdown on the other.

Johnson had suggested Trump back out of an initial meeting with the Democrats — after the president had agreed to one — arguing it would be a “waste of time.”

But Trump relented, and granted them Monday’s closed-door Oval Office session.

The Democrats have been here before. During Trump’s first term, the president repeatedly negotiated deals with the Democrats — “Chuck and Nancy,” as he called Schumer and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi — to fund the government, raise the debt limit and achieve other goals.

Those bargains Trump made frustrated his party’s lawmakers.

Republicans, aware of that history, are trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, saying they would leave the door open to discuss the healthcare issue with Democrats later — once the government has reopened. They also took issue with the characterization of Trump as unaware of the depth or magnitude of the healthcare situation.

“I’m highly skeptical the president was hearing about it for the first time,” Vance said afterward.

One Republican not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and granted anonymity to do so said Schumer’s suggestion that Trump didn’t know about the subsidy problem was exaggerated.

So far in his second term, the president has been able to accomplish his priorities either on his own, with executive actions and the Elon Musk-led cuts that tore through federal offices, or with a compliant Congress passing his signature tax breaks and spending cuts bill, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” that is also fueling his mass deportation agenda.

But Washington doesn’t run on the White House alone, and Congress is not a majority-takes-all institution — traditionally, at least. Turning most bills into laws generally has required the give-and-take of bipartisan compromise, particularly in the Senate, and particularly when it comes to the annual appropriations needed to keep government running.

Then came the sombrero taunts

Hours after the lawmakers left the meeting, Trump’s team posted a fake video that showed Jeffries adorned in a sombrero with a faux mustache standing beside Schumer outside the White House. It was widely seen as racist.

“When I was practicing law, there was a Latin phrase that was always one of my favorites,” Jeffries said back at his office at the Capitol. “Res ipsa loquitur. It means: The thing speaks for itself.”

“We had a full airing of our positions on Monday, which should have set the baseline for a follow-up conversation from the administration to try to reignite a meaningful bipartisan path toward funding the government,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the president’s behavior subsequent to the White House meeting deteriorated into unhinged and unserious action.”

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

Donald Trump has made politics into a dystopian reality show he loves to host, but Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are playing by the old rules — and the mismatch may cause Democrats to get blamed for a government shutdown.

This is not because they’re dumb (they’re not) or incompetent (as the top Democrats of the Senate and House and as representatives of New York, both have risen to positions that require a Lyndon Baines Johnson-esque dexterity most of us couldn’t sustain for a single PTA meeting).

You can see it playing out in the government shutdown. Schumer and Jeffries seem almost neurologically incapable of operating in the world Trump has created — one where politics is less about governing or even persuasion, and more about staying on offense and generating spectacle.

Schumer exudes old-fashioned backroom politics and insider deal-making, which is another way of saying that he’s scripted, sweaty and stilted. It’s not that he’s bad at speaking; it’s that the kind of speaking he has mastered — the methodical, over-enunciated style that once charmed donors and editorial boards — is the equivalent of trying to fax something in 2025.

Jeffries, by contrast, is calm and disciplined. He speaks slowly, often channeling a rhythmic pattern that is reminiscent of a preacher or litigator. In a different era — the kind of era when “normal politics” still existed — this trait might have worked brilliantly. Today, it just feels tired. He’s supposed to be the hip one, once marketed as a “bad, brilliant brother from Brooklyn.” But his recent attempts at communication feel more like a corporate onboarding seminar.

And it’s not like he’s compensating for this shortcoming by electrifying the progressive base. Jeffries’ recent praise for New York Mayor Eric Adams (calling him a man who “served courageously and authentically for decades”) was a bit like praising Nickelback for artistic innovation. It’s not just inaccurate; it’s weirdly tone deaf to the moment.

To be fair, competing with Trump’s megaphone requires a skill set that is closer to professional wrestling than to 20th century politics. Trump is chaotic and often incoherent to the point of parody. But, and this is key, he never sounds like a normal politician.

In a game where authenticity — however poorly defined and cynically constructed — is the only real currency, the Democrats’ undynamic duo come across as high-functioning androids.

Countering Trump’s superpower calls for Democrats who can compete in the attention economy: leaders who feel authentic, actually enjoy picking constant political fights and understand that “going viral” is the new “getting quoted in the New York Times.”

Indeed, the only Democrats who have shown any capacity for being able to survive in this era have been Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Schumer and Jeffries do not have these skills, despite having plenty of material to work with.

Case in point: Republicans are about to make healthcare more expensive for millions of Americans. In theory, that’s a devastating talking point. In practice, it’s difficult to imagine Schumer and Jeffries delivering it in a way that can compete with Trump’s bogus assertion that the Democrats are shutting down the government because they want free healthcare for illegal immigrants and “transgender for everybody,” whatever that means.

Faced with these mistruths and the anemic response we’re getting from Schumer and Jeffries, the best-case scenario may be that Republicans — by virtue of being the “anti-government” party — take some blame for a government shutdown. But that’s not a strategy. That’s hoping partisan inertia is still on your side.

Regardless, the shutdown is merely the latest example of Democrats struggling to compete with MAGA. The larger problem is that the Democratic Party doesn’t really have a communicator right now. It hasn’t had one since Barack Obama left the stage.

It’s probably not fair to compare a congressional leader with a presidential candidate. But even by the standards of modern congressional leaders, Schumer and Jeffries are ill-equipped for the task at hand.

