Senate Majority Leader John Thune responded tartly to his Democratic counterpart’s calls for “bipartisan negotiations” ahead of an approaching government shutdown deadline Tuesday, underscoring the posturing that has marked the process thus far.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “knows where my office is,” Thune told reporters. “Why do you guys keep asking me this?” He later added during a floor speech that Schumer “knows my number. I haven’t heard from him.”
It’s a direct retort to Schumer’s repeated calls for a “negotiation” ahead of the Sept. 30 funding deadline. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have sent letters to Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson requesting a bipartisan meeting but haven’t gotten a response.
Thune told reporters he was “happy” to meet with Schumer though he questioned the “reason” for a meeting since Republicans are planning to proceed with a “clean” short-term stopgap bill that would largely maintain current government funding levels into late November without major policy add-ons.
Still, it’s the first time since March that Thune has acknowledged a willingness to meet with Schumer on funding.
Democrats have warned that if Republicans do not include them in negotiations about funding the government that they will bear the blame for a shutdown come Oct. 1. Trump indicated in a Fox News interview last week that he believed Republicans didn’t need Democratic votes, but in the Senate it will take at least seven of them to help advance a stopgap.
“When he says out loud that he says he doesn’t need or want our votes, that means Donald Trump wants a shutdown,” Schumer said Tuesday, adding that Thune and Johnson are “doing exactly what Donald Trump wants.”
“They have refused even to sit down at the table … despite repeated requests,” Schumer added.
Schumer, in particular, is under pressure to stand up to Republicans after agreeing to advance a GOP-written continuing resolution back in March. GOP leaders are eager to run the same play again this month and test his resolve.
Inside a House GOP conference meeting Monday, influential conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) stood up to back the clean-CR plan, reminding his colleagues of Schumer’s recent comments opposing it.
So “send Chuck Schumer a clean CR,” Johnson told them.
Schumer hasn’t outlined a specific policy proposal that Democrats need to see attached to any stopgap in exchange for their votes, but he has said in general terms that health care needs to be addressed. Democrats have made expiring Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies a key area of focus.
Thune, however, reiterated Tuesday that the subsidies, which lapse Jan. 1, won’t be attached to the stopgap bill and that there’s “nothing close to ready to go” that could be finished by the end-of-the-month deadline.
“I think the ACA subsidies will be an issue that will be addressed, but I think right now we’ve got to keep the government open so we can do appropriations bills,” Thune said, adding that he believes there’s a “path” to keeping the government open and having a conversation on the subsidies.
Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters much the same Tuesday, saying “there are some Democrats pining for a shutdown” and that there was “zero chance” that Republicans would heed another emerging Democratic demand: unwinding the Medicaid cuts included in the GOP megabill passed this summer.
Schumer indirectly responded to Republicans wanting to punt the discussion of an ACA subsidies extension, saying at a health care event Tuesday that “we don’t put any faith” in the GOP’s willingness to deal with the issue later.
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