US government on brink of first shutdown in almost seven years amid partisan standoff in Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — A partisan standoff over heath care and spending is threatening to trigger the first U.S. government shutdown in almost seven years, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress unable to find agreement even as thousands of federal workers stand to be furloughed or permanently laid off.

The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills. Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for it unless Republicans include an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands, while President Donald Trump and Republicans are refusing to negotiate at all, arguing that it is a stripped down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial.

It was unclear, so far, if either side would blink before the deadline.

“It’s now in the president’s hands,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Monday after a meeting with Trump at the White House that yielded little apparent progress. “He can avoid the shutdown if he gets the Republican leaders to go along with what we want.”

Vice President JD Vance, who was also in the meeting, said afterward, “I think we’re headed into a shutdown, because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.”

While partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats see a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate will likely need at least eight votes from Democrats to end a filibuster and pass the bill with 60 votes, since Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to vote against it.

No agreement at the White House

Trump had shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands on health care, even as he agreed to hold a sit-down meeting Monday with Schumer, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

As he headed into the meeting, Trump made it clear he had no intention to negotiate on Democrats’ current terms.

“Their ideas are not very good ones,” Trump said.

It was Trump’s first meeting with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term, and he did more listening than talking, Jeffries told House Democrats at the Capitol afterward, according to a lawmaker who attended the private caucus meeting and requested anonymity to discuss it.

Schumer said after the closed-door meeting that they had “had candid, frank discussions” with Trump about health care. Vance also said Trump found several points of agreement on policy ideas.

Schumer said Trump “was not aware” of the potential for health insurance costs to skyrocket once the subsidies end Dec. 31.

But Trump did not appear to be ready for serious negotiations. Hours later, Trump posted a fake video of Schumer and Jeffries taken from footage of their real press conference outside of the White House after the meeting. In the altered video, a voiceover that sounds like Schumer’s voice makes fun of Democrats and Jeffries stands beside him with a cartoon sombrero and mustache. Mexican music plays in the background.

Jeffries posted in response that “Bigotry will get you nowhere.”

He added, “We are NOT backing down.”

Expiring health care subsidies

Democrats are pushing for an extension to Affordable Care Act tax credits that have boosted health insurance subsidies for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The credits, which are designed to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people, are set to expire at the end of the year.

“We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans,” Jeffries said.

Thune has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but they want to place new limits on them.

“We’re willing to sit down and work with them on some of the issues they want to talk about,” Thune told reporters at the White House, adding, “But as of right now, this is a hijacking of the American people, and it’s the American people who are going to pay the price.”

A crucial, and unusual, vote for Democrats

Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it’s unclear how or when it would end. But party activists and voters have argued that Democrats need to do something to stand up to Trump.

Some groups called for Schumer’s resignation in March after he and nine other Democrats voted to break a filibuster and allow a Republican-led funding bill to advance to a final vote.

Schumer said he voted to keep the government open because a shutdown would have made things worse as Trump’s administration was slashing government jobs. He says things have changed since then, including the passage of the massive GOP tax cut bill this summer that reduced Medicaid.

Some of the Democrats who voted with Schumer in March to keep the government open were still holding out hope for a compromise. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters said Monday that there is still time before the early Wednesday deadline.

“A lot can happen in this place in a short period of time,” Peters said.

Shutdown preparations begin

Federal agencies were sending out contingency plans if funding lapses, including details on what offices would stay open and which employees would be furloughed. In its instructions to agencies, the White House has suggested that a shutdown could lead to broad layoffs across the government.

Russ Vought, Trump’s budget director, told reporters at the White House that a shutdown would be managed “appropriately, but it is something that can all be avoided” if Senate Democrats accepted the House-passed bill.

Before joining the administration, Vought had advised hardline conservatives in Congress to use the prospect of a shutdown to negotiate for policy concessions. But on Monday, he berated Democrats for engaging in a similar ploy.

“This is hostage taking. It is not something that we are going to accept,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.