WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will meet with the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Monday as the clock draws nearer to a potential government shutdown, one White House and four congressional officials told NBC News.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., along with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., are expected to attend.
Punchbowl first reported the news.
The development comes after Trump abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Democratic leaders on Thursday, at the urging of Johnson and Thune. The president at the time called Democratic demands “unserious and ridiculous.”
Since then, Jeffries and Schumer have been trading very public barbs with Trump over the looming government shutdown and Democrats’ demands to attach health care policies to the temporary funding bill.
Tensions escalated when the White House Office of Management and Budget this week instructed agencies to prepare mass firing plans in case of a shutdown.
Government funding is set to expire on Sept. 30, threatening the jobs of millions of federal workers. Congress must pass or extend a spending bill before then to prevent a shutdown.
Jeffries insisted earlier Saturday that the OMB memo won’t prompt Democrats to cede their demands.
“Understand that the Trump administration has already been engaging in mass firings all throughout the year,” he said on MSNBC. “And so a government shutdown has nothing to do with what they’ve already shown they are willing to do, which is why we just have to continue to hold the line and make it clear our position: cancel the cuts, lower the cost, save health care.”
Senate Democrats are also planning to hold a conference call on Sunday afternoon ahead of the chamber’s return to D.C.
Republicans have insisted that they won’t make concessions to pass a short-term funding bill for seven weeks, and that any negotiations can occur during the appropriations process.
The post Trump to meet with top congressional leaders as a government shutdown looms appeared first on NBC News.
