Congress is two days away from a potential government shutdown, and lawmakers are nowhere close to agreement on how to keep federal agencies running.
President Donald Trump and Congress’ top four leaders will try to bridge that gap during a meeting Monday afternoon, but Republicans and Democrats are far apart in their demands and neither side has shown a willingness to budge.
“Democrats can either vote for a clean, short-term, nonpartisan [continuing resolution] that prioritizes the American people, or they can choose a completely avoidable shutdown that prioritizes politics above all else,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a statement Sunday.
Indeed, failure to land a deal on a stopgap funding measure before Wednesday would force a shutdown with sweeping implications for federal programs.
It would trigger lapses in authorizations for myriad energy and environment programs, halt most agency work, restrict disaster relief during hurricane season and prompt the White House to carry out its threat to permanently lay off thousands of federal workers.
Before last week’s recess, Senate Republicans rejected a Democratic funding proposal that would have extended government funding while adding more than $1 trillion in new health care spending and imposing guardrails on the White House’s spending moves.
Then, Senate Democrats blocked passage of Republicans’ “clean” funding extension, which had already passed out of the House. Democrats balked at the bill because it did not include their priorities and was not the result of bipartisan negotiations.
This week, Congress may look to pick up where the Senate left off. Thune is expected to put the Republican continuing resolution up for a vote again and dare Democrats to oppose it a second time before the funding deadline.
“The president wants to talk with [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)] about that and say, ‘Don’t do that,’” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday.
House and Senate leaders doubled down on their party’s negotiating stances in television interviews Sunday, appearing to leave little room for compromise. Republican and Democratic leaders have been preemptively blaming each other for the potential funding lapse.
While they welcomed the meeting with Trump, Democrats expressed skepticism that it could be fruitful. A similar meeting between Trump and Democratic leaders in 2018 quickly spiraled out of control.
“If the president at this meeting is going to rant and just yell at Democrats and talk about all his alleged grievances and say this, that and the other thing, we won’t get anything done,” Schumer said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But my hope is it will be a serious negotiation.”
House Republicans are holding a conference-wide call Monday morning, according to POLITICO, and House Democrats have plans to meet on their own Monday evening in Washington. Jeffries has called on Democrats to be on Capitol Hill this week even though Johnson canceled votes.
House GOP leaders have discussed potentially not bringing the House back into session at all this week if there is a shutdown Wednesday, POLITICO reported.
Jeffries said in a “dear colleague” letter last week that “Democrats will be in town and prepared to get the job done.”
Separately, the House and Senate Appropriations committees have been working on advancing three bipartisan fiscal 2026 spending bills: Agriculture-FDA, Legislative Branch and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs. Johnson said Sunday that committee staff were continuing to make progress.
