Prime congressional leaders are heading to the White Home Monday afternoon to satisfy with President Donald Trump in a last-ditch effort to avert a authorities shutdown — however as a stalemate persists simply at some point from the deadline, a shutdown appears practically inevitable barring an sudden breakthrough.
Hours earlier than the assembly, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that there is “nothing to barter” with bipartisan congressional management Monday — because the administration continues to push lawmakers to move a short-term funding invoice generally known as a clear clear persevering with decision.
“Our message and what we wish out of that is quite simple: The president needs to maintain the federal government open. He needs to maintain the federal government funded. There’s zero good cause for Democrats to vote towards this clear persevering with decision,” Leavitt instructed reporters on the White Home Monday morning. “The president is giving Democrats one final probability to be affordable at present.”
President Donald Trump waits to greet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the White Home, Sept. 29, 2025, in Washington.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Shutterstock
Lawmakers from either side of the aisle are digging in forward of the Tuesday night time deadline – with Democrats sustaining their posture that they won’t vote to maintain the federal government open with out lofty well being care concessions. These calls for embrace restoring $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts handed into regulation this summer time on high of a everlasting extension of the Obamacare subsidies set to run out on the finish of the 12 months, saving medical health insurance for 3.8 million individuals at a value of $350 billion over the subsequent decade, in accordance with the Congressional Price range Workplace.
“Home Democrats, Senate Democrats are in lockstep,” Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries instructed reporters Monday morning on the Capitol. “We’re headed into the assembly to have a great religion negotiation about touchdown the aircraft in a means that avoids a authorities shutdown however doesn’t proceed the Republican assault on the well being care of the American individuals.”
Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries speaks to reporters throughout a press convention on the U.S. Capitol Constructing, September 29, 2025 in Washington.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photos
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer stated he hopes the assembly is concentrated on “severe negotiation.”
“We’d like a severe negotiation. Now, if the president at this assembly goes to rant, and simply yell at Democrats, and discuss all his alleged grievances, and say this, that, and the different factor, we can’t get something completed. However my hope is it will be a severe negotiation,” Schumer stated on Sunday.
The assembly marks the primary bicameral, bipartisan congressional management face-to-face assembly of Trump’s second time period — and comes after a previously-scheduled assembly final week was nixed by the president after he stated he reviewed the Democratic proposal and judged {that a} assembly wouldn’t be productive.
“Republicans management the Home and the Senate, and as a Republican president, if the federal government shuts down, it is as a result of Republicans wish to shut the federal government down,” Jeffries stated.
A gathering was agreed to after Schumer implored Senate Majority Chief John Thune for assist getting by way of to Trump, in accordance with a Schumer aide — although Jeffries appears unmoved by the prospect of drawn-out negotiations.
Final week, the White Home issued steerage to federal companies that they need to contemplate executing a reduction in force for federal workers whose jobs usually are not deemed important to authorities operations — a transfer supposed to extend stress on Democrats who’ve a acknowledged purpose to guard a federal workforce that’s already been slashed by the Trump administration.
Whereas Home Republicans handed a stop-gap measure to maintain the federal government open by way of Nov. 21, the measure has stalled within the Senate, the place at the least seven Democrats should vote for any measure that staves off a shutdown.
Republicans crafted a “clear” seven-week stop-gap invoice so as to create extra time for congressional appropriators to work by way of common order: 12 separate full-year funding payments. Congress has not handed all 12 appropriations payments by way of common order since 1997, and the duty has solely been accomplished 4 instances since 1977 when present finances guidelines took impact.
Speaker Mike Johnson maintained over the weekend that passing the short-term persevering with decision is “shopping for a bit time” for the common appropriations course of.
Speaker of the Home of Representatives Mike Johnson speaks to the media following a vote within the U.S. Home of Representatives on a stopgap spending invoice to avert a partial authorities shutdown that may in any other case start October 1, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2025.
Kent Nishimura/Reuters
“The Obamacare subsidies is a coverage debate that must be decided by the top of the 12 months, Dec. 31 — not proper now, whereas we’re merely attempting to maintain the federal government open so we are able to have all these debates,” Johnson stated on CNN on Sunday.
The federal authorities has shut down as a result of a lapse in appropriations 10 instances since 1980, with the longest shutdown, 35 days, occurring throughout the first Trump administration.