Democrats need someone with Newt Gingrich’s manic energy, revolutionary zeal and theatrical flair, coupled with Nancy Pelosi’s more pragmatic toughness and ruthless discipline. This is to say, someone who understands that politics is now a form of entertainment, but who still has the moral seriousness to prevent it from devolving totally into nihilism.

Instead, they’ve got two men who might as well be AM radio hosts trying to livestream on Twitch.

Ultimately, the Democrats’ communications crisis won’t be solved until they have a presidential nominee who can actually speak the language of the moment. Until they can find one, Democrats are stuck with two guys who are no match against a man who has turned political chaos into performance art.

And if Democrats don’t find one — and soon! — they won’t just lose the narrative: They’ll lose the country that depends on it.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

WASHINGTON — Democratic lawmakers took a significant risk this week by choosing to fight the Trump administration over the extension of healthcare credits.

A stalemate over the matter led to the federal shutdown on Tuesday night, when Democrats denied Republicans the votes needed to continue funding the government, forcing hundreds of thousands of federal workers into furloughs or to work without pay.

It’s a gamble for a party facing its lowest approval numbers since the Reagan era — and a calculated risk Democratic leaders felt feel compelled to take.

“I am proud to be fighting to preserve healthcare for millions of people, ” Sen. Adam Schiff of California said in an interview Wednesday. “I think this is a very necessary fight.”

The healthcare tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year, and if Democrats are unsuccessful in securing an extension as part of a shutdown deal, then premiums for millions of Americans are expected to skyrocket, Schiff said.

“There’s really not much that can be done to mitigate these dramatic health premium increases people are going to see unless the president and Republicans are willing to work with us on it,” he said.

Entering the shutdown, polls indicated the country was split over who would be to blame, with 19% of Americans faulting Democrats and 26% charging Republicans, according to a New York Times poll. A plurality of respondents — 33% — said both parties were responsible.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, a Democrat and the Senate minority leader, is leading the charge with his worst favorability numbers among his home state residents in over 20 years — and with the highest disapproval ratings of any congressional leader, according a recent Pew survey.

Schumer faced widespread ridicule from within his party in March after reversing course during the last government funding deadline, choosing then to support the Trump administration’s continuing resolution proposal.

That showdown came at the height of an aggressive purge by President Trump of the federal workforce. A government shutdown would only enable more mass firings, Schumer said at the time.

But the current shutdown is already giving Trump administration officials license to resume mass layoffs, this time specifically targeting Democratic states and priorities.

“We’d be laying off a lot of people who are going to be very affected,” Trump said in the hours before the shutdown, adding: “They’re going to be Democrats.”

On Wednesday, Russ Vought, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime advocate of concentrated presidential power, wrote on social media that $8 billion in “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda” would be canceled to 16 Democratic-majority states, including California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii.

Hours earlier, the Trump administration had frozen roughly $18 billion for infrastructure projects in New York City pending a review that Vought said would “ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans at a news conference Wednesday discussing the shutdown.

(Mariam Zuhaib / Associated Press)

Seeing these actions, Schiff worries about further punitive measures against California.

“California, I’m sure, won’t be far behind in the kind of vindictive actions of the president,” he said.

At a White House press briefing Wednesday afternoon, Vice President JD Vance denied that the administration was planning to structure layoffs based on politics.

“We’re going to have to make things work, and that means that we’re going to have to triage some certain things,” he said. “That means certain people are going to have to get laid off, and we’re going to try to make sure that the American people suffer as little as possible from the shutdown.”

Vance placed the blame squarely on Schumer and other Democrats, saying repeatedly that Democrats had shut down the government because Republicans refused to give billions of dollars in healthcare funding to immigrants in the country illegally. Immigrants without legal status are not eligible for any federal healthcare programs, including Medicaid and health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

“To the American people who are watching: The reason your government is shut down at this very minute is because, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans — and even a few moderate Democrats — supported opening the government, the Chuck Schumer-AOC wing of the Democratic Party shut down the government,” the vice president said.

Vance said policy disagreements should not serve as the basis for keeping hostage essential services that Americans need. But before those discussions can happen, the government must be reopened.

“I’d invite Chuck Schumer to join the moderate Democrats and 52 Senate Republicans. Do the right thing, open up the People’s Government, and then let’s fix healthcare policy for the American people,” he said.

Some senators, including Democrat Ruben Gallego of Arizona, are exploring a bipartisan offramp from the crisis, including a potential continuing resolution that would reopen the government for roughly a week to provide room for negotiations.

While that option is on the table, less than 24 hours into the shutdown, some Democrats think a short-term solution is contingent on Trump being willing to negotiate with Democrats in good faith.

“It really just depends on whether the president decides he’s going to try to resolve this conflict and negotiate,” Schiff said. “Until he makes that decision that he wants the shutdown to end, it will continue.”

Vance described two categories of demands from congressional Democrats: those acting in good faith who want to make sure the administration engages in a conversation about critical issues such as healthcare, and those who refuse to reopen the government until every demand is met.

“We just write those people off because they’re not negotiating in good faith — and frankly, we don’t need it,” he said, noting that three senators who vote Democratic — John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), and Angus King (I-Maine) — had already broken ranks to vote to fund the government.

“Three moderate Democrats joined 52 Republicans last night,” he said, adding: “We need five more in order to reopen the government, and that’s really where we’re going to focus.”

WASHINGTON — With a government shutdown looming, Democrats and Republicans angrily blamed each other and refused to budge from their positions Tuesday, unable to find agreement or even negotiate as hundreds of thousands of federal workers stood to be furloughed or laid off.

The partisan standoff over healthcare and spending threatened to trigger the first U.S. government shutdown in almost seven years at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. To avoid it, the Senate would have had to pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills.

