President Donald Trump has abruptly canceled this week’s planned meeting with congressional Democratic leaders, refusing to negotiate over their demands to shore up health care funds as part of a deal to prevent a potential looming federal government shutdown.
In a lengthy Tuesday social media post, Trump rejected the sit-down the White House had agreed to the day before. It would have been the first time the Republican president met with the Democratic Party’s leaders, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, since his return to the White House.
“I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive,” Trump wrote in the post.
The president complained the Democrats “are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States” unless the Republicans agree to more funding on health care for various groups of people he has criticized. Trump did not close the door on a future sit-down with the Democratic leaders, but he warned of a “long and brutal slog” ahead unless Democrats dropped their demands to salvage health care funds.
Earlier Tuesday, Schumer and Jeffries had issued a joint statement saying that after “weeks of Republican stonewalling,” the president had agreed to meet in the Oval Office. But after the Republican president canceled the meeting, the Democratic leaders accused him of throwing a tantrum and running away. Jeffries posted on X that “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
“Donald Trump just cancelled a high stakes meeting in the Oval Office with myself and Leader Schumer,” Jeffries wrote on X. “The extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America.”
In a post on X directed at Trump, Schumer said Democrats will sit down and discuss health care “when you’re finished ranting.”
Schumer said Trump “is running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there” and would “rather throw a tantrum than do his job.”
With Congress at a stalemate, the government is headed toward a federal shutdown next week, Oct. 1, if the House and the Senate are unable to approve the legislation needed to fund offices and services into the new fiscal year. Lawmakers left town amid the logjam, and they are not due back until Sept. 29.
Trump has been unafraid of shutting down the government and, during his first term, was president over the nation’s longest federal closure, during the 2018-19 holiday season, when he was pushing Congress to provide funds for his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The president insisted over the weekend that essential services, including for veterans, would remain open.
Republicans, who have the majority in both the House and the Senate, have been trying to avoid a shutdown. House Speaker Mike Johnson led the passage late last week of a temporary funding measure, which would have kept government offices running into November while talks get underway.
That’s the typical way to buy time during funding fights, but the measure failed in the Senate. Democrats refused to support the stopgap bill because it did not include their priorities of health care funds. A Democratic proposal, with the health care money restored, was defeated by Senate Republicans.
Schumer and Jeffries have demanded a meeting with Trump to work out a compromise, but the Republican president has been reluctant to enter talks and instructed GOP leaders on Capitol Hill not to negotiate with the Democrats.
Thursday’s scheduled meeting would have potentially set up a showdown at the White House, reminiscent of the 2018 funding fight when Trump led an explosive public session with Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
Democrats are working to protect health care programs. The Democratic proposal would extend enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, plus reverse Medicaid cuts that were included in Republicans’ big tax breaks and spending cuts bill enacted earlier this year.
Republicans have said the Democrats’ demands to reverse the Medicaid changes are a nonstarter, but they have also said there is time to address the health insurance subsidy issue in the months ahead.
—Lisa Mascaro, AP congressional correspondent