OAN Staff Blake Wolf
9:43 AM – Sunday, September 28, 2025
President Donald Trump agreed to meet with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday ahead of the looming government shutdown.
The announcement of the meeting follows President Trump’s decision to cancel a prior meeting with Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jeffries (D-N.Y.) earlier this week after seemingly deciding “that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive.”
After Trump canceled the original meeting, Schumer reportedly called Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), urging him to push Trump to reconsider the meeting as the government shutdown approaches, according to a Schumer aide.
The government is set to shut down next Wednesday unless Congress can secure a continuing resolution, which would require the support of at least seven Senate Democrats to secure the 60 votes needed to overcome a potential filibuster.
“President Trump has once again agreed to a meeting in the Oval Office,” Schumer and Jeffries announced in a joint statement. “As we have repeatedly said, Democrats will meet anywhere, at any time and with anyone to negotiate a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people. We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis. Time is running out.”
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Last week, a GOP-led stopgap funding bill was introduced that would keep the government funded until November 21st. The bill was able to pass in the House, but ultimately ended up dying in the Senate as it was only able to secure 44 votes.
“We’ll continue to talk to the Democrats, but I think you could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time,” President Trump stated at the time. “And we’ll take care of the military, we’ll take care of Social Security, we’ll take care of the things we have to take care of.”
The Democrats refused to support the bill as they negotiated for the inclusion of enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, which are imminently set to expire, restoring funding for public broadcasters that were recently slashed by the Trump administration, and the rollback of Medicaid cuts introduced in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” all of which were non-starters for Republicans.
Should the federal government shut down, it would affect non-essential government programs and potentially delay pay for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
Additionally, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memo to federal agencies on Wednesday, warning of the potential imminent shutdown while urging them to prepare layoff plans.
“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown, and we must continue our planning efforts in the event Democrats decide to shut down the government,” the OMB memo read.
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