(CNN) — President Donald Trump is expected to meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries this week as lawmakers stare down a government funding deadline, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
They could meet as soon as Thursday, one of the sources said.
Punchbowl News first reported on the planned meeting.
The Democratic congressional leaders wrote to the White House over the weekend to request a meeting with the president because “there has been no negotiation with Republicans.”
“That’s the only way to avoid a Trump shutdown. The Republican leadership is listening to Trump and not talking to us,” Schumer told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
Trump, for his part, has been receptive to such a meeting, saying over the weekend that he would love to meet with the Democratic congressional leaders but also that he didn’t think it was “going to have any impact.”
Asked Sunday if such a meeting would actually happen, Schumer said he and Jeffries were “ready to meet with him any time and place to negotiate and avoid the Trump shutdown.”
As CNN has reported, the Democratic leaders, as well as rank-and-file, have publicly projected a united front in recent days, and many in the party are eager for a fight with Trump. But some also worry about the party’s exit strategy if Trump and the GOP refuse to cave.
On Friday, Lawmakers left Washington for a week without a path forward, after the Senate rejected both a House-passed seven-week government funding measure and a Democratic alternative.
Republicans have argued their bill to fund the government through November 20 is a “clean” continuing resolution, or CR, with only $30 million in extra security money for members of Congress and $58 million for security for the executive and judicial branches. It also includes a funding “fix” for DC, which would free up $1 billion of the city’s own money, adjusting a mistake in an earlier bill.
The Democratic bill, meanwhile, included expensive health care changes, such as extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. Republicans have argued it’s inappropriate to add such provisions to a stopgap funding bill and that they should be negotiated as part of a year-end funding bill.
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