President Donald Trump on Friday shrugged off the threat of the first US government shutdown in nearly seven years and moved to cast the blame for any disruption on Democrats.
“These people are crazy, the Democrats, so if it has to shut down, it’ll have to shut down,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House. “But they’re the ones that are shutting down.”
The president’s comments came four days before government funding lapses and reflect a confidence among Republican leaders that they have the upper hand in the shutdown fight.
Republicans, who control power in Washington, refuse to use a must-pass funding bill to address Democrats’ health-care priorities. GOP congressional leaders say they’re looking for a way to give just enough Democrats an off-ramp.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview with the Associated Press that Democrats would have to “dial back” their demands, which include extending expiring health care subsidies for millions of Americans and undoing the Medicaid cuts Republicans enacted this year to help pay for Trump’s tax cuts.
Thune dangled the possibility of a future deal on extending some Affordable Care Act subsidies and negotiations on other budget priorities provided Democrats drop their opposition to a seven-week Republican bill to keep the government open beyond Sept. 30.
“I’m a big believer that there’s always a way out,” Thune told the AP. “And I think there are off-ramps here, but I don’t think that the negotiating position, at least at the moment, that the Democrats are trying to exert here is going to get you there.”
Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson have so far spurned calls from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for bipartisan talks.
Trump also scrapped plans to meet with Schumer and Jeffries and instead heightened the stakes for a shutdown with his budget office preparing massive, permanent firings if government funding lapses.
Thune floated the prospect of peeling off just enough rank-and-file Democratic senators at votes he plans early next week to reconsider the short-term bill already passed by the House. Republicans would need at least seven defectors in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to overcome procedural obstacles on most legislation.
The only off-ramp is Democrats accepting the clean stopgap bill, a Republican aide said. Then discussions on other matters could take place before Nov. 21.
The Republican leader’s suggestion of talks for a possible deal before Nov. 21 could be enough for some Democrats to vote to keep the government open.
Asked Thursday by reporters if he has ruled out voting for the GOP stopgap, Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said he wants to see a “negotiation.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a member of the chamber’s Democratic leadership team, in response to Thune’s comments said her party is willing to negotiate on the demands they made to Republicans to keep the government open.
“We never said that we had to have every single thing and that every single thing’s a red line. We want to negotiate with them to make this health care crisis less bad,” Klobuchar said on a call with reporters.
But she said promises of future action from Thune probably wouldn’t be sufficient.
“Too many times we have seen people in Congress say one thing, then Donald Trump says the other,” Klobuchar said.
Schumer led a Democratic blockade of the GOP spending bill last week, and has contended that voters would blame Trump for seeking to slash health care benefits for millions.
“Donald Trump is making health care in America more expensive. He’s about to shut down the government over it. And he’s about to send the price of prescription drugs even higher with his new tariffs,” Schumer posted on X late Thursday.
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