Trump cancels meeting with top Democrats amid looming US government shutdown

HOUSTON, United States

President Donald Trump on Tuesday canceled a planned meeting with top congressional Democrats one week before the Sept. 30 deadline for a potential US government shutdown.

The meeting was scheduled to take place Thursday with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, but Trump said he reviewed the details of what Democrats were asking for and said he would not come to the table with the "demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats” in return for their votes to keep the government running.

The president blasted Democrats for what he called their "unserious and ridiculous demands" in a long post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

"I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive," he wrote.

He then gave a largely unfounded list of alleged Democratic causes, saying they are threatening to shut down the government “unless they can have over $1 trillion in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens … try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World … and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody."

He added: "The Democrats in Congress seem to have totally lost their way.”

Trump ‘unwilling to address Republican healthcare crisis,' say Democrats

Congress is in the middle of a standoff as government funding is set to expire at the end of September. The Republican-controlled House passed a short-term bill to keep the government up and running through Nov. 21, but the Senate rejected the proposal as well as a separate Democratic effort.

The Senate, made up of 100 senators, needs 60 votes to get past procedural hurdles ahead of a bill's passage. Republicans have the majority in the chamber – 57-43 – but even along party-line voting, that number is not enough to pass the measure.

"All Congressional Democrats want to do is enact Radical Left Policies that nobody voted for … (and) which would lead to the destruction of America," Trump claimed.

Jeffries slammed Trump for canceling the meeting.

"Trump always Chickens Out. Donald Trump just cancelled a high stakes meeting in the Oval Office with myself and Leader Schumer," Jeffries posted on US social media platform X. "The extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America."

Schumer echoed the message, and lobbed a swipe back at the president, saying that he and his party "are holding America hostage. Donald Trump will own the shutdown."

"Trump is running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there," Schumer said in a statement. "While Americans face rising costs and a Republican healthcare crisis, Trump would rather throw a tantrum than do his job."