President Donald Trump said he is scrapping a White House meeting with top congressional Democrats later this week, as the threat of a government shutdown looms over Washington.
Trump said “unserious and ridiculous demands” by Democrats would make any such meeting unproductive, rattling off a list of demands he claimed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries want in exchange for their party’s votes to keep the government funded.
“They are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits, try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World, allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform Tuesday.
As CNN reported, Trump was scheduled to meet with Schumer and Jeffries on Thursday, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
While he scrapped the upcoming meeting, Trump on Tuesday left the door open to meeting in the future, provided Democrats “become realistic about the things our Country stands for.”
“People voted for COMMON SENSE, and that’s what the Republicans and your President, ‘DONALD J. TRUMP,’ stand for. I look forward to meeting with them if they get serious about the future of our Nation. We must keep the Government open, and legislate like true Patriots rather than hold American Citizens hostage, knowing that they want our now thriving Country closed. I’ll be happy to meet with them if they agree to the Principles in this Letter. They must do their job! Otherwise, it will just be another long and brutal slog through their radicalized quicksand,” Trump said in his lengthy Truth Social post.
CNN has reached out to Jeffries’ and Schumer’s offices for comment.
The pair had confirmed the planned meeting in a joint statement earlier Tuesday, saying the president had agreed to meet with them this week in the Oval Office.
“In the meeting, we will emphasize the importance of addressing rising costs, including the Republican healthcare crisis. It’s past time to meet and work to avoid a Republican-caused shutdown,” Schumer and Jeffries said in the statement.
Lawmakers left Washington, DC, on Friday for a week in their home districts without a path forward, after the Senate rejected both a House-passed seven-week government funding measure and a Democratic alternative.
Republicans have argued their bill to fund the government through November 20 is a “clean” continuing resolution, or CR, with only $30 million in extra security money for members of Congress and $58 million for security for the executive and judicial branches. It also includes a funding “fix” for DC, which would free up $1 billion of the city’s own money, adjusting a mistake in an earlier bill.
The Democratic bill, meanwhile, included expensive health care changes, such as extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. Republicans have argued it’s inappropriate to add such provisions to a stopgap funding bill and that they should be negotiated as part of a year-end funding bill.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters shortly before Trump’s post that he and Senate Majority Leader John Thune would attend any meeting that took place with Democratic leaders. But he questioned whether a meeting was necessary.
“Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made just wild partisan demands that they’re trying to attach to a very simple, short term, very clean CR. We just want to keep the government open so our appropriators can continue to do their work. That is a bipartisan concern and responsibility, and I have no idea why they’re trying to cloud this with almost 1.5 trillion – trillion with a T – in new spending and wildly partisan demands,” he told reporters.
”They’re trying to make a mockery of it, and I don’t think it should be given any real regard,” he added.
This story has been updated with additional details.
