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Washington is still on the same course it was taking before Monday’s big White House meeting: headed straight into a government shutdown at midnight on Wednesday.
The first sit-down between President Donald Trump and congressional leaders in both parties didn’t last long, and participants left sticking to their messages.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the onus was on Democrats to accept their stopgap spending bill, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said they wouldn’t cave in their drive for extended health care subsidies.
“They come in here and say: ‘If you don’t give us everything we want, we’re going to shut down the government.’ We think it’s preposterous,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters afterward. “I think we’re headed to a shutdown.”
Some members of Congress are still holding out hope for a breakthrough on Tuesday, the last day before the funding lapse, but there’s little sign of one — even though a significant number of Republicans are interested in keeping health care premiums from spiking in the coming weeks as pandemic-era health care benefits come closer to expiration.
The GOP on Monday rejected Democrats’ drive for a negotiation on health care. Thune called Democrats’ demands “hostage-taking” after the meeting at the White House.
Democrats seem to think they’re in a winning position on an issue where their party polls better than their opponents; Jeffries said the party is “deadly serious.” Schumer asserted that Trump, told about the forecasted premium spikes during Monday’s meeting, “seemed for the first time to understand the magnitude of this crisis.”
“It seemed from his body language and some of the things he said that he was not aware of the ramifications,” Schumer told reporters later.
“When we made these arguments [about health care costs], it was clear there was a division, or a possible division, between the president and the two Republican leaders,” Schumer added. “The Republican leaders … just wanted to kick the health care problem down the road. … Now we know why they didn’t want him to meet with us.”
White House officials previously told Semafor they’re open to discussions about reviving health care tax credits, a sticking point for Democrats, but insist it won’t happen on this spending bill.
Thune reiterated to reporters after the brief White House meeting that the entire Republican Party is united in seeking a deal now on nothing but government funding until Nov. 21.
As for health care, Thune told reporters, “we can’t even have that discussion until we keep the government open.” His party, he added, is “all on the same page.”
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Back on Capitol Hill, the mood is dour and fatalistic. Senate Republican leaders are expected to hold another vote on the House-passed spending bill on Tuesday, but Democrats said they would reject it absent some big change in Republicans’ posture.
For instance, some Democrats indicated they could be open to funding the government with simply a commitment from Thune to extend health care subsidies in the coming days.
“It would be a real mark of progress. I hope that’s considered by him. That’s progress, as far as I’m concerned; whether it’s enough, I can’t say,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “If we’re not sitting down talking about ending this responsibility and helping people deal with health care, it’s going to be a rocky road.”
Republicans have no intention of throwing Democrats a lifeline beyond the seven-week spending bill that the House already passed. Senate Democrats have discussed offering shorter-term funding proposals in the event of a government shutdown, but Republicans aren’t entertaining anything beyond their initial plan right now.
“The House bill is going to be on the table. And that’s what we’re going to have a vote on,” said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo. “This is all on the Democrats, and they’re going to have to decide whether they’re going to vote for what’s on the floor or not.”
Asked about a later vote on extending the health care credits, Schumer said: “We have to do it now.”
Jeffries reiterated his demand that Republicans must put any concessions on paper: “We made clear in the meeting that any bipartisan agreement … has to have something in the legislation that makes clear to the American people that what we agree upon actually takes place.”
Any deal, Jeffries added, “can’t be subject to Republicans then undermining that agreement.”
It’s unclear what exactly that language might look like.
Notable
- Democrats have discussed the possibility of supporting a shorter spending bill in order to drive more negotiations, Axios reported.