President Donald Trump will meet with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer this week to discuss government funding ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline. The meeting, which has not yet been officially announced, comes after a letter sent by the Democrats to Trump requesting a sitdown following their two previous attempts to arrange a meeting that were denied by Republican leaders. The session is set to occur as the government funding deadline approaches on Sept. 3, with both chambers of Congress out of session this week. Trump, while expressing willingness to meet, has warned that he does not expect the meeting to have a major impact, as tensions over funding remain high.
Republicans and Trump have been pushing for a “clean” seven-week stopgap spending bill, while Democrats have introduced an alternative measure that would extend government funding for four weeks and include additional demands. Democratic leaders, under intense pressure from their base to mount a visible resistance to Trump, are angling to make the government shutdown fight about health care. They are pushing for concessions from Republicans on an extension of health insurance subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as a rollback of the Medicaid cuts in the GOP’s recent domestic policy megabill.
However, Republicans have warned they won’t agree to attach any of the Democratic demands to the stopgap bill. While there is some GOP support for an extension of the expiring subsidies, party leaders argue that is an issue to tackle later this year. The meeting comes after Schumer and Jeffries, frustrated with GOP congressional leaders refusing their two previous attempts to set up a meeting, sent a letter to Trump on Saturday asking for a sitdown. Trump told reporters over the weekend that he would be happy to meet but warned that “I don’t think it’s going to have any impact.”
Punchbowl News first reported the planned meeting. Myah Ward contributed to this report.