In comments on the Senate floor on Tuesday, party leaders continued to point out their fingers to each other as time approached the midnight deadline for the government to close if Congress cannot approve a financing measure.
“Republicans have offered a non -partisan clean financing extension, the same type of extension that Democrats have repeatedly supported in the past and the Democrats are blocking it for their own partisan purposes,” said the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune.
Thune again made a launch for a “clean” bill that extends the funds until mid -November.
“We can approve this today. We can approve it at this time, all it has to do is get support from the Democrats. The camera has approved this,” said Thune.
The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, flanked by representative Pete Aguilar and the representative Katherine Clark talks about the steps of the Capitol, in Washington, on September 30, 2025.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
But the leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, remained firm in his belief that Republicans will own this closure for refusing to negotiate with Democrats in medical care priorities.
“They call it clean, we call it extremely partisan. Not a discussion, house or Senate, between the two leaders. This is not how negotia and is not as you approval appropriation invoices,” said Schumer.
The Democrats insist that any agreement includes restoring $ 1 billion in Medicaid cuts approved this summer at the top of a permanent extension of Obamacare subsidies that will expire at the end of the year, saving health insurance for 3.8 million people at a cost of $ 350 billion in the next decade, according to the Congress budget office.
While the Republicans of the House of Representatives approved a Stopgap measure to maintain the open government until November 21, the stagnant measure in the Senate, where Thune will need at least seven democrats to vote to approve.
Republicans developed a seven -week clean financing bill to create more time for Congress appropriators to work in regular order: 12 Financing bill throughout the year separately. The Congress has not approved the 12 allocation bill through a regular order since 1997, and the task has been completed only four times since 1977 when the current budget rules entered into force.
Thune is expected to force the Senate to vote repeatedly in the Clean Financing Law of seven weeks of the Chamber. Its objective is to force the Democrats to cast repeated votes against financing the Government.
On early Tuesday, 150 Democrats from the House of Representatives joined on the steps of the Chamber, presenting the unit while each party tries to blame a period of funds.
The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, programmed Democrats, addressing a Deepfake video generated by the artificial intelligence shared Monday night by President Donald Trump, which belittled Jeffries and the leader of the Chuck Schumer Senate minority.
“Mr. President, allow me to reintroduce me,” Jeffries said, citing the opening letters of the “public service announcement” of Jay-Z and receiving a strong round of applause from Caucus. “I am the democratic leader of the House of Representatives. Our Caucus is 217 strong members. We serve in a separate and coual branch of the Government. We do not work for you. We work for the American people.”
In the publication on its social media platform, Trump shared the video he presented to the Chuck Schumer and Jeffries Senate minority leader during his comments at the White House after meeting with Trump and republican leaders, but called Schumer saying derogatory things about his party.
The video also showed Jeffries wearing a hat, which led Jeffries to call him “intolerant.”
“Mr. President, the next time he has something to say about me, do not send a video of racist and false. When he is back in the oval office, tell him to the face!” Jeffries booming.
Jeffries abruptly criticized the House Republicans for canceling the votes this week.
“It is a shame to be on vacation throughout the country and worldwide on the eve of a government closure,” he said. “They are on vacation because they prefer to close the government than to protect the medical attention of the American people. That is unfathomable, that is unacceptable, that is inconceivable, and that is not American. Do your work.”
The president of Caucus, Pete Aguilar, blamed the Republicans if the government closes.
“This is a closure that they will possess, and the American people are paying attention,” he said.
Trump seemed open to more discussions on Tuesday. When asked as he returned from a speech to the generals and admirals with the head of the Pentagon Pete Hegseth if he would talk to the Democrats before the deadline, Trump replied: “Yes.”
Jeffries and Schumer met on Monday afternoon at the White House with Trump, the president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, Vice President JD Vance and others, but left without an agreement.
Johnson published Tuesday morning that Schumer and the Democrats are “planning to close the government, simply to oppose President Trump and appease his extreme left base.”
At the entrance of the White House after the meeting, the Democrats and the Republicans blamed each other for not reaching an agreement to keep the government financed.
Schumer told reporters on the entrance of the White House that “big differences” remain, particularly in medical care.
A few minutes later, Vice President JD Vance joined the Republicans to say that a closure was increasingly probable.
“I think we head to a closure because the Democrats will not do the right thing,” Vance said.
Monday’s meeting was the first leadership meeting on the face of the bicameral and bipartisan congress of Trump’s second term, and arrived after a scheduled meeting for last week was rejected by the president after he said he reviewed the Democratic proposal and judged that a meeting would not be productive.
