Democratic leaders said Monday that they had accepted an invitation from the White House to sit down with President Trump in an effort to prevent a government shutdown.
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi announced the meeting, scheduled for Thursday, in a joint statement. The White House confirmed the dialogue.
Schumer, the leading Senate Democrat, and Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, suddenly called off a meeting with Trump last week after he derided them in a tweet. They agreed Monday to a conversation on immigration reform and other sticky topics.
Federal funding dries up on Friday unless Republicans are able to broker a spending agreement with Democrats.
Democratic leaders said Monday that they had accepted an invitation from the White House to sit down with President Trump in an effort to prevent a government shutdown. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi announced the meeting, scheduled for Thursday, in a joint statement
A faction of Democratic lawmakers, and a Republican senator, are threatening to withhold their votes on an appropriations bill if it is not coupled with legislation addressing the plight of illegal immigrant children.
The Trump administration has likewise said that it will not endorse a bill that denies the Department of Homeland Security funding for the president’s border wall.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday on ABC that a shutdown ‘was not going to happen’ as he slapped down legislators’ push to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program via the must-pass spending bill.
‘That’s a ridiculous idea. There is no crisis. The president has given us until March to address the issue of undocumented children,’ McConnell said. ‘But there’s no emergency. The president has given us to March to address it.’
In their statement on Monday, Pelosi and Schumer said: ‘We need to reach a budget agreement that equally boosts funds for our military and key priorities here at home including the opioid crisis, pension plans and rural infrastructure.
‘We have to provide funding for community health centers and CHIP, as well as relief for the millions of Americans still reeling from natural disasters. And we must also come together on a bipartisan deal to pass the DREAM Act along with tough border security measures.
The duo said, ‘There is a bipartisan path forward on all of these items.’
‘As negotiations with our Republican counterparts continue, we are hopeful the President will be open to an agreement to address the urgent needs of the American people and keep government open.’
Trump met with McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan last week in Schumer and Pelosi’s absence. When he spoke to the press afterward, the president was seated between two large, leather chairs – each in front of a nameplate of the Democratic leader to signify their absence.
‘We are very far apart,’ he said at one point.’So they decided not to show up. They’ve been all talk and they’ve been no action … Now it’s not even talk.’
Trump staged the photo-opportunity designed to embarrass the Democratic leadership after they snubbed a White House meeting where a looming government shutdown was on the table.
The two leaders announced they would skip it after Trump went after them in a morning tweet.
President Donald Trump, surrounded by empty chairs marked for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who chose not to meet with Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), speaks with reporters at the White House in Washington
The president then tore into the no-show Democrats. ‘I’m not really that surprised,’ he said.
‘I’m not really that surprised, we have a lot of differences. They are weak on crime, they’re weak on illegal immigration, they want the illegal folks to come pouring into a border and a lot of problems are being caused, although we’ve stopped it to a large extent without the wall, which we’re going to get,’ Trump said.
He repeatedly stressed national security, and brought up a Tuesday missile launch by North Korea.
‘They, before this meeting and before this missile launch, have been weak on military in terms of spending. They’re very hard to get for military. They want it for a lot of other things, but the military is always secondary to them,’ Trump said.
‘And the other thing, they want tax increases and we want major tax decreases. So they decided not to show up. They’ve been all talk and they’ve been no action. And now it’s even worse. And now it’s not even talk. So they’re not showing up for the meeting.
‘I will say this, in light of the missile launch, probably they’ll be here fairly quickly, or at least discussions will start taking place fairly quickly,’ Trump added, without explanation.
‘We have a lot of differences. They’re weak on crime, they’re weak on illegal immigration,’ Trump said.
‘They’ve been weak on military in terms of spending,’ Trump said.
YOU NEVER VISIT: Trump blasted the Democratic leaders for snubbing a White House meeting
IT’S NOT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU: Trump glances at an empty chair marked ‘Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’
EVERYONE ELSE CAME: The meeting included staff aides to McConnell and Ryan
YOU COULD HAVE BEEN MY RIGHT HAND: Donald Trump looks at the empty chair of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (L), D-New York, after Schumer cancelled their meeting at
UNCOMFORTABLE: Schumer and Pelosi skipped the meeting after Trump called them ‘weak on Crime’
THERE WAS GOOD COMPANY, GLASSES OF WATER … The lawmakers skipped the meeting after Trump went after them in a morning tweet
President Donald Trump, center, escorted by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, left, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., right, arrives at the Capitol to meet with GOP lawmakers about moving his agenda and passing the Republican tax bill, in Washington
The two top Democrats in Congress abruptly canceled a planned White House meeting with Donald Trump last Tuesday in response to the president’s angry tweet expressing pessimism about their willingness to cut a deal that would keep the government running.
Trump threw shade at Schumer and Pelosi hours earlier, calling them tax-hikers who are ‘weak’ on crime and favor the ‘unchecked’ admission of illegal immigrants into the United States.
And he wrote that he doesn’t ‘see a deal’ in the making.
Pelosi and Schumer effectively cut the president out of the conversation late on Tuesday morning, saying in a joint statement that ‘[g]iven that the President doesn’t see a deal between Democrats and the White House, we believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress instead.’
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi abruptly canceled a budget- and tax-related meeting with Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying she won’t go to the White House after the president tweeted that he was pessimistic about cutting a deal across the aisle
Chuck Schumer (center), the Senate’s leading Democrat, is also boycotting Trump, essentially cutting the president out of buget negotiations
‘Rather than going to the White House for a show meeting that won’t result in an agreement, we’ve asked Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan to meet this afternoon. We don’t have any time to waste in addressing the issues that confront us, so we’re going to continue to negotiate with Republican leaders who may be interested in reaching a bipartisan agreement.’