A vote on the bill, along with a Democratic alternative, was scheduled for early evening. But a resolution appeared far off as tempers flared, increasing the odds of a shutdown by the hour.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Republicans are trying to “bully” Democrats by refusing to negotiate on an extension of healthcare benefits and other priorities.

“It’s only the president who can do this. We know he runs the show here,” Schumer said Tuesday morning, after a bipartisan White House meeting the day before yielded little progress.

“Republicans have until midnight tonight to get serious with us,” Schumer said.

President Trump and his fellow Republicans say they won’t entertain any changes to the legislation, arguing that it’s a stripped-down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Republicans “are not going to be held hostage” by the Democrats’ demands. The GOP-led House was on a weeklong recess, unavailable for immediate votes even if the Senate did find bipartisan agreement. And far from entering into negotiations, Trump instead posted a fake, mocking video of Democrats on Monday evening after the White House meeting.

On Tuesday, Trump threatened retribution, saying a shutdown could include “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

It was still unclear if either side would blink before the deadline.

Blame game escalates

Although partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats see a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate would probably need at least eight votes from Democrats to end a filibuster and pass the bill with 60 votes, since Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to vote against it.

Still, Schumer said Trump and Republicans would be to blame if the government shuts down.

A handful of Democrats said they were still deciding how to vote, holding out for a last-minute compromise. Thune said he is “hoping there are Democrats out there who are reasonable and understand what’s at stake here.”

The last shutdown was in Trump’s first term, from December 2018 to January 2019, when he demanded that Congress give him money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. Trump retreated after 35 days — the longest shutdown ever — amid intensifying airport delays and missed paydays for federal workers.

Democrats’ healthcare asks

Millions of people could face higher insurance premiums if the healthcare subsidies expire at the end of the year. Congress first put them in place in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats say they want the subsidies immediately extended. They have also demanded that Republicans reverse the Medicaid cuts that were enacted as a part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” this summer and for the White House to promise it will not move to rescind spending passed by Congress.

“We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of everyday Americans,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

Thune has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but many are strongly opposed to it.

In rare, pointed back-and-forth with Schumer on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, Thune said Republicans “are happy to fix the ACA issue” and have offered to negotiate with Democrats — if they will vote to keep the government open until Nov. 21.

No agreement at the White House

The bipartisan meeting at the White House on Monday was Trump’s first with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term. Schumer said the group “had candid, frank discussions” about health care and the potential for health insurance costs to skyrocket once expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits expire Dec. 31.

But Trump did not appear to be ready for serious talks. Hours later, he posted a fake video of Schumer and Jeffries taken from footage of their real news conference outside the White House after the meeting. In the altered video, a voiceover that sounds like Schumer’s voice makes fun of Democrats and Jeffries stands beside him with a cartoon sombrero and mustache. Mexican music plays in the background.

At a news conference on the Capitol steps Tuesday morning, Jeffries said it was a “racist and fake AI video.”

Schumer said that “we have less than a day to figure this out” and Trump is trolling on the internet “like a 10-year-old.”

A crucial, and unusual, vote for Democrats

Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it’s unclear how or when it would end. But party activists and voters have argued that Democrats need to do something to stand up to Trump.

Some groups called for Schumer’s resignation in March after he and nine other Democrats voted to break a filibuster and allow a Republican-led funding bill to advance to a final vote.

Schumer said then that he voted to keep the government open because a shutdown would have made things worse as Trump’s administration was slashing government jobs. He says now that he believes things have changed, including the passage this summer of the massive GOP tax cut bill that reduced Medicaid.

Shutdown preparations begin

The stakes are huge for federal workers across the country as the White House told agencies last week that they should consider “a reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government shuts down. That means that workers who are not deemed essential could be fired instead of just furloughed.

Either way, most would not be paid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated in a letter to Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst on Tuesday that around 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day once a shutdown begins.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, said some of the many federal workers in his state support a shutdown.

“What I hear from federal workers is they’ve been on a slow, shutdown firing since the beginning of this administration,” Warner said. “They want us to push back.”

Federal agencies were already preparing. On the home page of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a large pop-up ad reads: “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people.”

Jalonick, Mascaro and Groves write for the Associated Press. AP writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking, Matthew Brown, Darlene Superville and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Washington is barreling toward a government shutdown Tuesday night, with few signs of an off-ramp as Democrats and Republicans dig in for a fight over government spending.

Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill is insisting on an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits as part of a package to fund the government. At least seven Democratic votes are needed in the Senate to pass a seven-week stopgap bill that cleared the House last week.

But Republican lawmakers and the White House have dismissed the proposal, with senior officials in the Trump administration threatening to use unique legal authorities granted during a government shutdown to conduct yet more mass firings of federal workers.

Bipartisan congressional leadership met with President Trump at the White House on Monday afternoon in a last-minute effort to avert the crisis. But neither side exited the meeting with expectations of a breakthrough. On the contrary, Republican leaders in the House told the GOP caucus to plan to return to work next week and said they would hold a news conference on Wednesday anticipating the government’s closure.

“We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of everyday Americans, period, full stop,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talk to reporters outside the White House.

(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

Vice President JD Vance said he thought the country was “headed to a shutdown,” labeling Democratic calls for healthcare tax credits an “absurd” demand that amounts to an “excuse for shutting down the people’s government.”

“You don’t use your policy disagreements as leverage to not pay our troops,” Vance said. “That’s exactly what they’re proposing out there.”

