House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries laid out a new ultimatum for a government funding deal Wednesday, telling reporters Wednesday that an agreement addressing health care has to be “ironclad and in legislation” to win Democratic support ahead of next week’s shutdown deadline.
Jeffries’ position escalates the odds that agencies could shutter on at midnight Sept. 30. While Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are insisting Republicans negotiate a deal on expiring health insurance subsides and other matters, there are no lines of communication open between the GOP and Democratic leaders a day after President Donald Trump scuttled a planned bipartisan sitdown at the White House.
“There’s no trust that exists between House Democrats and House Republicans at this particular point in time, given the fact that they’ve consistently tried to undermine bipartisan agreements that they themselves have reached,” Jeffries said at a Capitol news conference. “Any agreement related to protecting the health care of the American people has to be ironclad and in legislation.”
Jeffries and Schumer have sought to health care the focus of the shutdown fight, especially with the insurance subsidies used by more than 20 million Americans set to expire at the end of the year. GOP leaders have expressed an openness to negotiating on an extension, but they have rejected entering into talks this month and have put forward a “clean” seven-week stopgap bill instead.
It’s not clear whether Senate Democrats are drawing the same red line on potential health care negotiations. Schumer recently sidestepped a question about whether a GOP commitment to work on the insurance subsidies and other health care issues would be enough to earn Democratic votes for a shutdown-averting punt.
Some progressive Democrats are publicly and privately fretting that Schumer and Senate Democrats will once again cave to pressure and vote to advance a GOP-led stopgap — as 10 Senate Democrats, including Schumer, did in March. Jeffries said he and Schumer would talk “at some point later on today.”
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said a symbolic vote or other toothless gesture would not suffice.
“Democrats need to put up a real fight against” the GOP bill, he wrote on X Wednesday, “not just put on a show then cave for crumbs.”
