Congress is locked in a staring contest with less than 48 hours until the government shuts down. There’s no sign either side plans to blink.
The standoff is raising the odds that agencies will at least partially shutter for the first time since 2019, when President Donald Trump backed down from a record 34-day shutdown sparked by his demands for a border wall. Congressional leaders each insist they don’t want to barrel past the Sept. 30 deadline Tuesday night, but they are quickly running out of time to find a mutually agreeable off-ramp.
A make-or-break moment will come Monday afternoon, when Trump will meet with the top four congressional leaders at the White House. The sitdown, rescheduled after Trump abruptly cancelled a prior meeting set with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries last week, is the most significant development yet in the weeks-long stalemate.
But after spending the past week hardening their positions and trading social media barbs, all corners are offering the same cautious note: The meeting could provide a path for a last-minute U-turn away from a shutdown, or — more likely — it could all be a mirage that sends Washington careening over the funding cliff on Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a statement ahead of the meeting that “fundamentally, nothing has changed.” He said, however, he hoped Schumer “sees the light and listens to the same voice” that led him and nine other Democrats to vote to avoid a shutdown under similar circumstances back in March.
Schumer and Jeffries, in a joint statement, put the onus on Republicans: “We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis. Time is running out.”
There are other signs that each side is preparing for conflict, not detente. In a bid to exert maximum pressure on the Senate, House Republicans do not plan on returning to session until after the government funding deadline — and could stay out of town through next week, too. Senate Republicans are likely to wait until Tuesday to vote again on the House-passed stopgap bill that would float federal operations through Nov. 21, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Democrats, who have already rejected that punt, are so far uncowed. Jeffries is recalling his caucus to Washington Monday evening for a caucus meeting — and to hammer Speaker Mike Johnson over his decision to not bring the House back. Schumer, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” crowed that the White House meeting was a sign that Republicans are feeling the “heat” but that if Trump uses it to “rant” and “yell at Democrats,” the visit will amount to nothing.
Trump did just that ahead of his last shutdown, in a December 2018 Oval Office meeting. At that time, he gave Democrats a political gift when he publicly took responsibility for closing agencies over his border security demands. So far he hasn’t given a repeat performance. He called Democrats “crazy” Friday and said if the government closes “they’re the ones that are shutting down.”
White House officials now insist Trump will pressure Schumer during the Monday meeting to swallow the GOP-led stopgap without making a deal — at least not right now — on any of Democrats’ health care demands.
Some Republicans remain hopeful that a shutdown can be averted by enough Democrats agreeing to help advance the GOP bill like they did in March. But if not, they warn, Trump will make a shutdown politically painful for Democrats, since the president has wide latitude to determine what agencies and programs shutter and which stay open.
“I’d be much more worried if I was a blue state,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), noting Trump gets to “determine what’s essential.”
White House budget director Russ Vought fired his own warning shot last week, instructing agencies to put together plans for reductions-in-force, or mass firings, that would go well beyond the furloughs otherwise typical of shutdowns.
The Trump administration is seeking to shield Republican lawmakers as much as possible from potential political blowback, but many are worried all the same about shutdown fallout in their districts. It’s unlikely the administration will be able to completely protect key GOP constituencies. Closure plans for agencies aren’t yet finalized, according to three Trump officials, with one adding, “I think it all hinges on [Monday’s] meeting.”
Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) said Friday he’s most concerned about keeping a complex patchwork of federal farm loans and USDA services flowing to farmers should government funding lapse — right before the heart of harvest season. The White House is weighing plans to keep county Farm Service Agency offices open and other agriculture resources available, according to three other Trump officials. But the current system is fragile, meaning any disruption could delay loans and resources for farmers who are already reeling from the financial toll of Trump’s tariffs.
And Smith acknowledged that Democratic constituencies might not get the same treatment from the federal bureaucracy, adding that Trump has “expanded authority during the shutdown.”
Democrats have so far brushed off those threats, believing that the White House would continue to try to shrink the size of the federal workforce regardless of whether or not there was a shutdown. They are ultimately betting that Republicans — as the party holding the White House and majorities in both congressional chambers — will bear the brunt of any political fallout.
Jeffries rallied House Democrats in a teleconferenced Friday afternoon caucus meeting, where participants aired no dissent with their leadership’s focus on health care as the deadline looms, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the off-the-record phone call.
At the heart of the Democratic demands are Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies that were expanded in 2021 under former President Joe Biden. Some Republicans, including many vulnerable incumbents, believe the beefed-up credits should be extended past the current year-end expiration date. That idea is drawing fierce pushback from hard-line conservatives, several of whom warned their leadership over the weekend not to cut a deal on the subsidies.
There’s already multiple Republican proposals for how to keep the tax credits going past Dec. 31 and spare a likely premium hike that would result in millions losing health insurance. One group of House Republicans is backing a clean, one-year extension. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has proposed a two-year extension as part of a stand-alone bill or a shorter one-year extension tied to funding the government.
A group of Senate Republicans is also working with senior White House officials and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz as they craft a proposal that would include new restrictions meant to appeal to conservatives and, hopefully, Trump.
Thune reiterated in an NBC News interview that aired Sunday that Republicans are willing to negotiate over extending the insurance subsidies but not as part of the pending government funding fight. The Senate leader added that the subsidies will need to be changed to win GOP votes, potentially through new income limits or language to prevent potential fraud.
Complicating matters is that House and Senate Democrats haven’t articulated a unified position on what specifically they would need in order to back the GOP-led stopgap funding bill.
Jeffries staked out a new position last week when he declared that not only did any spending agreement have to involve health care, but also that such an agreement had to be “ironclad and in legislation.” That appears to close off the possibility that an off-ramp might be found if Republicans only agreed to open talks on a health care compromise with a later-in-the-year deadline, as a condition of Democrats agreeing to the current Republican plan to keep the government running.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have unified behind one simple principle — that Republicans have to at least talk to Democrats if they want their votes. That radio silence broke on Friday when Schumer called Thune to encourage him to set up the White House meeting. The call, first reported by POLITICO, is a glimmer of outreach between the two leaders that senators had privately been hoping for.
Schumer said in the “Meet the Press” interview Sunday that Democrats “need a serious negotiation,” leaving himself options for what specifically would generate a shutdown-avoiding breakthrough. Other top Senate Democrats have sent similar signals in recent days.
“We never said that we had to have every single thing and everything is a red line,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, told reporters Friday, adding that she wasn’t going to negotiate through a Zoom call.
“I’m glad that [Thune’s] willing to talk, but … simply promises that maybe will happen with Donald Trump?” she continued. “My guess is Senator Schumer will say, I need something more specific here.”
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