Trump, congressional leaders end meeting no closer to averting a government shutdown

President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders ended their high-stakes meeting Monday without a plan for averting a government shutdown that will begin Wednesday morning. 

Democratic leaders left the meeting citing “large differences” with Republicans on their health care priorities, while Republicans predicted a shutdown would happen because Democrats wouldn’t drop their left-wing demands.

“I think we’re headed into a shutdown, because the Democrats won’t do the right thing,” said Vice President J.D. Vance, who attended the meeting. “I hope they change their mind, but we’re going to see.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, described the Democrats’ tactics as “pure and simple hostage taking.”

Democrats showed no signs of budging from their demands, which include extending pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies, rolling back GOP cuts to Medicaid and stopping the Trump administration from ignoring congressional spending directives. 

“We have very large differences on health care and on their ability to undo whatever budget we agree to through recissions and through impoundment,” Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said after the meeting. 

He said Mr. Trump heard Democrats’ objections to funding the government without a solution to address rising health care costs as they laid out the consequences of inaction. 

“By his face and by the way he looked, I think he heard about them for the first time – the closing of rural hospitals, the fact that so many clinics are closing,” Mr. Schumer said. 

Those consequences, Democrats say, come from Republicans cutting federal funding for Medicaid in their One Big Beautiful Bill. Republicans say the Medicaid changes shore up the program by requiring able-bodied adults to work and preventing benefits from going to illegal immigrants.

Democrats are also worried about the looming expiration of their COVID-19 expansion of Obamacare subsidies. Mr. Schumer said people will pay $400 more a month, close to $5,000 a year on premiums, if Congress does not extend the enhanced subsidies, which cap premium costs at 8.5% of household income. 

While Democrats laid out their asks, they said Mr. Trump did not commit to anything. 

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the discussion with Mr. Trump and GOP congressional leaders was “frank and direct” but ended with “significant and meaningful differences” between the two parties.