Donald Trump canceled a planned meeting with Democratic congressional leaders, the president announced on social media Tuesday.
Trump said that “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.”
It comes one day after POLITICO reported that the president would meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as a government shutdown looms.
Trump decided to cancel the meeting after House GOP leadership relayed their concerns about it to the White House, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private conversations.
Earlier Tuesday, Jeffries and Schumer said in a statement they planned to use the meeting to “emphasize the importance of addressing rising costs, including the Republican healthcare crisis.”
“It’s past time to meet and work to avoid a Republican-caused shutdown,” they said.
Republicans have been pushing for a “clean” seven-week stopgap spending bill, while Democrats introduced a different measure which would keep the government open for four weeks while attaching other demands.
Following the announcement, Jeffries took to social media to slam the decision, saying Trump “Always Chickens Out.”
“Donald Trump just cancelled a high stakes meeting in the Oval Office with myself and Leader Schumer,” the minority leader said. “The extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America.”
GOP congressional leaders have called those demands a nonstarter and argued that a short-term stopgap was not the place to negotiate other matters. Some were wary of the meeting out of concern that Trump might strike a deal with Jeffries and Schumer over extending health insurance subsidies that a large swath of House Republicans oppose, according to three other people granted anonymity to describe internal dynamics.
Speaker Mike Johnson underscored the uneasiness Tuesday, telling reporters at the Capitol he would insist on attending any exchange with Democratic leaders as they push for myriad policy concessions as a condition for their votes on any spending bill.
“If there’s a meeting, I will certainly be there,” Johnson said. “But I’m not certain that the meeting is necessary.”
House GOP leaders, the three people said, were also worried a Trump meeting with Democrats would erode Republicans’ leverage. Johnson is not planning to bring the House back into session until after the shutdown deadline as Republicans try to jam the Senate into approving the Republican-led stopgap bill.
Democrats made the insurance subsidies a centerpiece of their demands ahead of the shutdown deadline. But the issue is deeply divisive inside the GOP, and leaders in both chambers have moved to push off any talks about the tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year.
The Democratic demands also include rolling back the GOP domestic policy bill that passed over the summer as well as restoring some public broadcasting and foreign aid funding.
Johnson called those “wild partisan demands” Tuesday and called for passage of a “very simple, short term, very clean CR” — referring to a continuing resolution, as a bill extending current funding levels is known on Capitol Hill.
“To the Leaders of the Democrat Party, the ball is in your court,” the president added. “I look forward to meeting with you when you become realistic about the things that our Country stands for.”