When the government shuts down, the law requires all nonessential government services to cease, requiring most federal workers to go on furlough or work without pay. Essential services — such as national security functions and air traffic control — are not affected.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump told reporters he hoped Democrats would agree to “keeping our country open,” before proceeding to criticize their proposals.

“They’re going to have to do some things, because their ideas are not very good ones,” Trump said. “They’re very bad for our country. So we’ll see how that works out.”

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he thought his message was beginning to resonate with the president after their meeting Monday afternoon.

“We have very large differences, on healthcare, and on their ability to undo whatever budget we agree to, through rescissions and through impoundment,” Schumer said. “I think for the first time, the president heard our objections and heard why we needed a bipartisan bill. Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input. That is never how we’ve done this before.”

“We’ve made to the president some proposals,” Schumer added. “Ultimately, he’s a decision-maker.”

Schumer faced widespread ridicule from within his party in March after reversing course during the last showdown, choosing then to support the Trump administration’s continuing resolution to fund the government at the height of an aggressive purge of the federal workforce.

At that point, Schumer feared a shutdown could accelerate the firings. But Schumer is now defiant, despite the renewed threat of layoffs, after the White House Office of Management and Budget circulated a memo last week directing federal agencies to relieve workers on discretionary projects that lose funding after Oct. 1.

“This is an attempt at intimidation,” Schumer said in response to the memo. “Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one — not to govern, but to scare. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government.”

Vice President JD Vance talks to reporters as House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune listen.

(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

Still, Schumer began gauging his caucus Monday afternoon on the prospects of a continuing resolution that would in effect delay a shutdown by a week, briefly extending government funding in order to continue negotiations.

Betting markets had chances of a shutdown soaring above 70% by the end of the day on Monday.

Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the president’s position was “the reasonable and commonsense thing to do,” calling on Democrats to continue funding to the military and its veterans.

“All we are asking for is a commonsense, clean funding resolution — a continuing resolution — to keep the government open,” Leavitt said. “This is a bill that keeps the government funded at the exact same levels as today, just adjusted for inflation.”

“So there is zero good reason for the Democrats to vote against this,” she added. “The president is giving Democrat leadership one last chance to be reasonable.”

But Jeffries dismissed Leavitt as “divorced from reality” in a podcast interview.

“In what world will any rational American conclude, after we’ve been lectured throughout the year about this so-called mandate that the Republican Party has in this country, and their complete control of government in Washington, that because Democrats are unwilling to gut the healthcare of the American people as part of the Republican healthcare crisis, that it’s us shutting the government down?” Jeffries said.

“Nobody’s buying that,” he continued, “outside of the parts of the MAGA base who basically, seemingly, will buy anything that Donald Trump has to peddle.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he would call a vote on funding the government Tuesday afternoon.

“This is purely and simply hostage-taking,” Thune said Monday. Whether it passes or fails, he said, is “up to the Democrats.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to meet with the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Monday, one day before the deadline to fund the federal government or face a shutdown.

The meeting involving the top Republican leaders, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, as well as the Democratic leaders, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, was confirmed Saturday by a White House official and two other people familiar with the planning. They were granted anonymity to discuss a meeting that has not been announced.

Trump relented after initially refusing to meet with the top Democrats.

“President Trump has once again agreed to a meeting in the Oval Office. As we have repeatedly said, Democrats will meet anywhere, at any time and with anyone to negotiate a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people,” Schumer and Jeffries, both of New York, said in a joint statement Saturday night. “We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis. Time is running out.”

The meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.

The parties have been at a standoff for days as Democrats are pushing for healthcare protections as a condition of their support for the spending plan. Senate Democrats have refused to offer the necessary votes to pass a funding measure that would keep the government open beyond Tuesday.

Absent any action, a shutdown would begin at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Democrats had secured a meeting with Trump until Republican leaders intervened and the president called it off. But Schumer spoke privately with Thune (R-S.D.) on Friday, pushing the majority leader to get a meeting with the president scheduled because of the approaching funding deadline, according to an aide to Schumer.

“As rank-and-file Democrats begin to question their leadership’s unsustainable position, Sen. Schumer is clearly getting nervous,” Ryan Wrasse, a spokesman for Thune, responded Saturday night. “There’s an easy way out, and they’ll get a chance to take it next week.”

Democrats, believing they have leverage, have insisted on key healthcare provisions in exchange for their votes. They want an extension of subsidies that help low- and middle-income earners purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Democrats are also insisting on reversing cuts to Medicaid that were included the GOP’s signature tax measure this summer.

Republicans say that those demands are nonstarters and that they are willing to have a conversation with Democrats on those issues separate from government funding talks. The GOP is asking for a straight extension of current funding for seven weeks.

Earlier last week, Johnson acknowledged he had encouraged Trump not to meet with the Democratic leaders.

“He and I talked about it at length yesterday and the day before. I said, ‘Look, when they get their job done, once they do the basic governing work of keeping the government open, as president, then you can have a meeting” with them, Johnson said on the “Mike & McCarty Show” in his home state of Louisiana. “Of course, it might be productive at that point, but right now, this is just a waste of his time.”

And Thune had said earlier in the week that he “did have a conversation with the president” and offered his opinion on the meeting, which he declined to disclose. “But I think the president speaks for himself, and I think he came to the conclusion that meeting would not be productive,” Thune said.

Democrats have expressed confidence that voters would blame Trump and Republicans for any disruptions in federal services, even though that is uncertain.

Republicans, on the other hand, had been heading toward the work week with plans in the Senate to keep showcasing Democrats’ refusal to agree to the stopgap measure, while the House GOP planned to stay away from Washington in a show of their own unwillingness to engage Democratic alternatives.

