Ahead of an afternoon meeting with President Donald Trump, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters he’s going into it hoping they find a way to avoid a shutdown — but without a clear path on how they’re going to get there.
Both sides have drawn their red lines, and it’s now a matter of who folds first.
“House Democrats, Senate Democrats are in lockstep: We’re heading into the meeting to have a good faith negotiation about landing the plane in a way that avoids a government shutdown but does not continue the Republican assault on the health care of the American people,” Jeffries told reporters on Monday morning.
The top House and Senate leaders — Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Jeffries — are set to meet at 3 p.m. Monday to discuss a path forward on government funding to prevent a shutdown. But the news of the meeting comes days after Trump canceled a meeting with Democratic leaders on Thursday, angering leaders in the party about whether Republicans stand on preventing a shutdown.
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The key issue for Democrats is extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. Democratic lawmakers added it to their largely-symbolic alternative to GOP’s continuing resolution — and they’re heading into today’s meeting with the expectation that this funding bill is their best opportunity to address it.
While Republicans have indicated they’re willing to continue ACA negotiations after they pass a continuing resolution, Jeffries told reporters that was not an option.
“No one can trust their word on health care. Are you kidding me?” Jeffries said. “These people have been trying to repeal and displace people off the Affordable Care Act since 2010 — that’s 15 years. And on behalf of the American people, we’re supposed to simply take their word that they’re willing to negotiate? The American people know that would be an unreasonable thing for us to do.”
Johnson signaled on Sunday that he hopes this meeting is a way for Trump to convince Schumer to accept the GOP stopgap measure without any additional health care provisions.
“Chuck Schumer came back with a long laundry list of partisan demands that don’t fit into this process, and he’s going to try to shut the government down. The president wants to talk with him about that and say, don’t do that,” Johnson told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. “He wants to talk with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and just try to convince them to follow common sense.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN the meeting was Trump giving “Democrats one last chance to be reasonable.”
Jeffries and Schumer have repeatedly said in multiple press conferences and private discussions that there is no daylight between the two Democratic leaders going into negotiations with Republicans.
But the House passed the Republican stopgap measure earlier this month – which means the legislation only needs to be passed by the Senate before it is signed by Trump, putting the pressure on Schumer to figure out in the next two days how Senate Democrats will vote.
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