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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has signaled that Democrats are not budging on their key demands ahead of a high-stakes meeting with President Donald Trump about government funding.
The federal government will enter a partial shutdown at midnight on Wednesday if Republicans and Democrats do not reach a deal on funding priorities for fiscal year (FY) 2026, which ends at the end of the day on Sept. 30.
All but one House Democrat rejected Republicans’ plan for a roughly straightforward extension of FY 2025 funding levels, through Nov. 21, aimed at giving appropriators more time for a longer-term deal.
Jeffries blasted the measure — called a continuing resolution (CR) — as partisan and has demanded that Republicans make concessions on healthcare in exchange for Democratic support.
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He signaled during a last-minute news conference on Monday that Democrats would reject anything less than a written plan to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No one can trust their word on healthcare. Are you kidding me? These people have been trying to repeal and displace people off the Affordable Care Act since 2010. That’s 15 years,” Jeffries said. “And on behalf of the American people, we’re supposed to simply take their word that they’re willing to negotiate? The American people know that would be an unreasonable thing for us to do.”
Jeffries also pointed out that an alternate CR offered by Democrats would expand those subsidies under the ACA, colloquially known as “Obamacare,” permanently.
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It comes hours before he, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., are set to meet with Trump to discuss government funding at 3 p.m. on Monday.
Johnson and Thune, along with other Republicans in Congress, have been pushing Democrats to accept the deal on the table — pointing out that funding levels have remained roughly the same since former President Joe Biden’s time in office.
“We are ready, we are willing, we are able to find a bipartisan path forward and reach a spending agreement that actually keeps the government open, but meets the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety, and their economic well-being related to lowering the high cost of living, as opposed to allowing tens of millions of Americans to experience dramatically increased health care costs,” Jeffries told reporters.
“What we will not do is support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people.”
The COVID-era Obamacare subsidies are due to expire at the end of this year without any action by Congress.
Thune told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he would be open to negotiating a deal but not paired with the current government funding talks.
“We can have that conversation, but before we do, release the hostage. Set the American people free, keep the government open, and then let’s have a conversation about those premium tax credits. I’m certainly open to that. I think we all are,” he said.
“I will say … that particular program is desperately in need of reform. It’s fraught with waste, fraud and abuse. So we are going to have reforms if we take action there, but I think there’s potentially a path forward.”
The GOP-led CR passed the House earlier this month largely along party lines.
It’s now on the Senate, where at least several Democrats will be needed to reach the 60-vote threshold to proceed with the bill.
Schumer is under tremendous pressure by his left flank after playing a key role in advancing Republicans’ earlier CR in March, which extended through Sept. 30.
This time, however, Jeffries assured that he and Schumer are in “lock-step” on bucking the Republican plan unless a compromise is reached.
He said of their upcoming sit-down with Trump, “We’re heading into the meeting to have a good faith negotiation about landing the plane in a way that avoids a government shutdown but does not continue the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people.”
“Republicans control the House and the Senate, and there’s a Republican president. If the government shuts down, it’s because Republicans want to shut the government down,” Jeffries said at another point.
Johnson, meanwhile, hammered Democrats’ position in an appearance on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“We passed a continuing resolution, a simple, very clean, 24-page continuing resolution to keep the government open for seven more weeks, so the appropriators can finish that process,” Johnson said.
“And [Schumer] said, ‘No. Instead, I want to add $1.5 trillion in new spending to a seven-week stopgap bill…we want to reinstate free healthcare to illegal aliens paid for by U.S. taxpayer dollars. We want to claw back the $50 billion that we passed, Republicans passed, in our big, beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cuts, to provide for rural hospitals and healthcare, and a laundry list of other partisan priorities. He knows it’s a nonstarter.”
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