Sen. Chuck Schumer: Meeting Trump to avert shutdown 'good first step'

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said a planned meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday will be a "good first step" to avert a government shutdown.

The sit-down with Trump and top congressional leaders is set to take place before funding for most federal agencies expires at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. If Congress does not reach a deal, Long Island’s 31,000 resident federal workers could see layoffs. As of Sunday, elected officials were still in a deadlock about what programs should receive temporary funding, with Democrats holding out votes and demanding to protect health care subsidies.

If elected officials don’t come to an agreement before Wednesday, active-duty service members and the National Guard will be required to work for back pay. Millions of federal employees whose jobs relate to national security and law enforcement, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will also work for back pay.

On Monday, Trump will meet with Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) to discuss a bipartisan spending bill.

"I called John Thune on Friday afternoon and I said, ‘Come on, let’s sit down. The only way we’re going to get this done is a serious negotiation,’" Schumer said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Schumer received a call from the White House on Saturday evening, confirming a meeting for 2 p.m. on Monday, he said.

"If the president at this meeting is going to rant, and just yell at Democrats ... we won’t get anything done," he said.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry. On Friday morning, Trump told reporters: "These people are crazy, the Democrats. So if it has to shut down, it'll have to shut down. But they're the ones that are shutting it down."

Thune said a shutdown is "totally up to the Democrats," during the same "Meet the Press" program Sunday. "The ball is in their court."

Johnson told CNN Sunday that there is "nothing partisan" about his party's bill to keep the government funded.

Democrats have held onto demands for health-care-related concessions. Republicans disapprove of the negotiation tactic, maintaining that a short-term spending bill be kept as is.

The most recent and longest federal government shutdown lasted 34 days, between December 2018 and January 2019. It caused at least $3 billion in permanent economic damage, according to estimates by the Bipartisan Policy Center — and it was only a partial shutdown.

This time, none of the 12 annual spending bills that fund U.S. government agencies has been passed. Republicans are pushing for a short-term spending bill that would extend funding through Nov. 20, but Democrats are using the stalemate as leverage to reverse Medicaid cuts.

If the government shuts down, COVID-era tax breaks would expire, spiking health care premiums for millions of Americans. Some Long Islanders could lose coverage altogether.

About 117,000 Nassau residents and 134,000 Suffolk residents who receive Affordable Care Act subsidies could face a 32% increase in monthly premium costs.