Vice President JD Vance says US 'headed to a shutdown' as deadline nears

WASHINGTON

Vice President JD Vance cast doubt Monday on the possibility of averting a government shutdown as a pivotal Oct. 1 deadline rapidly approaches.

"I think we're headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won't do the right thing. I hope they change their mind, but we're going to see," Vance told reporters at the White House shortly after meeting with the top Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress.

Vance took issue with Democrats' health care demands, including a reversal of President Donald Trump's signature tax law that establishes cuts to Medicaid funding, as well as an extension of subsidies under the US' quasi-universal health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans are instead pursuing a "clean" continuing resolution that would fund the government at current levels through Nov. 21.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, met behind closed doors with Trump, their Republican counterparts, and Vance, as funding is set to expire Tuesday night at midnight.

There appears to be major differences remaining with little time to spare.

Jeffries described the White House conversation as "frank and direct," and acknowledged that "significant and meaningful differences remain."

"Democrats are fighting to protect the health care of the American people, and we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans. Period. Full stop," he told reporters.

Schumer said Trump appeared to be caught off guard by some of the points that Democrats broached.

"We laid out to the president some of the consequences of what's happening in health care. And by his face and by the way he looked, I think he heard about them for the first time -- the closing of rural hospitals, the fact that so many clinics are closing," he said.

"And I don't know if he knew this before, but the fact that people will pay $400 more a month, close to $5,000 more a year on their health care premiums if we don't do anything, and people don't know what to do, the average working family can't afford that," added Schumer.

Vance acknowledged that some of the points raised by the Democratic leaders were "reasonable," but ruled out their consideration during the budget talks.

"They had some ideas that I actually thought were reasonable, and they had some ideas that the president thought was reasonable. What's not reasonable is to hold those ideas as leverage and to shut down the government unless we give you everything that you want," he said.

"Let's have that conversation, but we're going to do it in the context of the people's government being open. We're not going to let you take the people's government hostage and then give you everything you want," he added.