McConnell – who has also been on the receiving end of Trump twitter attacks – and Ryan hit back with their own statement bashing the ‘new excuses’ not to meet with the administration.
‘We have important work to do, and Democratic leaders have continually found new excuses not to meet with the administration to discuss these issues,’ the two leaders said. ‘Democrats are putting government operations, particularly resources for our men and women on the battlefield, at great risk by pulling these antics. There is a meeting at the White House this afternoon, and if Democrats want to reach an agreement, they will be there.’
President Donald Trump shouts to reporters as he leaves the weekly Senate Republican Policy Committee luncheon in the U.S. Capitol November 28, 2017 in Washington
President Trump tweeted about an upcoming meeting with Sen. Charles Schumer and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi
On Tuesday afternoon press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that [i]t’s disappointing that Senator Schumer and Leader Pelosi are refusing to come to the table and discuss urgent issues.’
‘The President’s invitation to the Democrat leaders still stands and he encourages them to put aside their pettiness, stop the political grandstanding, show up and get to work. These issues are too important,’ Sanders said.
‘The meeting will proceed as scheduled with Speaker Ryan, Leader McConnell and administration officials who are committed to getting things done,’ Sanders added. ‘If the Democrats believe the American people deserve action on these critical year-end issues as we do, they should attend.’
NO THANKS: Pelosi tweeted that she and Schumer plan to ‘continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress’
Trump had also went to speak with the Republican Senate Caucus at lunchtime.
Republicans have unified control of government, but leaders may need to rely on some Democratic votes to get a funding resolution passed.
Some Democrats are demanding a fix to help DREAMers who came to the U.S. illegally as immigrant children. The president rescinded their status but set a six-month deadline that ends in March to find a solution.
‘Meeting with ‘Chuck and Nancy’ today about keeping government open and working,’ Trump tweeted. ‘Problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on Crime and want to substantially RAISE Taxes. I don’t see a deal!’
Pelosi wrote that she and Schumer will negotiate ‘in good faith’
Schumer responded on the Senate floor Monday. ‘Instead of leading, the president tweeted a blatantly inaccurate statement and then concluded: I don’t see a deal,’ Schumer said.
Trump used a similar attack on Doug Jones, the Alabama Senate candidate who is a former prosecutor and who helped put away two Ku Klux Klansmen who were charged with blowing up a Birmingham Baptist church in 1963.
‘The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is WEAK on Crime, WEAK on the Border, Bad for our Military and our great Vets, Bad for our 2nd Amendment, AND WANTS TO RAISES TAXES TO THE SKY. Jones would be a disaster!’ Trump tweeted this past weekend.
‘I don’t see a deal!’ with Democrats to keep the government running, President Donald Trump tweeted
Typically in recent years, even as government funding deadlines approach, presidents reassure financial markets and investors that the U.S. government will ultimately remain open and running.
The president may be trying to use the threat of a shutdown to try to gain negotiating leverage, although usually it is a minority party seeking concessions from the White House who is able to threaten to hold up government funding, rather than the head of the government.
Neither Pelosi nor Schumer are calling for tax hikes, though Democrats are resisting the $1.4 trillion tax cut that Trump called ‘tremendous’ on Monday.
Not happening again: Pelosi sat in the Oval Office in September as the White House negotiated hurricane relief funds and a hike in the nation’s borrowing limit
Republican leaders trying to reach majority support for their tax cut must contend with another conservative who is raising objections, after Montana Sen. Steve Daines raised concerns about how it would affect ‘Main Street.’
With just a 52 seat majority, they can only afford three defections from their ranks.
Trump heads to the Capitol Tuesday afternoon to meet with the Republican conference about the tax cut, which could come to the floor for a vote as soon as Thursday.
One Republican senator, Ron Johnson of Ohio, has already said he is a ‘no’ on the bill because of the way it advantages corporations over so-called ‘pass-throughs,’ business who file as individuals and miss off on some of the savings in the bill.
Trump has promised to ‘give the American people a huge tax cut for Christmas’ but the politics are getting tough on Capitol Hill as Republicans defect
NOT THERE YET: Conservative Sen. Steve Daines has voiced concerns about the bill
Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch (center-right) told reporters that he ‘hopes’ to have a tax relief plan on Trump’s desk by Christmas, and that he’s confident the GOP can find 50 votes to pass it
‘Sen. Daines has concerns with how the tax bill looks at main street versus large corporations,’ an aide to the senator said, The Hill reported. ‘The Senator wants changes to the tax cut bill that ensure main street businesses are not put at a competitive disadvantage against large corporations.’
Daines, a Budget Committee member, linked his support to the issue. ‘Before I can support this bill, this improvement needs to be made.’
A new Congressional Budget Office score estimates that ‘(t)he number of people with health insurance would decrease by 4 million in 2019 and 13 million in 2027’ under the bill due to its removal of an Obamacare individual mandate.
That provision has drawn criticism from Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, although it could get removed if needed to lock down enough votes.
Trump hailed the bill as ‘a tremendous tax cut’ and ‘the biggest tax reduction in the history of our country’ on Monday.
‘I think we’re going to have great receptivity. We’ve had great spirit,’ the president said.
‘And I can tell you, the Republican senators who are up, if we win we are going to get some Democratic senators who are joining us. If we don’t win they wont be joining us,’ he predicted.