That too, came with potential political drawbacks for House Republicans, as Democrats hammered them for being, as Jeffries said, “on vacation.”

Kim and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

Like that one friend who repeatedly promises to quit drinking after just one last round, the American government is staggering toward another shutdown. It’s starting to seem inevitable — because it looks as though neither side is going to swerve in this game of chicken.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate minority leader who somehow manages to perpetually look both tired and smug, can’t afford another political retreat. He’s refusing to give Republicans another blank check, aiming instead to wring out some key concessions in exchange for a few Democratic votes to get a funding bill through the upper chamber.

The problem? President Trump, who runs the show for Republicans, views a shutdown the same way Hans Gruber viewed the FBI in “Die Hard”: as a feature, not a bug. Shuttered agencies and mass firings of federal workers aren’t obstacles; they’re leverage (and sometimes the goal itself).

Schumer can’t back down, and Trump doesn’t want to back down. That’s why the shutdown feels more imminent than the last time we flirted with one, back in March, when Schumer and Democrats folded.

In fairness, their reasoning wasn’t crazy. Trump and Elon Musk were running roughshod with their Department of Government Efficiency, and a shutdown would have only given Republicans more discretion to decide which services (Space Force, a new White House ballroom and, I don’t know, a National Strategic Spray Tan Reserve) were “essential.”

Democrats also had a plausible reason to believe that Trump’s steep “reciprocal” tariffs would wreck the economy. They reasoned that if they just kept their heads down, the president would take all the blame for the crash — a reasonable idea that fell apart when Trump pumped the brakes before careening the economy off a cliff.

Since then, Trump has engaged in a campaign of authoritarian-tinged vengeance at such an impressive pace that the Democrats’ strategy of “playing possum” seems laughably passive and utterly naive — like assuming a hurricane will just get tired and stop.

So now Democrats are thinking, “Well, things can’t get any worse if we fight back.”

(Spoiler alert: Things can always get worse.)

Still, you can’t blame Dems for drawing a line in the sand, consequences be damned. Blocking government funding is one of the only mechanisms at the disposal of a minority party to demonstrate their opposition. Moral outrage and pride practically demand it.

Why help bankroll a government led by a man who doesn’t negotiate in good faith and seems intent on bulldozing democracy itself?

Why be complicit in normalizing — and funding! — Trump’s abnormal behavior?

Unfortunately, most voters don’t care about democracy in the abstract, and even fewer care about the inner workings of Congress. They care about kitchen-table issues.

So Democrats are trying to marry their righteous fury with something more practical and concrete — casting the shutdown as a battle to extend Obamacare subsidies and undo GOP Medicaid cuts.

If you’re keeping score, the opposition party is now trying to portray this looming shutdown as being about multiple things. And anyone who’s ever cracked a marketing textbook knows, that’s a fraught strategy. Dare I say “doomed”? If you can’t stay on one message, your opponent will control the narrative — meaning Republicans will blame the fallout on obstructionist Democrats.

Republicans have a simpler pitch that could almost fit on a bumper sticker: “We just want to keep things funded at the current level, plus toss in a little extra security for lawmakers.”

Which message will prevail? Who will take the blame if the government shuts down and Americans are suffering in myriad ways? Democrats say that Republicans control everything, so the buck stops with them. Republicans will say the Senate requires 60 votes and Democrats are withholding support to score political points. It’s not a slam dunk for either party. The American people just want the government to function, and neither side is making that easy.

You really have to squint to imagine a scenario where Dems could honestly declare “mission accomplished” when this is all over. Still, there is a growing sense that it’s better to go down fighting, even if you’re destined to lose (which they might be).

But make no mistake, a shutdown is very likely happening. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives isn’t even set to return to Washington until Wednesday (the day the government could be shuttered).

Meanwhile, Trump abruptly canceled negotiations with Democratic leaders, citing “the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats.”

The good news: We’re not talking about the debt ceiling or a possible government default; it’s just a government shutdown (something that has happened many times already). Social Security checks will still arrive. Federal workers will eventually get paid. Parks will close. Life will stagger on.

And so, barring some deus ex machina, we slouch toward another shutdown: a bureaucratic farce that everyone can see coming a mile away. It accomplishes nothing productive, yet feels destined to happen — like the “Austin Powers” slow-motion steamroller gag, except stretched out over weeks, costing billions of dollars and hurting millions of lives.

We’ve seen this movie before. We’re the ones being flattened.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump has abruptly canceled this week’s planned meeting with congressional Democratic leaders, refusing to negotiate over their demands to shore up health care funds as part of a deal to prevent a potential federal government shutdown.

In a lengthy Tuesday social media post, Trump rejected the sit-down the White House had agreed to the day before. It would have been the first time the Republican president met with the Democratic Party’s leaders, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, since his return to the White House.

“I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive,” Trump wrote in the post.

The president complained the Democrats “are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States” unless the Republicans agree to more funding on health care for various groups of people he has criticized. Trump did not close the door on a future sit-down with the Democratic leaders, but he warned of a “long and brutal slog” ahead unless Democrats dropped their demands to salvage health care funds.

Earlier Tuesday, Schumer and Jeffries had issued a joint statement saying that after “weeks of Republican stonewalling” the president had agreed to meet in the Oval Office. But after the Republican president canceled the meeting, the Democratic leaders accused him of throwing a tantrum and running away. Jeffries posted on X that “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

“Donald Trump just cancelled a high stakes meeting in the Oval Office with myself and Leader Schumer,” Jeffries wrote on X. “The extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America.”

