With less than thirty six hours until the government shuts down, President Donald J. Trump is scheduled to meet with the top four congressional leaders Monday in a high-stakes sit-down at the White House that could determine whether the federal government shuts down this week. Funding is set to run out at 12:01 A.M. Wednesday unless President Trump and four leaders on Capitol Hill can reach an eleventh-hour agreement. The Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both of New York, as well as their Republican counterparts, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, are expected to attend the 2 PM meeting which will be the first time Leader Schumer and President Trump will speak since the president’s second inauguration on January 20th, and it will be the first time the president and Hakeem Jeffries have actually met in person.
Democrats have taken a hard line on demanding an extension of billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidies in exchange for the necessary Democratic votes in the Senate to pass a clean government funding bill, and the two leaders have been united going into Monday’s meeting, issuing a joint statement on Saturday saying, “We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis.” The bitter stalemate between President Trump and Democrats has been building for months, with the party watching as the GOP slashed Medicaid to pay for tax cuts, deployed US troops to police blue cities, trample over Congress’s own spending authority and now, use the Department of Justice to go after political enemies like former FBI Director James Comey.
Senate Republicans control 53 seats and they would need at least eight Democratic votes to avoid a shutdown; Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said he will vote against the funding measure because it prolongs Biden-era spending levels. The Senate rejected both the House-passed extension and a separate Democratic plan that would permanently extend Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year and reverse Medicaid cuts enacted in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” If a last-minute deal is unexpectedly reached today, Speaker Johnson would need to call House members back to Washington on short notice to keep the government’s lights on. Although the House is out of session, Leader Jeffries has asked House Democrats to return to Washington on Monday evening to show they are working to solve the impasse.
The Senate is scheduled to reconvene at 3:00 P.M. and will take up a Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #425 Michael G. Waltz, of Florida, to be Representative of the United States of America to the Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations during his tenure of service as Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations. The Senate will then take up the Motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to Calendar #161, S.2806, to provide for automatic continuing appropriations.
The House is now not scheduled to be in session this week.
