Republican and Democratic leaders left a meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday without reaching an agreement to prevent a looming government shutdown.
The hourlong talks at the White House were aimed at finding a compromise to keep the government funded, but both sides remained firm in their positions as the deadline draws closer.
Vice President JD Vance said after the meeting, “I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing. I hope they change their mind.”
“If you look at the original they did with this negotiation, it was a $1.5 trillion spending package, basically saying the American people want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of billions of dollars to illegal aliens for their health care, while Americans are struggling to pay their health care bills,” Vance said. “That was their initial foray into this negotiation. We thought it was absurd.”
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Democrats have rejected claims that their efforts are aimed at anything other than protecting healthcare access for the American public — some 15 years after the passage of “Obamacare,” which Democrats claimed, then, would “fix” the healthcare system.
“There was a frank and direct discussion with the President of the United States and Republican leaders. But significant and meaningful differences remain,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said.
“Democrats are fighting to protect the health care of the American people, and we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of every day America, period,” he claimed.
Congress faces a deadline of midnight on Oct. 1 to approve a short-term funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, to avoid a partial government shutdown. The House has already passed an extension, but the bill stalled in the Senate earlier this month.
Republicans and the White House are backing a “clean” stopgap measure that would keep the government funded through Nov. 21. Democrats, however, have countered with a proposal that ties the extension to a permanent renewal of Obamacare tax credits and other provisions Republicans have rejected.
After Monday’s meeting, Vance appeared with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought in a show of party unity. Still, Vance acknowledged that the two sides remain sharply divided.
Thune, holding up a copy of the funding measure, rejected accusations from Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that the proposal was partisan.
Republicans contend the House plan mirrors what Democrats themselves advanced when they controlled the Senate—a “clean” short-term extension through Nov. 21 without policy add-ons, aside from additional funding to bolster security for lawmakers.
“To me, this is purely a hostage-taking exercise on the part of the Democrats,” Thune said. “We are willing to sit down and work with them on some of the issues they want to talk about, whether it’s an extension of premium tax credits, with reforms, we’re happy to have that conversation. But as of right now, this is a hijacking.”
Fox News noted that neither Jeffries or Schumer took questions from the media following the meeting, but added they both seemed more optimistic about reaching a deal.
“I think for the first time, the president heard our objections and heard why we needed a bipartisan bill,” Schumer said. “Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input. That is never how we’ve done this before.”
Vance said he was “highly skeptical” that the issue was new to Trump and suggested there could be a bipartisan path forward on healthcare. However, he criticized Democrats for seeking to tie the bill to a permanent extension of Affordable Care Act provisions first enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fox reported.