Last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Miniority Leader Hakeem Jeffies sent a letter to President Trump asking for a meeting in hopes of avoiding a government shutdown next week.
“With the September 30th deadline fast approaching, Republicans will bear responsibility for another painful government shutdown because of the refusal of GOP congressional leadership to even talk with Democrats,” Schumer and Jeffries wrote in the letter. “As a result, it is now your obligation to meet with us directly to reach an agreement to keep the government open and address the Republican healthcare crisis.”
The White House rejected the premise of the letter.
Members of the Senate are not scheduled to return to Washington until September 29th, and House lawmakers are not slated to come back until October…
In response to a request for comment on the letter, a White House official said in a statement that, “Dems walked away from a bipartisan negotiation on the [continuing resolution]. This letter shows desperation.”
And Saturday night, President Trump himself said Democrats didn’t seem to have learned anything from there 2024 loss.
.@POTUS on meeting with Democrats who want to shut down the government: “They don’t care about crime. They want to keep men in women’s sports. They want all this stuff — they don’t change… I’d love to meet with them, but I don’t think it’s going to have any impact.” pic.twitter.com/KJsIl3GcP5
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 20, 2025
On Sunday morning, Sen. Schumer reiterated the demand for a meeting, though you might notice that he dodged the direct question about what would happen if Trump said no to a meeting.
SCHUMER: “I hope and pray Trump will sit down with us.”
BASH: “And if he doesn’t Dems will vote no?”@SenSchumer: *suddenly seems to lose his hearing*
He “hopes and prays”, y’all. 🤔
Hard to watch. pic.twitter.com/ehx3F3Y6le— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) September 21, 2025
Again, the White House responded to Schumer, pinning the blame on Democrats.
“If the government is shut down, it will be the fault of the Democrats, and it will only hurt the most vulnerable in our country: Our seniors, veterans, military families, increasing security for members of congress, which is something this White House and the administration supports,” Leavitt said in a press briefing…
“Democrats know that the right thing to do is join with Republicans to pass this clean funding extension,” Leavitt said on Monday. “That is what the president wants.”…
“This is the same budget that the Democrats approved six months ago, just adjusted for inflation,” she added. “Unfortunately, all of a sudden they want to shut down the government.”
But this afternoon, Politico is reporting that a pre-shutdown meeting between Trump and leading Democrats will happen, though the details are still vague.
President Donald Trump will meet this week with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss government funding ahead of a looming shutdown deadline, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the plans, which have not been publicly announced.
It was not immediately clear when this week the sitdown will happen; it’s also unclear if the top Republican congressional leaders will participate. Both the House and Senate are out of session this week, with funding set to expire at midnight Sept. 30.
Clearly, Democrats think it’s to their advantage to engage Trump on this. What’s not clear (to me anyway) is why Trump is bothering with them. He knows their entire plan is to blame him for the shutdown, so why give them a meeting which they will immediately use to do just that?
We’ll have to wait and see what happens but the House is not scheduled to return until October so it seems very unlikely anything other than the bill the House already passed can be used to avert a shutdown this week.
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