Trump to meet with congressional leaders ahead of shutdown deadline

President Trump and top congressional leaders will meet next week to find a path forward on key agenda items, including a spending deal to avert a government shutdown.

“The president will be meeting with congressional leaders next week to discuss end-of-year legislative issues,” White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters said Wednesday.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) are all expected to meet with Trump.

The White House did not say what day the meeting will take place.

{mosads}The huddle comes ahead of a Dec. 8 deadline for lawmakers to approve a government funding measure or face a shutdown.

Leaders have not yet agreed to spending levels, making it likely Congress will have to pass a stopgap spending bill to buy more time for negotiations.

Lawmakers are already grappling with a packed legislative calendar. The Senate is pushing to pass its version of tax reform next week in an effort to put a finished product on Trump’s desk by the end of the year.

The situation has been complicated by the debate over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Obama-era initiative that offered deportation reprieves and work permits to young people brought illegally to the U.S. as children.

Trump terminated the program earlier this year and many beneficiaries will begin to lose their status in March.

Democratic leaders are insisting that Congress pass a fix by year’s end, and many are threatening to withhold their support from an omnibus spending bill if the DACA provisions are not included.

That has further heightened the risk of a shutdown because GOP leaders have so far refused to consider attaching DACA language to a spending bill.

The meeting will be closely watched to see how Trump handles the ongoing disputes.

In September, the president shocked Washington by hammering out a deal with Schumer and Pelosi — instead of his own party’s leaders — on government spending and raising the debt ceiling.

The Democratic leaders later announced they had reached a deal in principle with Trump to salvage the DACA program, but such an agreement fell apart in the ensuing days.