Senate

Live coverage: Government shutdown stretches into second day

by The Hill Staff - 01/21/18 9:00 AM ET

A partial shutdown of the federal government stretched into a second day on Sunday, after the Senate failed to pass a short-term funding bill.

The blame game boiled over on Saturday, with lawmakers in both parties fighting hard for an edge in the shutdown. Neither side showed any signs of backing down when the Senate adjourned Saturday evening without a deal in sight.

Bookmark this link for the latest developments.

Senate fails to reach deal on shutdown

9:43 p.m.

The Senate has failed to reach a deal to prevent the government shutdown from pushing into the workweek.

The upper chamber is now set to vote at noon on Monday to end debate on a measure that would fund the government through Feb. 8.

It’s not clear there will be 60 votes to end debate, however, given opposition from Senate Democrats to the measure.

McConnell gives update on shutdown negotiations

9:15 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is on the Senate floor to deliver an update on shutdown talks.

White House aide: Senate expected to vote before 1 a.m.

8:47 p.m.

Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs, said he expects the Senate will vote before 1 a.m.

“We expect a vote. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out,” he said.

Asked if he expected the vote would happen before 1 a.m., he said yes, but did not know what time.

Absent an agreement, the Senate is expected to take a key procedural vote at 1 a.m. on legislation that would fund the government into February.

Senators make last push to reach deal on shutdown

8 p.m.

Senators appeared to be making one last-ditch effort to reach a deal Sunday evening to avoid a full government shutdown on Monday.

Some senators have expressed optimism that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) are near an agreement.

Others, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), expect government to be closed on Monday.

If a deal is to be struck, it will have to come in the next few hours.

Trump discusses shutdown negotiations with GOP leaders

5:04 p.m.

President Trump personally spoke with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn (Texas), to discuss the ongoing shutdown negotiations, according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Chief of staff John Kelly spoke to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and updated the president on the talks. Legislative director March Short also held talks with members on both sides of the aisle.

“We are continuing to work hard towards reopening the government and making sure our great military and their families, vulnerable children and the American people are being taken care of,” Sanders said in a statement.

Senate group signals they are near a deal on shutdown

4:38 p.m.

A bipartisan group of roughly 20 senators are signaling they are nearing an agreement to reopen the government.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said the group had reached a “consensus of understanding,” not an agreement, noting they are different things.

If senators can’t reach an agreement, they’ll take a cloture vote on a government funding bill at 1 a.m.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said that there is a “glimmer of hope” that the Senate could wrap up its work this evening, rather than in the middle of the night.

Senators predicted that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who did not speak on Saturday, would be meeting shortly.

The Senate plans to vote early Monday

3:50 p.m.

The Senate is expected to hold a procedural vote at 1 a.m. Monday on a three-week stopgap measure to reopen the government.

If the Senate passes the bill in the wee hours of Monday morning, the House could end up with a long night after waiting around all day Sunday.

House GOP leaders gave their rank-and-file a simple message in a brief conference meeting Sunday afternoon: Hang tight.

Graham hopes for a breakthrough today

3:45 p.m.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said lawmakers are hoping for a “breakthrough.”

“If there’s going to be one, it will be tonight,” Graham told reporters on Sunday afternoon.

Senate lawmakers are meeting

3:40 p.m.

A group of Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans are now huddling with their respective leadership teams to pitch a bipartisan proposal to reopen the government.

“We have some pretty solid ideas that we’re pitching to both Sen. [Mitch] McConnell [R-Ky.] and Sen. Schumer,” said Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) as he walked into Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office.

Senators hatched the plan during a bipartisan meeting in Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-Maine) office earlier this afternoon.

“It is critically important that we get this done today,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), before referencing Sunday’s football game. “If I have to miss the Vikings playing the Eagles to solve this … I will.”

Hispanic Caucus Dem meets with Cornyn on path forward

3:10 p.m.

Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, emerged from a meeting in Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) office on Sunday afternoon.

Lujan Grisham told The Hill that she and a select group of people were invited by the Senate’s No. 2 Republican for an “informal coffee.”

She said that the path forward on reopening the government is still “uncertain,” but added that she is “motivated to have more certainty the rest of the day.”

“We have maintained open lines of communication with folks who have been doing the work on Durbin-Graham,” Lujan Grisham said, referring to a bipartisan proposal from Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Schumer: Trump must take ‘yes’ for an answer

2:42 p.m.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is maintaining that President Trump walked away from a potential deal to avert the shutdown.

“[He] can’t take ‘yes’ for an answer,” Schumer said of Trump on the Senate floor. “That’s why we’re here, and we don’t have anyone in the White House or here in the Senate, in the House … to tell him he’s got to straighten this whole thing out. He can’t say ‘yes’ one minute and ‘no’ the next.”

Democrats say Trump is not a reliable negotiator but have asked for another White House meeting to discuss negotiations to reopen the government.

Graham: Stephen Miller makes immigration deal impossible

2:07 P.M.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned on Sunday that the White House staff is undercutting President Trump and Congress’s ability to get a deal on immigration.

“Every time we have a proposal it is only yanked back by staff members. As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we’re going nowhere,” Graham told reporters as he headed into a closed-door meeting with a bipartisan group of senators.

He added that “the White House staff, I think, is making it very difficult.”

Miller, a White House aide, is well known for his conservative views on immigration. He was formerly a staffer for then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who frequently fought against bipartisan immigration deals.

Miller authored the White House’s wide-ranging immigration plan, which includes wall funding and cracking down on cities that don’t comply with federal immigration law.

Democrats have repeatedly bristled at Miller’s involvement, arguing he isn’t a constructive force in the immigration talks.

