Congressional leaders lament absence of ‘serious’ bipartisan talks as shutdown enters second week

By Alison Main, CNN

(CNN) — Top congressional leaders from both parties dug in Sunday on their opposing demands amid the government shutdown, signaling the standoff will likely drag on when the Senate returns this week.

Democrats have largely withheld their votes from a short-term plan to fund the government, insisting that Republicans make major policy concessions on health care before Americans start enrolling in another year of insurance on November 1.

They’re accusing Republicans of refusing to work with them, while GOP leaders have laid out their unwillingness to address expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies until the shutdown ends. The Senate has taken four failed votes to advance a stopgap bill that would keep the government open through November 21.

“We’re at a stalemate,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune conceded on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” calling Democrats’ desires to reverse Medicaid cuts implemented in President Donald Trump’s policy package a “nonstarter.”

“It’s not serious, it’s not reasonable, it’s not realistic,” he said, adding that Democrats need to understand “their option in front of them here is to open up the government, and then we can talk about all these other things.”

Senators will return Monday to a relatively quiet Capitol, where they will vote again on a Democratic funding plan that includes their health care-related priorities and on the GOP-led stopgap bill.

Three members of the Democratic caucus — Sens. John Fetterman and Catherine Cortez Masto, as well as independent Sen. Angus King — have crossed party lines on each vote to extend current government funding levels through late November.

Some bipartisan huddles have formed on the Senate floor in the days after the September 30 funding deadline came and went without the 60 votes needed to avert a shutdown.

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, one of the lawmakers engaged in the informal talks, told CNN on Sunday those conversations have not yet amounted to a real compromise, but “we’re still going to continue talking.”

“There’s a deal to be had here,” Gallego said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that Democrats need to see their Republican counterparts “actually urgently moving” toward a solution to extend the enhanced ACA subsidies.

Thune reiterated that Republicans will engage on the issue only when Democrats “release the hostage” of federal funding, telling Fox News that he’s “hopeful” bipartisan talks along the sidelines of repeated floor votes will encourage enough Democrats to back the stopgap bill.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, downplayed the impact of those conversations between lawmakers, implying they haven’t been fruitful and that it’s ultimately up to leadership to find a way out of the shutdown.

“The Republicans offered nothing,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding, “the only way this will ultimately be solved is if five people sit together in a room and solve it.”

Those five people — Thune, Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Trump — have not been in a room together since a White House meeting the day before the shutdown deadline.

“Unfortunately, since that point in time, Republicans, including Donald Trump, have gone radio silent,” Jeffries told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Schumer and Jeffries both emerged from the Oval Office last week expressing cautious optimism that they might be able to convince Trump, who they said seemed unaware that millions of Americans could soon see their health insurance premiums skyrocket, to back extending the expiring enhanced subsidies.

By Sunday, the top Democrats’ hopes to win over the president to end the shutdown seemed to have dimmed.

Asked whether he still feels like it’s possible to negotiate with Trump, Jeffries called the president’s recent behavior, including posting a racist, AI-generated video of the House minority leader, “outrageous” and “unhinged,” adding, “it speaks for itself.”

Schumer dismissed the suggestion of calling the president as the shutdown drags on, telling CBS that Trump “wasn’t serious” even in their White House meeting.

“I got the feeling he didn’t even know what was happening, that the crisis was impending,” he said, adding that the president had acknowledged it would be “bad” for him politically once health care premiums rise.

While Democrats maintain that Congress must extend the ACA subsidies as soon as possible, Republicans think they can afford to wait to address the issue, contending that government funding and appropriations must be completed first.

Thune recognized that his fellow South Dakota Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds, and lawmakers from both parties have been floating proposals on how to extend the ACA subsidies, which, he said, are “desperately in need of reform.”

“We need a little time to do it. We’re not saying that we won’t negotiate it,” Johnson told CBS.

Schumer, however, made clear that Senate Democrats don’t trust that GOP leaders intend to work with them, cautioning, “later means never.”

He said Johnson, who has kept the House out of session since passing its government funding bill last month, was “more interested in protecting the Epstein files than protecting the American people from the health care crisis.”

Johnson denied that he was keeping the House away to avoid swearing in newly elected Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who will be the final signature needed on a bipartisan petition to force a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, calling the insinuation a “red herring” to distract from the shutdown.

Following a planned recess week around the Jewish holidays last month, GOP leadership informed members that the House will not convene for the subsequent two weeks, signaling it’s up to the Senate to send the government funding package passed by the House to Trump’s desk.

While both parties are banking on the other caving as voters start to receive notifications about their premiums increasing, early indicators show most Americans are not yet sold on either side’s justification for the stalemate in Washington.

More than a third of Americans blame Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown, according to a CBS/YouGov poll, with 30% saying they blame Democrats in Congress and 31% blaming both sides equally. The same poll finds a plurality saying that each side’s positions are not worth halting government funding.

Another factor that lawmakers are looking to as a potential tipping point: the looming threat of further permanent cuts to the federal workforce.

“They’re Democrat layoffs. They’re causing it,” Trump told reporters on Sunday of the slashing of federal jobs.

Though GOP leaders acknowledged that Trump officials are orchestrating the potential cuts, they argued that Democratic lawmakers were forcing the administration’s hand by dragging out the shutdown.

“Senate Democrats have decided to turn the keys to the kingdom over to the to the White House,” Johnson told NBC, adding that the Trump administration must “make tough decisions.”

Trump posted on Truth Social last week that he would meet with Russ Vought, his budget director, to discuss cuts to agencies that don’t align with his political agenda, writing, “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”

Thune warned that the shutdown will last “as long as the Democrats want it to go on,” pointing out that Democrats could be swayed by longer-term impacts, including steps the Trump administration could take to “manage” the situation.

Asked on Sunday how long Democrats are willing to let a shutdown last in the interest of forcing Republicans to the table on health care issues, Gallego did not give a direct answer, but implied he has no interest in backing down.

“I can’t speak for everybody else, but I’m going to make sure that no matter what happens, at the end of this day, 24 million Americans do not see their insurance rates doubled, because that’s what’s going to happen,” he said.

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