Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, met with President Trump at the White House Friday as part of efforts to avert an imminent government shutdown, just hours after the White House coined a decidedly Trumpian phrase in the battle to assign blame for the standoff, branding it the "Schumer Shutdown."
Trump summoned Schumer to the White House shortly after Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, speaking to reporters at a press conference, pointed the finger at Schumer for Democrats refusing to back a short-term spending bill unless it includes protections for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children.
The nickname echoed President Trump’s well-documented penchant for hanging nicknames on political adversaries, and the invite appeared to complete a carrot-and-stick approach to negotiations. The move comes as Republicans and Democrats scramble to assign blame to their opponents, knowing that whoever is seen to be behind the shutdown is also under pressure to return to the bargaining table.
In his remarks, Mulvaney accused the Democrats of opposing a bill that contains nothing they are against.
“They don’t oppose anything in the bill, but they are opposing the bill,” Mulvaney said, pointing to popular measures in the bill such as the funding of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Democrats seemed to be aware of the importance of messaging, with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., taking to the Senate floor with an image declaring the logjam a "Trump Shutdown," quoting a tweet from President Trump from May saying "our country needs a good 'shutdown.'"
Markey blasted Republicans complaining about the threat of a shutdown, telling them to "spare me your crocodile tears."
The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a one-month bill Thursday night by a vote of 230-197 largely along party lines, with 11 Republicans voting no and six Democrats voting yes.
With a midnight deadline looming, the bill now moves to the Senate where the Republicans hold only a slender majority, making prospects for passage grim. To break a Democratic filibuster, the bill will need 60 votes. Republicans have a 51-49 majority in the Senate.
Senate Democrats have said that Democrats want any spending bill to include a fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program -- an Obama-era executive order that granted protected status to some illegal immigrants brought to the country as children. President Trump repealed the order in September, and gave Congress a deadline of March to come up with a legislative fix.
“Unless we pass the #DreamAct, I won’t support another short-term funding bill,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., tweeted Thursday. “Our Dreamers have waited far too long for a chance to be a part of this country’s future.”
Republicans had hoped to back Democrats into a corner by attaching a six-year CHIP extension to the bill. But Democrats have so far refused to budge.