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'The Schumer Shutdown'? Trump-Schumer Meeting Yields No Deal Amid Looming Deadline

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WASHINGTON – A government shutdown seems inevitable as Congress remains bitterly divided over Democratic demands for a solution on legislation to protect some 700,000 young immigrants from being deported.

In hopes of brokering an agreement, President Donald Trump summoned Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to the White House Friday – apparently to no avail.

"We had a long and detailed meeting," Schumer told reporters following the more than hour-long meeting. "We discussed all of the major outstanding issues. We made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussions will continue."

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said, “The president told him (Schumer) to go back and talk to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and work it out. So I think that’s the best way to handle this."

"The ball is in Sen. Schumer's court," he added.

The news comes one day after the House passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for the next four weeks, but it remains to be seen whether the bill will clear the Senate. The legislative body has until midnight Friday to pass the measure.

With a shutdown looming, the president scrapped plans to travel to Florida to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his inauguration.

"Government Funding Bill (passed) last night in the House of Representatives. Now Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate - but they want illegal immigration and weak borders. Shutdown coming? We need more Republican victories in 2018!" Trump tweeted Friday morning.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Friday that while he's hoping for the best, he's planning for the worst.

"I think it's ratcheted up," he said. "We were operating under a sort of 30 percent shutdown up until yesterday; I think it's ratcheted up now."

"I'm handicapping it now at some place between 50 and 60 percent. But again we're planning for it as if it's 100 percent. That's what we do, we run the government, and we will run the government if a bill passes, we will run the government if a bill doesn't pass."

Meanwhile, the finger-pointing is in full swing.

"They're in charge," Schumer said Friday. "They're not talking to us. They're totally paralyzed and inept. There's no one to negotiate with."

But on the other side, Republicans are preemptively calling it "the Schumer Shutdown."

They say they've already given the Democrats a big reason to vote for this bill by including an extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

House Speaker Paul Ryan said, "If the government shuts down it's going to be because the Democrats did so. And it's because they put our men and women in the military and extension of the CHIP program in jeopardy for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), for something that's unrelated that does not have a deadline that's expiring this week."
 
Should a shutdown take place, critical services such as food inspections, federal law enforcement, and airport security checks would continue. Social Security, other federal benefit programs and military operations would also carry on. Federal workers, however, would not be paid.

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