In a post on X directed at Trump, Schumer said Democrats will sit down and discuss health care “when you’re finished ranting.”

Schumer said Trump “is running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there” and would “rather throw a tantrum than do his job.”

With Congress at a stalemate, the government is headed toward a federal shutdown next week, Oct. 1, if the House and the Senate are unable to approve the legislation needed to fund offices and services into the new fiscal year. Lawmakers left town amid the logjam, and they are not due back until Sept. 29.

Trump has been unafraid of shutting down the government and, during his first term, was president over the nation’s longest federal closure, during the 2018-19 holiday season, when he was pushing Congress to provide funds for his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The president insisted over the weekend that essential services, including for veterans, would remain open.

Republicans, who have the majority in both the House and the Senate, have been trying to avoid a shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson led passage late last week of a temporary funding measure, which would have kept government offices running into November while talks get underway.

That’s the typical way to buy time during funding fights, but the measure failed in the Senate. Democrats refused to support the stopgap bill because it did not include their priorities of health care funds. A Democratic proposal, with the health care money restored, was defeated by Senate Republicans.

Schumer and Jeffries have demanded a meeting with Trump to work out a compromise, but the Republican president has been reluctant to enter talks and instructed GOP leaders on Capitol Hill not to negotiate with the Democrats.

Thursday’s scheduled meeting would have potentially set up a showdown at the White House, reminiscent of the 2018 funding fight when Trump led an explosive public session with Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Democrats are working to protect health care programs. The Democratic proposal would extend enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, plus reverse Medicaid cuts that were included in Republicans’ big tax breaks and spending cuts bill enacted earlier this year.

Republicans have said the Democrats’ demands to reverse the Medicaid changes are a nonstarter, but they have also said there is time to address the health insurance subsidy issue in the months ahead.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press.

Sept. 23 (UPI) — President Donald Trump canceled a planned meeting with Democratic congressional leaders to prevent a government shutdown Tuesday.

Trump planned to meet this week with the two as a Sept. 30 funding deadline to keep the government open nears. He was expected to meet with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Thursday.

But Tuesday, he posted on Truth Social that he’d canceled the meeting because he didn’t like the list of Democrats’ demands, which he painted as “Radical Left Policies that nobody voted for– High Taxes, Open Borders, No Consequences for Violent Criminals, Men in Women’s Sports, Taxpayer funded ‘TRANSGENDER’ surgery, and much more.”

Earlier Tuesday, Jeffries and Schumer said in a statement they planned to use the meeting to “emphasize the importance of addressing rising costs, including the Republican healthcare crisis. It’s past time to meet and work to avoid a Republican-caused shutdown,” they said.

Republicans want a “clean” seven-week stopgap spending bill, while Democrats introduced a measure that would keep the government open for four weeks while attaching other demands, Politico reported.

In a post on X, Jeffries responded to the cancellation by saying, “Trump Always Chickens Out,” referring to the acronym TACO, which he coined. He added that “extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America.”

One of the biggest sticking points is healthcare. Democrats are demanding any resolution include an extension of the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Schumer said on X, “Happy New Year, Mr. President [referring to Rosh Hashanah]. When you’re finished ranting, we can sit down and discuss healthcare.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Tuesday that if a meeting happened, he would insist on attending.

“If there’s a meeting, I will certainly be there,” Johnson said. “But I’m not certain that the meeting is necessary.”

Sept. 20 (UPI) — Democratic Party leaders Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer on Saturday demanded that President Donald Trump meet with them to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1.

The Senate on Friday failed to pass a House-approved budget extension, which Jeffries and Schumer, both of New York, say means the president must deal with them to prevent a shutdown.

“It is now your obligation to meet with us directly to keep the government open and address the Republican health care crisis,” they said in a joint letter to Trump on Saturday.

“We do not understand why you prefer to shut down the government rather than protect the health care and quality of life of the American people,” they wrote.

Jeffries and Schumer are the minority party leaders in the Senate and House, respectively, and have insisted that the fiscal year 2026 budget include an extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.

The subsidies are scheduled to expire, along with the fiscal year 2025 budget, on Oct. 1.

Jeffries and Schumer said Republican leaders in the House and Senate have repeatedly refused to negotiate to overcome a potential Senate filibuster by Democrats, which would require 60 votes, NPR reported.

Senate Democrats proposed an alternative budget extension bill on Friday, which also failed to muster enough votes.

Jeffries and Schumer said a government shutdown could occur because Republicans refuse to talk with Democrats on the matter.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Friday denied excluding Democrats from budget negotiations.

“The House has just passed a short-term, clean, non-partisan continuing resolution to fund the government for a few additional weeks while we continue bipartisan work on appropriations bills,” Thune, R-S.D., said on the Senate floor.

He said congressional Democrats voted 13 times to shut down the federal government during the Biden administration and won’t “gain political points from shutting down the government over a clean, non-partisan continuing resolution.”

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer weathered backlash from Democrats earlier this year when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open. But he’s now willing to risk a shutdown at the end of the month if Republicans don’t accede to Democratic demands.

Schumer says he and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries are united in opposing any legislation that doesn’t include key healthcare provisions and a commitment not to roll them back. He argues that the country is in a different place than it was in March, when he vigorously argued against a shutdown, and he says he believes Republicans and President Trump will be held responsible if they don’t negotiate a bipartisan deal.

“Things have changed” since the March vote, Schumer said in an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday. He said Republicans have since passed Trump’s massive tax breaks and spending cuts legislation, which trimmed Medicaid and other government programs, and Democrats are now unified — unlike in March, when he voted with Republicans and Jeffries voted against the legislation to fund the government.

