President Trump will meet with the four top congressional leaders at the White House on Monday, the day before a deadline to avert a government shutdown, according to two aides familiar with the plans.
Lawmakers face a Tuesday deadline to fund the government, which will require them to agree on a spending measure that can win at least 60 votes in the Senate. But Republicans control only 53 seats and need support from Democrats, who have been demanding that GOP leaders and Mr. Trump negotiate with them.
The two top congressional Democrats, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, announced the planned Monday meeting in a statement. The top Republicans, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator John Thune of South Dakota, are also expected to attend, according to the aides, who were not authorized to speak publicly about plans for the meeting.
Last week, Mr. Trump briefly signaled openness to meeting Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries. But he canceled a scheduled meeting after a call with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thune.
Republicans have been trying to advance a temporary funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, or C.R., that keeps federal spending levels flat. Such measures have become routine on Capitol Hill to avoid shutdowns.
But Democrats have insisted that Republicans negotiate to win the necessary votes in the Senate. They have tied their support to securing funding to extend Obamacare subsidies, set to expire at the end of the year, and to reversing the cuts to Medicaid and other health programs that Republicans made unilaterally over the summer.
Mr. Schumer and Mr. Jeffries said that they still hoped to reach a bipartisan agreement. “We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican health care crisis,” they said in the statement. “Time is running out.”
But Mr. Trump said last week that Democrats’ funding demands were unreasonable, and it remained unclear whether his position or those of congressional leaders had changed enough to make a deal possible.
Mr. Thune, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, suggested that he was open to discussing the insurance subsidies at a later date but said he did not want to address them in a measure to fund the government.
“Keep the government open, and then let’s have a conversation about those premium tax credits,” he said. “I’m certainly open to that. I think we all are.”
But pressed on whether he needed to reach a compromise with Mr. Schumer, Mr. Thune put the blame squarely on Democrats, accusing them of political posturing, and again repeated his desire for a seven-week stopgap measure.
Democrats have condemned a recent threat by Trump administration officials to fire scores of federal employees during a shutdown, accusing the White House of attempting to intimidate them into dropping their proposal.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
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