WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown entered its 36th day and became the longest in U.S. history Wednesday, President Donald Trump dug in on his demand that Republican Senators end the filibuster while Democrats called for the president to meet with them.
“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump said during a breakfast meeting with Republican senators Wednesday. “It’s time to have a really good talk. If I thought they weren’t going to pass the filibuster, I wouldn’t even bring it up.”
Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked a Republican bill to temporarily fund the government through Nov. 21 over demands that it includes an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that will otherwise expire at the end of the year. The bill failed for a 15th time in the Senate on Tuesday in a vote that requires 60 to pass.
Since Friday, Trump has repeatedly urged Senate Republicans to end the filibuster, which would allow the stopgap funding bill and future Republican legislation to pass with a simple majority. Currently, legislation needs 60 votes to advance past a filibuster.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on X on Wednesday: “Donald Trump and Republicans are meeting at the White House this morning. The extremists want to make your life more expensive, take away healthcare and keep the government shut down. Have they learned nothing from being wiped out last night? #BlueWave.”
One day after an election that saw democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani win the New York City mayoral race, and Democratic governors claim victories in Virginia and New Jersey, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., dismissed the idea that it was a referendum on Republican leadership or Trump.
“What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue,” Johnson said during his daily briefing at the Capitol on Wednesday morning. “We all saw that coming, and no one should read too much into last night’s results.”
Johnson said Tuesday’s election only proved what he has been saying for weeks: that Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are kowtowing to the most left-leaning elements of their party.
“The old guard is desperately trying to use this shutdown to show the radical Marxist wing of their party that they look tough to President Trump,” he said. “That’s because the new power center of the left isn’t the moderates. It’s the activists who believe capitalism is evil, who disdain the founding principles of their own country.”
At his breakfast meeting Wednesday, Trump said he would have a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans “about what last night represented and what we should do about it and also about the shutdown and how that relates to last night.”
Prior to his comments, Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote a letter Wednesday “to demand a bipartisan meeting of legislative leaders to end the GOP shutdown of the federal government and decisively address the Republican health care crisis. Democrats stand ready to meet with you face to face, anytime and anyplace.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for a comment about whether Trump will agree to a meeting.
The worsening stalemate comes as 42 million low-income Americans miss their nutrition assistance payments and as hundreds of thousands of federal workers go without pay, including air traffic controllers, who are calling in sick and causing flight delays across the country.
Trump, along with Republican leaders in the House and Senate, has insisted for weeks that GOP lawmakers will only negotiate with Democrats about health care subsidies once the shutdown has ended.
But that remains out of reach, as both sides continue to dig in on their positions.
Susan Carpenter
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