Schumer: No talks with Trump on shutdown

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday said there has not been any talk with President Trump or GOP leaders on how to avoid a government shutdown, adding that Senate Republicans have “no idea what President Trump wants.” 

Schumer said he and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are still waiting to hear back on the offer they made to Trump last week: either a one-year stopgap funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security or a one-year stopgap for the seven unfinished appropriations bills, which cover nearly 25 percent of the federal government.

{mosads}“Unfortunately since our meeting last Tuesday, Leader Pelosi and I have still not heard from the White House whether they will accept either of these options,” Schumer said from the Senate floor. “Nor have we even heard from our Republican colleagues in the Senate or House about what they might support to avoid a shutdown. Not a peep. They’re nowhere to be found.”

“What’s the Republicans’ plan? They don’t have one, they don’t know what to do,” Schumer added. “In the scuttlebutt, where we talk to one another, Senate Republican leadership has no idea what President Trump wants. Neither does House Republican leadership.”

Schumer told reporters in the hallway that the White House hasn’t given Democrats any counteroffer to their proposals.

“They’ve sent us nothing,” he said. 

He argued that Republicans are paralyzed by their inability to pass legislation in the House that would provide $5 billion for Trump’s border wall.

“[Republicans have] got big problems in the House … and they don’t seem to know where the president is.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) told reporters Monday afternoon that Trump could make an announcement later in the day about his plan for how to handle the spending impasse.

Shelby, emerging from a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said the White House may soon announce a decision about whether to advance a short-term stopgap that would punt the border wall fight until late January or early February. 

– Jordain Carney contributed.