On Monday, President Donald Trump met with the leaders of both parties in a push to pass a spending bill before the midnight Wednesday, Oct. 1 deadline. Republicans need Democratic support to approve a spending bill in the Senate, but Democrats said they won’t agree unless Medicaid cuts are reversed and Obamacare subsidies are extended. A spending bill passed the House earlier this month that would fund the government until November.
"President Trump gave Chuck Schumer and the Democrats an opportunity to agree on a common sense, nonpartisan solution that would keep the government funded and open," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. "Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have unfortunately chosen to pick a partisan fight and shut the government down as the clock is running out to score political points with their base.”
Vice President JD Vance, who said he believes a shutdown is likely, said Democrats should not shut the government down simply because they disagree with certain policies.
"You don’t use your policy disagreements as leverage to not pay our troops," Vance said. "We think the American people are going to suffer because these people won’t do the right thing.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blamed the shutdown on Trump.
"This shutdown is in Trump’s hands," Schumer said "He admitted in the room today that the president gets the blame for a shutdown. Americans are facing a crisis of rising health care costs. If the government shuts down, it’s because Republicans would rather shut it down rather than help people afford health care.”
Schumer faced intense blowback from his party in March when he voted to help fund the government, arguing the dangerous consequences of a shutdown in the hands of Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, which at the time was led by tech CEO Elon Musk.
The Trump administration has threatened mass layoffs if a government shutdown were to occur. The last government shutdown was in 2018 and lasted 35 days.
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