President Trump traded blamed with congressional Democrats on Tuesday as the clock ticked down to a near-certain government shutdown starting early Wednesday morning.
With no talks or a deal in sight, the nation looked set to be plunged into the first shutdown in seven years, one that would suspend non-essential federal services and force thousands of federal workers onto unpaid furloughs or worse.
A shutdown will start at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday unless the Senate dramatically shifts course and votes to extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills.
Senate Democrats say they won’t provided the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster unless Republicans agree to an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands.
Trump and his fellow Republicans say they won’t negotiate, arguing that it’s a “clean” spending extension bill that should be noncontroversial.
Neither side was signaling any chance they will blink before the deadline.
“Republicans have until midnight tonight to get serious with us,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, said.
Trump shrugged off Democratic resistance.
“They lost the election in a landslide, and they don’t change,” Trump said.
Trump posted a fake, mocking video of Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who was depicted wearing a sombrero and a Latino-style mustache, a reference to false GOP claims that Democrats want to give more benefits to undocumented immigrants.
Jeffries called it a “racist and fake AI video.”
The bipartisan meeting at the White House on Monday was Trump’s first with Democratic leaders in Congress since returning to power in January.
But Trump made it clear he had little interest in substantive negotiations and the meeting broke up quickly.
Schumer said Trump “was not aware” of the potential for health insurance costs to skyrocket once expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits expire Dec. 31.
Congress enacted the subsidies in place in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats want the subsidies extended. They have also demanded that Republicans reverse the harsh 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.
The stakes are huge for federal workers across the country as the White House ordered agencies to consider “a reduction in force” for many federal programs if the government shuts down.
“We may do a lot” of layoffs,” Trump said.
