Government shutdown looms large as McConnell sets procedural vote to break filibuster on spending bill
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White House is planning for a possible government shutdown
President Trump believes the politics over illegal immigration are a distraction technique employed by Democrats.
The government is just hours away from shutting down, and there's still no deal to keep it running.
Negotiations, however, are continuing, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. still working to pass a resolution to keep the government open, White House sources said.
McConnell has set a 10 p.m. ET vote to break a filibuster on the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) to avoid a shutdown.
It will need 60 votes. Republicans have a 51-49 majority in the Senate.
There are currently three GOP senators opposed: Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is away as he battles brain cancer.
That means that Republicans needs 13 Democrats to hit 60.
So far, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is the only Democrat who has indicated that he will vote for the resolution.
Earlier Friday, demonstrators were seen protesting in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in the Russell Senate Office Building. Democrats are refusing to back a short-term spending bill unless it includes protections for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children.
About a hundred immigration protesters were seen gathering in the Russell Senate Office Building on Friday afternoon. (Adam Shapiro/Fox Business)
During the day Friday, Schumer met with President Trump at the White House as part of an effort to avert the imminent shutdown.
That meeting came as the White House coined a decidedly Trumpian phrase in the battle to assign blame for the standoff, branding it the "Schumer Shutdown."
A senior White House official told Fox News that the Trump-Schumer meeting was productive, but there was no deal yet. Still, the president labeled the meeting "excellent" in a tweet.
"Making progress," Trump wrote, adding that a "four week extension would be best!"
“We had a long and detailed meeting," Schumer said in a statement. "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.”
According to a White House source, Schumer arrived in the Oval Office and presented the president with a list of demands on domestic issues that went well beyond just DACA. The president listened to Schumer and appeared perplexed as Schumer rattled off his agenda items, the source said. The president told Schumer he wasn’t going to get all of those demands in a spending bill.
Schumer, the source said, did appear open to considering a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded for five days. The official White House position is still a 30-day extension.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Friday 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 funding for 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 that broke down largely along party lines, with 11 Republicans voting no and six Democrats voting yes.
Senate Democrats have said that Democrats want any spending bill to include a fix for DACA. 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.
Republicans have repeatedly put the blame firmly on Democrats’ positioning on DACA as the reason for the looming shutdown.
“Apparently they believe the issue of illegal immigration is more important than anything else, than the government services the American people depend on,” McConnell said.
President Trump has repeatedly urged Congress to keep the government open, warning that a shutdown will harm the U.S. military. The White House announced that Trump would not travel to Florida, as previously scheduled, until the continuing resolution is signed.
Should Congress miss the Friday night deadline, it is far from clear if the government will actually shut down immediately. Fox News is told that the Trump administration will not “weaponize” the shutdown, closing various monuments and national parks, to create a "show" as critics say the Obama administration did in a 2013 closure.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram, Peter Doocy, Mike Emanuel, Kristin Brown, Serafin Gomez, John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.
Alex Pappas is a politics reporter at FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexPappas.