President Trump Meets With Schumer Over Funding Deal

WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump invited Senate Minority Leader Leader Chuck Schumer to the White House Friday afternoon as chances for a compromise deal to avert a government shutdown appeared to be dwindling.

"We had a long and detailed meeting," Schumer told reporters after the meeting. "We discussed all of the major outstanding issues. We made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussion will continue."

A few hours later, Trump tweeted: "Excellent preliminary meeting in Oval with [Schumer] - working on solutions for Security and our great Military together with [Senate Majority Leader] McConnell and [House Speaker Paul Ryan]. Making progress - four week extension would be best!"

You can watch live video of the continued debate and deliberations about the government shutdown above.

The federal government found itself on the precipice of a shutdown after a late-game bill that would fund the government for another month and extend the Children's Health Insurance Program passed the House but failed in the Senate Thursday night. Shortly after noon on Friday, the Associated Press reported that Trump had called Schumer to discuss the situation.

Trump had entered the fray early Friday morning by attacking the rival party, mentioning the House-approved bill on Twitter: "Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate — but they want illegal immigration and weak borders. Shutdown coming? We need more Republican victories in 2018!"

The administration's budget director Mick Mulvaney said Friday morning that he put the chances of a government shutdown at between 50 and 60 percent.

• See also: What Happens In A Government Shutdown? 7 Things To Know

"We were operating under a sort of 30 percent shutdown up until yesterday, I think it's ratcheted up now," Mulvaney said. "We've had our meeting just about a half an hour ago, a teleconference with a bunch of agencies to tell them to start to implement their lapse plan, the next step in preparing for a lapse in funding, that's what we call a shutdown, the formal name of it."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, after declaring his opposition to the month-long funding bill that passed with Republican support in the House, said Thursday night that he would support a bill extending funding for a few days while lawmakers worked out their differences.

Despite rumors early in the day that House representatives were planning on leaving early — meaning the Senate would either have to pass the bill or let the government shut down — members decided to keep the chamber open.

"We have been told to stay in town," Rep. Mark Walker, North Carolina Republican, told reporters.

White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short told reporters Friday morning at about 10:30 a.m. that he hadn't spoken to the president since the previous night.

The partisan stare-down over government funding centered on disagreements over politically fraught legislation to protect about 700,000 younger immigrants from being deported.

Republicans and Democrats are already trying to frame the debate about who will take the blame if the government shuts down.

"They're in charge," Schumer said Friday as he entered his Capitol office. "They're not talking to us. They're totally paralyzed and inept. There's no one to negotiate with."

Republicans controlling the narrowly split chamber argue that it's the Democrats who are holding the government hostage over demands to protect "dreamer" immigrants brought to the country as children and now here illegally.

As a shutdown loomed, the White House said Friday that President Donald Trump would not leave for a planned weekend in Florida unless a funding bill passes. Trump had been set to leave Friday afternoon to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his inauguration at his Palm Beach estate.

Many Democrats have been calling for a full extension of CHIP, a government programs providing health insurance for kids, since September. Now, as negotiations on protections for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children — previously protected by the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals or DACA — have fallen through, Republicans attached a CHIP extension to their government funding plan.

Trump began to wind DACA down in September, arguing that it was illegal. However, he pledged that Congress would find a solution for the people covered under the programs, sometimes called "Dreamers," or he would revisit the issue.

Last week, he rejected a compromise by three Democratic and three Republican senators to restore those protections, a deal that included money to begin building the wall and other security steps. Trump's rejection angered the bargainers, and partisan feelings worsened after participants in a White House meeting last week said Trump had referred to African nations as "s---holes."

Many Democrats have said that without an immigration deal in sight, they'll vote against a Republican bill preventing a weekend government shutdown.

"It's a false choice to say we can't fund the government, protect Dreamers, and reauthorize CHIP. We can and should do all three," California Democrat Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted Thursday. "What's preventing us from a bipartisan agreement is the White House."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Wednesday that Trump's lack of clarity was a major roadblock to getting a deal.

"I'm looking for something that President Trump supports. And he's not yet indicated what measure he's willing to sign," McConnell said, according to CNBC. "As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels going to this issue on the floor but actually dealing with a bill that has a chance to become law and therefore solve the problem."

Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the White House supports a continuing resolution to keep the government open, though it would prefer a two-year agreement on the budget.

Graham, one of the Republican lawmakers who supported the bipartisan immigration deal the president rejected, told a reporter Wednesday that he did not support a continuing resolution. With other Senate Republicans, including Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Arizona, also opposed to the bill, it wasn't clear whether the bill that passed the bill could even get 50 votes in the upper chamber. If Democrats decided to filibuster the bill, it would need 60 votes to pass.

Ahead of a meeting at the Pentagon Thursday, Trump told reporters that he was concerned about the military.

"If for any reason it shuts down, the worst thing is what happens to our military," he said. Trump previously said that shutting down the government is essentially "shutting down our military."

Military service members, though, have always worked through past shutdowns. There is a risk that veterans' benefits could be delayed if a shutdown happens.

As PolitiFact points out, then-Comptroller Bob Hale of the Defense Department told Federal News Radio in 2013 that the government shutdown would not shutter the military.

"We can and will continue to support key military operations," Hale said. "We're allowed to do that by law, but the law would force us to disrupt many of our support activities. We wouldn't be able to do most training, we couldn't enter into most new contracts, routine maintenance would have to stop, and we couldn't continue efforts to improve contracting and financial management including our audit improvement efforts."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images