Bipartisan Senate group meets

1:49 p.m.

A bipartisan group of more than a dozen senators is currently meeting to try to hash out an agreement to reopen the government.

The group has been meeting over the past few days, including a roughly two-hour meeting on Saturday.

Multiple senators said heading into the closed-door meeting that they are keeping leadership updated on the talks.

Democratic senators in the meeting include Sens. Christopher Coons (Del.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Mark Warner (Va.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.).

GOP senators include Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.).

A group of moderate Democrats also met with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday.

McConnell: ‘This shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow’

1:17 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at the start of a rare Sunday session ripped Democrats over the government shutdown, which is now in its second day.

“This shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow,” he said on the Senate floor. “Today would be a good day to end it.”

McConnell said bipartisan, bicameral talks can go nowhere until Senate Democrats realize that the “extreme path” that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has charted “leads them nowhere.”

McConnell also called a fix Democrats want for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program a “tangential” issue that does not even “ripen” until March.

“This shutdown was a political miscalculation of gargantuan proportions,” McConnell said. “But it doesn’t need to go on any longer.”

White House says it cannot answer public calls because of shutdown

12:28 p.m.

The White House’s public comment telephone line isn’t accepting calls amid the ongoing government shutdown, and its recently updated recorded message blames it on Democrats.

“Thank you for calling the White House. Unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate,” a woman’s voice says on the voicemail. “Due to this obstruction, the government is shut down.”

Durbin refuses to predict shutdown will end by Monday

12 p.m.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” he can’t predict when the government will reopen.

“You think this government reopens before close of business Monday?” Todd pressed.

“I’m not going to make that prediction,” replied Durbin.

Trump thinks he’s winning on shutdown, Gingrich says

10:56 a.m.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said in an interview broadcast Sunday that President Trump and Republican lawmakers think they’re winning the government shutdown blame game.

Gingrich said both Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his Democratic colleagues made a mistake in opposing the Republican-backed spending bill over a legislative solution to protect immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children.

“This is not what the Democrats hoped for. And I think President Trump has played this pretty well,” Gingrich told New York radio host John Catsimatidis.

McConnell opposes nuclear option

10 a.m.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opposes implementing the “nuclear option” in the Senate in order to pass a funding bill.

“The Republican Conference opposes changing the rules on legislation,” a spokesman told media outlets.

President Trump proposed the rule change in a tweet earlier on Sunday. The nuclear option would only require 51 votes to pass legislation.

Durbin: Doing away with the filibuster would be the ‘end of the Senate’

9:54 a.m.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday dismissed the notion of doing away with the filibuster amid negotiations to end the government shutdown, saying it would be the “end of the Senate” as it is currently known.

“That would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our founding fathers. We have to acknowledge our respect for the minority, and that is what the Senate tries to do in its composition and in its procedure,” Durbin told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.” “Let’s get this done on a bipartisan basis. We’ve produced a bipartisan approach to many of these issues. If the president and the leaders in Congress will sit down with us, we can resolve this quickly.”

President Trump in a tweet earlier Sunday urged Senate Republicans to enact the so-called nuclear option if the government shutdown drags on, and pass a long-term budget with 51 votes.

Key aides: Trump open to a DACA solution

9:33 a.m.

Two top aides said on Sunday that President Trump is open to a legislative fix for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as the government enters its second day of the shutdown.

“Keep in mind, these are people aged 16-36 with work permits, which means they do not have any criminal background. They’re here being productive to our country,” legislative director Marc Short told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.”

“I think you’ve seen the White House show an openness to expand that population, where Democrats have said there are other people who should be part of the DACA population because they were either afraid or didn’t apply to the program. We’ve shown a willingness to consider that. So we feel like we’re making progress on multiple areas.”

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, meanwhile, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump “is absolutely interested and wants to get DACA fixed.”

The Obama-era program, which shields certain immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation, has been at the center of negotiations over a short-term spending bill between lawmakers, as Democrats push for protections for the so-called Dreamers.

Budget chief says shutdown could last more than a week

9:20 a.m.

“I think Democrats want to see the president give the State of the Union under a shutdown,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday,” warning the shutdown could last more than a week.

Trump’s first State of the Union is scheduled for Jan. 30.

Armed Forces Network restored amid shutdown

9:00 a.m.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday morning that the Armed Forces Network has been restored in most places amid the government shutdown, allowing deployed U.S. service members to watch the NFL playoffs later in the day.

“Glad our brave men and women can watch the game today,” she tweeted.

Update: @DeptofDefense has informed us that AFN has been restored in most places. Glad our brave men and women can watch the game today. https://t.co/d424r1mBu2

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) January 21, 2018

Trump: Senate Republicans should go nuclear if stalemate continues

9:00 a.m.

President Trump on Sunday called for Senate Republicans to trigger the so-called nuclear option if the government shutdown continues and pass a long-term budget with 51 votes.

“Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked,” Trump tweeted.

“If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!” he added, referring to a stopgap spending measure known as a continuing resolution.

Senate session to resume Sunday afternoon

9:00 a.m.

The Senate is expected to resume negotiations on legislation to fund the government starting at 1 p.m. Sunday.

No votes are currently scheduled for the Sunday session. Unless senators get an agreement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is warning he will force a procedural vote at 1 a.m. on Monday.

Day Two of the government shutdown comes as there is no sign of an agreement that could win over enough support to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.

Though senators were spotted bouncing between McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) offices, the two Senate leaders hadn’t spoken on Saturday.

According to an aide, Schumer also had not spoken to President Trump.

The House next meets at 2 p.m.

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