A shutdown, Schumer said, wouldn’t necessarily worsen an environment in which Trump is already challenging the authority of Congress. “It will get worse with or without it, because Trump is lawless,” Schumer said.

Democrats’ consequential decision

Schumer’s threat comes as Republicans are considering a short-term stopgap spending measure to avoid a Sept. 30 shutdown and as Democrats face what most see as two tough choices if the parties can’t negotiate a deal — vote with Republicans to keep the government open or let it close indefinitely with no clear exit plan.

It also comes amid worsening partisan tensions in the Senate, where negotiations between the two parties over the confirmation process broke down for a second time on Thursday and Republicans are changing Senate rules to get around Democratic objections to almost all of Trump’s nominees. Democrats are also fuming over the Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally claw back $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid just as negotiations over the spending deadline were getting underway in late August.

Republicans move ahead

Republicans say that Democrats clearly will be to blame if they don’t vote to keep the government open.

Trump said Friday to not “even bother” negotiating with Democrats. He said Republicans will likely put together a continuing resolution to keep funding the federal government.

“If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it,” Trump said, adding “we will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), said in an interview with Punchbowl News on Thursday that he believes Democrats see it as “politically advantageous” to have a shutdown.

“But they don’t have a good reason to do it,” Thune said in the interview. “And I don’t intend to give them a good reason to do it.”

Thune has repeatedly said that Schumer needs to approach Republicans with a specific proposal on healthcare, including an extension of expanded government tax credits for many Americans who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Some Republicans are open to extending those credits before they expire at the end of the year, but Thune has indicated that he is unlikely to add an extension to a short-term spending bill, instead favoring a “clean” stopgap for several weeks without any divisive issues while Congress finishes its budget legislation.

Schumer said he believes his caucus is ready to oppose the stopgap measure if Republicans don’t negotiate it with Democrats. “I think the overwhelming majority of our caucus, with a few exceptions, and same with the House, would vote against that,” he said.

Less realistic is Democrats’ demand that Republicans roll back Medicaid cuts enacted in their tax breaks and spending cuts legislation this summer, what Trump called his “big, beautiful bill.”

Escalating partisan tensions over spending

Schumer said Democrats also want Republicans to commit that the White House won’t take back money they have negotiated and Congress has approved after Republicans pushed through a $9-billion cut requested by the White House in July and Trump blocked the additional foreign aid money in August. “How do you pass an appropriations bill and let them undo it down the road?” Schumer said.

Congress is facing the funding deadline Sept. 30 because Republicans and Democrats are still working out their differences on several annual budget bills. Intractable partisan differences on an increasing number of issues have stalled those individual bills in recent years, forcing lawmakers to pass one large omnibus package at the end of the year or simply vote to continue current spending.

A shutdown means federal agencies will stop all actions deemed nonessential, and millions of federal employees, including members of the military, won’t receive paychecks. The most recent shutdown — and the longest ever — was during Trump’s first term in 2018 and into 2019, when he demanded money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. It lasted 35 days.

Schumer’s March vote

Schumer’s move to support the spending legislation in March put him in the rare position of bucking his party’s base. He said then that of two bad options, a partial government shutdown was worse because it would give Trump even more control to lay off workers and there would be “no offramp” to get out of it. “I think people realize it’s a tough choice,” he said.

He faced massive backlash from within the party after the vote, with some activists calling on him to resign. Jeffries temporarily distanced himself from his New York colleague, saying in a statement immediately after Schumer’s vote that House Democrats “will not be complicit.” The majority of Senate Democrats also voted against the GOP spending legislation.

This time, though, Schumer is in lockstep with Jeffries and in messaging within his caucus. In Democrats’ closed-door lunch Wednesday, he shared polling that he said suggested most Americans would blame Trump, not Democrats, for a shutdown.

“I did what I thought was right” in March, Schumer said. “It’s a different situation now than then.”

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Christopher Megerian contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are taking the first steps to change the chamber’s rules on Thursday, making it easier to confirm groups of President Trump’s nominees and overcome Democratic delays.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s move is the latest salvo after a dozen years of gradual changes by both parties to weaken the filibuster and make the nominations process more partisan. He has said the Democrats’ obstruction is “unsustainable” as they have drawn out the confirmation process and infuriated Trump as many positions in his administration have remained unfilled.

Opening up the Senate, Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said that the delays have prevented the Senate from spending time on legislative business.

“We’re going to fix this today, and restore the longtime Senate precedent of expeditious confirmation, and the Senate’s role as first and foremost a legislative body,” Thune said.

Republicans are taking a series of procedural votes Thursday on a group of 48 of Trump’s nominees, and are expected to vote to “overturn the chair,” or change the rules, which takes a simple majority vote. If all goes according to their plan, the nominees — undersecretaries and staff positions for various agencies across the government as well as several ambassadors — could be confirmed by next week.

The rules change effort comes as both parties have obstructed the other’s nominees for years, and as both Republicans and Democrats have advocated speeding the process when they are in the majority. The Republican rules change stops short of speeding up votes on high-level Cabinet officials and lifetime judicial appointments, and it is loosely based on a proposal from Democrats under President Biden.

Republicans have been pushing the rules change since early August, when the Senate left for a monthlong recess after a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations over the confirmation process and Trump told Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer to “GO TO HELL!” on social media.

