WASHINGTON (AP) — With a government shutdown just hours away, 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 health care and spending is threatening 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 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, D-N.Y., said Republicans are trying to “bully” Democrats by refusing to negotiate on an extension of health care 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 Donald 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
Still, Schumer said Trump and Republicans would be to blame if the government shuts down.
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’ health care asks
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 health care 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.
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
But Trump did not appear to be ready for serious talks. Hours later, he posted a fake video of Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries taken from footage of their real press conference outside of 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.”
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 critical, and unusual, vote for Democrats
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.
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
Either way, most would not get 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."
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking, Matthew Brown, Darlene Superville and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.
Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking, Matthew Brown, Darlene Superville and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.