President Donald Trump is worried about the political cost of a federal government shutdown taking place on his watch, should Congress not agree on a bill to keep the government funded before Tuesday night.
That's according to Politico congressional reporter Jordain Carney, who spoke with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after his Monday evening meeting with Trump at the White House. Schumer told reporters that Trump was aware that voters would likely blame him more than anyone else should there be a government shutdown.
"He admitted that in the room," Schumer said. "I said, you know, the president gets the blame for this stuff, he admitted that."
Carney added in a subsequent post that the White House was pushing back on Schumer's remarks. An unnamed source within the Trump administration told Politico that while "presidents normally get blamed" for shutdowns, Trump "wouldn't be blamed this time if there is a shutdown."
The current version of the government funding bill Republicans want passed has has no Democratic input, and needs 60 votes to pass the U.S. Senate. And because Republicans only have 53 Senate seats, they'll need buy-in from seven Democrats if they hope to get the bill to Trump's desk by midnight Wednesday morning. Democrats have insisted that Republicans extend Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) subsidies as part of a funding deal, but the current Republican bill doesn't include an extension. While the subsidies won't expire immediately in the event of a shutdown, they will run out by the end of the calendar year.
ACA subsidies are particularly important in California, which has the largest health insurance market in the country. In the event the subsidies don't get renewed, Californians could see their premiums spike significantly. And when the open enrollment period begins later this fall, hundreds of thousands of Golden State residents are expected to drop out of coverage with premiums becoming unaffordable. This would result in the risk pool becoming older and sicker by default, making premiums rise that much more.
Schumer told reporters in Washington on Monday that Republicans and Trump were at loggerheads with each other about the expiring ACA subsidies. He observed that Trump was more in line with the Democratic position than House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
“When we made these arguments [about health care costs], it was clear there was a division, or a possible division, between the president and the two Republican leaders,” Schumer added. “The Republican leaders ... just wanted to kick the health care problem down the road. ... Now we know why they didn’t want him to meet with us.”
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