Democrats have blocked more nominees than ever before as they have struggled to find ways to oppose Trump and the GOP-dominated Congress, and as their voters have pushed them to fight Republicans at every turn. It’s the first time in recent history that the minority party hasn’t allowed at least some quick confirmations.

Schumer has said Democrats are delaying the nominations because Trump’s nominees are “historically bad.”

“If you don’t debate nominees, if you don’t vote on individual nominees, if there’s not some degree of sunlight, what will stop Donald Trump from nominating even worse individuals than we’ve seen to date, knowing this chamber will rubber stamp anything he wishes?” Schumer said Monday.

Schumer told Republicans that they will “come to regret” their action — echoing a similar warning from GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 2013, when Democrats changed Senate rules for executive branch and lower-court judicial nominees to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirmations. At the time, Republicans were blocking President Obama’s picks.

Republicans took the Senate majority a year later, and McConnell eventually did the same for Supreme Court nominees in 2017 as Democrats tried to block Trump’s nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“I say to my Republican colleagues, think carefully before taking this step,” Schumer said.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press.

Democrats have to change their ways. Ideally yesterday.

The Democratic Party is the pro-government party, simply speaking, and Republicans the antigovernment party. Democrats want to make the government work for people. Trump-era Republicans might as well wear knock-offs of Melania Trump’s old “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket. For three decades, as actual and threatened government shutdowns have become routine for Washington funding fights, it’s generally been Republicans who’ve provoked them. For Democrats, shutting down the government goes completely against their brand, against their very DNA.

But what are Democrats to do when the federal government is wholly run by Republicans — in Congress, the executive branch and even the Supreme Court — acting in thrall to a president who in eight months has transformed that government into a plaything for his whims, compulsion for chaos, personal enrichment and political retribution?

What to do when the government has stripped states, cities, universities and federal programs of funding Congress appropriated by law for teaching grants, healthcare, scientific research and so much more, and fired hundreds of thousands of public employees without cause, including federal prosecutors, military lawyers and inspectors general who might blow the whistle on administration lawlessness?

What to do when the government sends masked federal agents to seize people, without warrants, and disappear them into unmarked cars (with at least the temporary, precedent-breaking blessing this week of the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority)?

Do Democrats in Congress vote to keep that government running?

That’s the question they face this month as government funding expires with the fiscal year on Sept. 30: Do enough Democrats give Republicans the votes they need in the Senate to keep the Trump train running on Oct. 1 and beyond?

Despite all that is wrong with that track, the answer to whether to keep going isn’t a simple “Hell, no.”

Shutting down the government hurts Americans who work for it, who receive benefits or need information from it, who visit national parks and veterans’ hospitals — people Democrats seek to help. A shutdown further empowers the president, who gets to decide what’s essential and can stay open. A shutdown hurts the economy in the short term. And as Republicans of the past can attest, a shutdown usually exacts a political price for the party that’s blamed for it.

For all those reasons, when Congress last had to vote to fund the government in March, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York led a small group of fellow Democratic senators in acquiescing to Republicans’ package. Democrats in the House and the party’s voter base erupted in fury. Morale tanked among Democrats spoiling for a fight, and with it the party’s standing in polls.

All but one House Democrat opposed the March funding bill, but the Republican majority narrowly passed it. Under Senate rules, however, the slim Republican majority couldn’t go it alone; they needed a few Democratic votes to reach a 60-vote supermajority and avoid a filibuster. It’s practically the only leverage Democrats have in Donald Trump’s Washington. In March they didn’t use it.

This time should be different.

I say that as someone who reluctantly supported Schumer’s decision six months ago, even as I and many others were infuriated by his ham-handed execution: his party’s lack of a message against the earlier spending bill, Schumer’s mixed signals and then his eleventh-hour surrender. It was because of Democrats’ message-less morass that I supported his action: because Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries hadn’t made the Democrats’ case ahead of time so that the party could win a shutdown showdown with Republicans in the court of public opinion.

It might already be too late, with less than three weeks before a new fiscal year, but the Senate and House Democrats must prepare their ground and take a stand. It’s a bad sign that they’re only now huddling, that they weren’t ready with a message and strategy when Congress finally returned after Labor Day from its August recess or, better yet, before Congress left.

But here we are, and now the Democrats should do two things:

First, they must demand that Republicans finally negotiate with them. Outline concise conditions for getting any Democrat’s vote on a government funding bill, whether it’s a stopgap measure to buy more bargaining time or a longer-term bill. Show Americans what Democrats are for, not just that they’re against President Trump. Harp daily on the Democratic demands — say, restoration of healthcare money that was slashed to pay for Republicans’ tax cuts; extension of expiring Obamacare tax credits for lower- and middle-income workers; less money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and more for local police. And elevate new, younger Democrats to spread the word — like first-term Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who tweeted on Monday, as party leaders were still noodling: “If the President wants my vote, he has to negotiate. One place to start is to walk back cuts to health care.”

Second, when Trump and the Republicans inevitably don’t compromise — the president has never met with the Democratic leaders since he took office, and his pre-recess message to Schumer in a social media post was “GO TO HELL” — then Democrats should vote no on funding the government. And hold their ground during a shutdown, even as pressure builds when federal offices close and services lapse.

Senate Democrats’ leverage on spending bills is pointless if Democrats don’t use it. Yes, Schumer was correct in March when he defensively wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the victims of a government shutdown are “the most vulnerable Americans” and communities. But the six months since then have shown that, under Trump, the vulnerable are suffering anyway — as he shutters more and more of the government and the innocent are swept up in, or live in fear of, his dragnets. If Democrats can alter that picture, even a little, a temporary shutdown is worth it.

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