A government shutdown early Wednesday morning appears all but inevitable after congressional leaders left a high-stakes Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump without any semblance of a deal Monday.
There were, however, hints of a possible off-ramp as lawmakers careen toward the spending cliff: Trump administration officials for the first time opened the door to possible bipartisan negotiations over an extension of soon-to-expire health insurance subsidies — a key Democratic demand.
“Let’s work on it together,” Vice President JD Vance said, while insisting any talks would have to happen in the “context of an open government.”
Trump himself expressed openness to talking about the subsidies, said two people granted anonymity to discuss the meeting because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly. But they, like Vance, said a shutdown would impede those talks.
“They need to do the right thing, keep the government open, and then we can talk about it,” one of them said.
Democrats, however, said nebulous promises of future negotiations would not suffice, and aides from both parties said there were no further plans to meet on a bipartisan basis on a leadership or staff level before the Tuesday midnight deadline.
“We think when they say ‘later,’ they mean ‘never,’” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters after the meeting. “We have to do it now.”
“To kick the can down the road and expect us to take a Hail Mary promise, that’s unreasonable,” added House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Leaving the White House, Schumer and Jeffries both said it was essential for Congress to address what they called a GOP health care “crisis” — a reference to recent Medicaid cuts and the expiring subsidies, which could lead to drastically higher premiums for about 20 million Americans who buy insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges.
“Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input,” he added, referring to a House-passed seven-week stopgap funding bill that Senate Democrats rejected earlier this month. “That is never how we’ve done this before.”
Republicans, meanwhile, pinned blame on Democrats for rejecting a “clean” stopgap and holding government agencies “hostage” for unrelated policy demands.
“I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” Vance said. “You don’t use your policy disagreements as leverage.”
Another person granted anonymity to describe the closed-door meeting said it was a “frank discussion” but that the two sides were “too far apart” at this point. “There’s no way right now” to avoid a shutdown, the person added.
Trump himself cast doubt on the prospects for a deal ahead of the meeting, telling reporters Democrats would “have to do some things because their ideas are not very good ones.” His only statement after the meeting was a short, profane, AI-generated video posted to his Truth Social account depicting Jeffries wearing a Mexican sombrero and Schumer saying, “If we give all these illegal aliens health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us.”
Still, some GOP officials have sensed that Trump would prefer to avoid a shutdown. He reversed course and took the meeting with Schumer and Jeffries after canceling an earlier scheduled meeting at the behest of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who have sought to toe a hard line.
Schumer said there was a “possible division” between Trump and GOP leaders in the meeting over the insurance subsidies. He also claimed Trump agreed that he would bear the political burden for a shutdown — which is not the message Johnson and Thune have sent.
“I said, ‘You know, the president gets the blame for this stuff,’” Schumer said. “He admitted that.”
A person briefed on the meeting and granted anonymity to describe it denied Schumer’s claim. Trump, the person said, told lawmakers that presidents are normally blamed but that he wouldn’t be in this case.
Thune denied any divisions among the three top Republicans. “I think Schumer is desperate to change the subject,” he said.
“President Trump gave Chuck Schumer and the Democrats an opportunity to agree on a common sense, nonpartisan solution that would keep the government funded and open,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have unfortunately chosen to pick a partisan fight and shut the government down.”
Monday’s sitdown was the first time Trump has held a formal meeting with the top Democratic leaders since he was sworn in for a second term in January. It’s also the first time they have spoken at all about government funding in that time.
Leading up to the meeting, Schumer and Jeffries struck different tones about what would be an acceptable solution to the shutdown standoff. Jeffries staked out a hard line on health care, saying any agreement needed to “ironclad and in legislation” and suggesting any kind of handshake agreement to continue negotiating would not be enough. Schumer was more circumspect, telling reporters on Monday “we’re ready to get to work. It’s about time.”
While Democrats have insisted health care be part of government funding negotiations, particularly the extension of the premium tax credits, Republicans have treaded carefully on the issue, insisting they be dealt with separately from the pending shutdown fight.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader, said a commitment from GOP leaders to work on extending the tax credits would be a “real mark of progress.”
“Whether it’s enough” to avoid a shutdown, he added, “I can’t say.”
Even agreeing to ACA talks as part of an deal to avert a shutdown could be perilous for GOP leaders, who have scores of conservatives in their ranks who oppose any extension of the subsides.
“Most of our guys would lose their minds,” said a senior House GOP aide involved in the talks. Already some hard-liner backlash was evident Monday, with one House Republican calling any continuation of the subsidies “a nonstarter” and another saying Trump needed to “hold the line” and that anything less than a full sunset “would be a mistake.”
Thune confirmed before leaving for the White House that the Senate will vote on Tuesday on the House-passed continuing resolution that would fund the government until Nov. 21, buying lawmakers more time to negotiate full-year appropriations bills and reach a potential deal on the insurance subsidies.
“It is totally up to the Democrats because right now, they are the only thing standing between the American people and the government shutting down,” Thune said.
Democrats rejected the GOP-led stopgap earlier this month, and if they reject it a second time, Thune is expected to tee it back up for another vote. Republicans are also looking at other procedural steps they could take to squeeze Democrats during a shutdown.
Senate Democrats are privately discussing multiple options for how to get out of a shutdown and keep pressure on Republicans to come to the table on the insurance subsidies, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose internal discussions.
Senate Democrats can also force a re-vote on their proposal that would extend funding through Oct. 31 and would reverse $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid from the GOP’s recent domestic policy megabill, along with a permanent extension of the health insurance subsidies.
It would also restrict the president’s authority to claw back congressionally approved funding, addressing Democratic frustrations over the Trump administration’s recent moves to reverse bipartisan spending bills. Further vexing Democrats was White House budget chief Russ Vought’s threat last week to engage in mass firings of federal workers in case of a shutdown.
Asked if an agreement to keep talking is the best Democrats can reasonably expect, Durbin said, “I’m not going to go into that. I’m just going to say if we’re not sitting down talking about ending this responsibly and helping people deal with health care, it’s going to be a rocky road.”
