Updated September 29, 2025 at 5:46 PM EDT
Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress emerged from a White House meeting on Monday without a plan to fund the government ahead of a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.
The meeting with President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and the top leaders from each party was a last-minute effort to negotiate a way out of a weeks-long standoff between the two parities over spending.
After the talks, Vance accused Democrats of holding government funding "hostage," and said he believes the country is "headed to a shutdown."
"You don't put a gun to the American people's head and say, 'Unless you do exactly what Senate and House Democrats want you to do, we're going to shut down your government,'" Vance said. "That's exactly what they're proposing out there."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., repeated his demand for Republicans to negotiate a bipartisan funding bill.
House Republicans narrowly passed a continuing resolution earlier this month that would fund the government through Nov. 21. That measure failed in the Senate because of Democratic opposition. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber; they need 60 votes to pass the legislation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. is expected to call the measure up for a re-vote on Tuesday.
"Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input. That is never how we've done this before," Schumer said. "And so it's up to the Republicans whether they want a shutdown or not."
But ultimately, Schumer called Trump "the decision maker," and said the president "heard [Democrats'] objections."
"But there are still large differences between us," Schumer said.
A meeting redo
Monday's Oval Office meeting comes after President Trump abruptly canceled a planned meeting last week with the two Democratic leaders.
"After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive," Trump posted on social media.
Democrats are pushing to make permanent expanded tax cuts from the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire at the end of the year, and repeal cuts to health care programs that were put in place as part of the GOP's spending and tax bill bill passed earlier this summer.
Republicans are pushing to fund the government first, and then negotiate on the subsidies.
"[The expiry date] doesn't happen until the end of the year. We can have that conversation," Thune said on Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. "But before we do, release the hostage, set the American people free, keep the government open and let's have a conversation about those premium tax credits. I'm certainly open to that."
But top Democrats have repeatedly said a handshake agreement on a future negotiation about the subsidies isn't enough.
"We need a serious negotiation," Schumer said in a separate appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press. "Now, 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. But my hope is it will be a serious negotiation."
The clock is ticking
Without congressional action, government funding will expire at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1.
While critical services would continue, like Social Security and payments from Medicare and Medicaid, there could be delays in processing new applications for those programs.
In a shutdown, anything deemed nonessential is put on hold, so Americans could experience delays in certain services and hundreds of thousands of federal workers will go without pay.
In a move to seemingly raise the stakes, the White House's budget arm instructed federal agencies to prepare to lay off workers permanently, instead of the traditional temporary furlough.
Congressional Democrats panned the memo as an intimidation tactic.
"This is nothing less than mafia-style blackmail," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told NPR. "Essentially, the president is threatening to fire dedicated federal employees who have nothing to do with the ongoing political and policy dispute."
If the administration makes good on its threat, it could mean that whenever the federal government does reopen, it would have a smaller workforce.
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