Federal government shutdown shows no signs of slowing as Week 3 approaches
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, shown on Friday, said Sunday of congressional Republicans during an appearance on ABC's "This Week," that "we will sit down with them anytime, any place with anyone, either at the Capitol or back at the Oval Office, to reopen the government." Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
WASHINGTON — The start of a new week Sunday brought no new indication that a deal to reopen the federal government was on the horizon.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has not called House members back to session since Sept. 19, reiterated Sunday, as the shutdown approached its third week, that he will not reconvene the chamber until Senate Democrats agree to pass a short-term spending bill to reopen the government
"I refuse to allow us to come back and engage in anything until the government's reopened, when the Democrats do the right thing for the people," Johnson told ABC’s "This Week." "They're playing politics, and we have to use every ounce of leverage we have to make sure they do the right thing."
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, appearing on the same program shortly after Johnson, criticized congressional Republicans for not engaging in negotiations with Democrats over their demands on health care subsidies in order to win their needed votes in the U.S. Senate.
"We have repeatedly and publicly and privately made clear to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that we will sit down with them anytime, any place with anyone, either at the capital or back at the Oval Office to reopen the government," Jeffries said.
Democrats are demanding an extension of soon-to-expire health care tax credits in exchange for their support of a short-term spending bill, but Republicans have argued the issue should be handled in a separate vote. Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have countered that their Republican counterparts have refused for months to negotiate the health care issue and Democrats need assurances an extension will pass before signing on to the spending bill.
President Donald Trump, appearing on Fox News’ "Sunday Morning Futures," signaled he was prepared to keep the shutdown going, saying "we’re cutting Democrat programs that we didn’t want."
"We're cutting them permanently," Trump said.
So far, the Trump administration has mostly announced pauses to federal funding of major infrastructure projects in New York and other Democrat-run states, with the threat of making those cuts permanent.
The Senate is set to reconvene Monday afternoon, but the GOP-backed short-term spending bill without Democratic concessions has already failed 10 times to garner the necessary 60 votes to pass the chamber.
Republican senators who made the Sunday morning political talk show rounds continued to call on Democrats to pass the spending bill in its current form and address the subsidies at a later date.
"I think we will reach a pressure point here, but to me, the simple thing is to reopen the government," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), told Fox News Sunday.
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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