Schumer, Jeffries urge president to negotiate as government shutdown hits 21 days

The top congressional Democrats want a meeting with President Donald Trump as the government shutdown stretches on.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that both he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., reached out to Trump on Tuesday to set up a confab with the president.

The top Senate Democrat said the duo “urged” Trump to meet with them, and that they were open to setting up “an appointment with him any time, any place.”

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“Hakeem and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the healthcare crisis, address it and end the Trump shutdown,” Schumer said. “He should sit — the things get worse every day for the American people. He should sit down with us, negotiate in a serious way before he goes away.”

Congressional Democrats, particularly Schumer and his Democratic caucus, have remained steadfast in their demands for an extension to expiring Obamacare subsidies. Though Senate Republicans have been open to holding a vote on the matter after the government reopens, Democrats want an ironclad guarantee that the subsidies will be extended well before their expiration at the end of this year.

Should Trump relent to their request, it would mark the first meeting among the trio since Schumer, Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met in the Oval Office a day before the shutdown began.

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Lawmakers left that meeting with no agreement to avert the shutdown, which has now dragged on for 21 days.

Senate Democrats have also blocked Thune and Republicans’ attempts to reopen the government 11 times. Another vote on the House-passed continuing resolution, which would reopen the government until Nov. 21, is expected on Wednesday.

And like the many attempts before, that latest effort is expected to fail.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans met with Trump for lunch at the White House Tuesday afternoon.

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Speaking to reporters afterward, Thune reiterated that Senate Republicans were united in their war of attrition strategy to continue putting the same bill on the floor again and again. He noted that Trump would likely agree to meet with Schumer and Jeffries, but only after Senate Democrats unlocked the votes needed to reopen the government.

“We have negotiated. I don’t know what there is to negotiate. This is about opening up the government,” Thune said. “We have offered them several off-ramps. Now, the Democrats want something that’s totally untenable. I mean, they want $1.5 trillion in new spending. They want free healthcare for people who are noncitizens in this country. That is just a flat nonstarter. It doesn’t pass the Senate. It won’t pass the House. It won’t be signed into law by the president.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries’ and the White House for comment but did not immediately hear back.