Trump scraps meeting with Democrats, raising government shutdown risk

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped a meeting with top congressional Democratic leaders to discuss government funding, raising the risk of a partial government shutdown beginning next week.

Top congressional Democrats and the Republican president postured to try to pin blame on each other for a potential shutdown, which would interfere with a wide range of federal services and likely furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

“I have decided that no meeting with their congressional Leaders could possibly be productive,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth social media site.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives Democratic Leader Jeffries earlier on Tuesday had said Trump had agreed to meet this week at the White House, before government funding expires on September 30. Lawmakers are at odds over so-called discretionary funding, which accounts for just about one-quarter of the roughly $7 trillion federal budget.

“Democrats are ready to work to avoid a shutdown,” Schumer said in a statement responding to Trump’s message. “Trump and Republicans are holding America hostage.”

The Republican-led House passed a stopgap funding bill last week to extend funding through November 21, but it failed in the Senate where Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats. 

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he does not intend to call House members back to Washington before October 1 — by which point the government will have shut down absent Senate action. Johnson says his chamber completed its work when it passed its stopgap funding bill on Friday, a move that also presents the Senate — where bills require bipartisan support to pass — no chance to modify the House bill.

Republicans blame Democrats for holding up the funding due to their opposition to the president, while Democrats argue healthcare issues need to be addressed in this funding bill.

Jeffries told House Democrats to return to Washington from a week-long break by Monday evening.

UNUSUAL POSITION FOR DEMOCRATS

In a long posting on Truth Social, Trump attacked Democrats, but said he would meet with the parties’ Leaders “if they get serious about the future of our Nation.”

Without specifically laying out his conditions, Trump said, “All Congressional Democrats want to do is enact Radical Left Policies that nobody voted for — High Taxes, Open Borders, No Consequences for Violent Criminals, Men in Women’s Sports, Taxpayer funded “TRANSGENDER” surgery, and much more.”

Democrats have largely embraced efforts to secure the U.S. border with Mexico, but have criticized Trump’s unilateral tactics of targeting immigrants for deportation without due process. They also have criticized Trump’s use of some states’ National Guard troops to Democratic-controlled cities, ostensibly to reduce their crime rates.

Voting against bills to keep the government operating puts Democrats in an unusual position, as Schumer over the years has often chastised Republicans for voting against the sort of funding extensions known as continuing resolutions that the House passed last week.

The federal government has partially shut down 14 times since 1981, but it is unclear what operations would continue and what would close on October 1 if government funding runs out since the Office of Management and Budget has not made public agencies’ current contingency plans.

Mandatory spending, such as on the Social Security and Medicare benefits would continue, as would interest payments on the federal government’s $37.5 trillion in debt.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu and Nolan McCaskill; editing by Scott Malone and Nick Zieminski)