Government shutdown impasse continues as GOP senators meet with Trump

Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Gary Peters of Michigan are working on a bill that would pay federal employees during the government shutdown, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News.

The potential bill was first reported by Punchbowl News. Under the terms of the bill, all federal workers would be paid, the source said. 

This comes as Senate Republicans have said they are working on their own version of such a bill that would only pay government workers considered essential — who have been working during the shutdown — such as TSA officers and air traffic controllers. Many federal employees who are not deemed essential have been furloughed, keeping them at home without pay during the shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Monday that he would call the House back to Washington if the Senate passed a bill to pay government workers, saying "the ball would be back in our court."  

"I don't have any faith that they're going to pass it, though," Johnson said Monday. "I think that they're going to continue to play games."

The House hasn't voted since Sept. 19. 

Cristina Corujo and Patrick Maguire

The Trump administration will release about $3 billion in assistance to U.S. farmers despite the government shutdown, administration officials told CBS News.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also planning to resume operations Thursday at the Farm Service Agency, which runs financial assistance and loan programs for farmers, according to a USDA spokesperson. Many of the agency's operations were shuttered due to the government shutdown.

President Trump told the department to give out the $3 billion in aid by tapping a fund that was used in his first term to aid farmers, officials said.

"President Trump is committed to supporting America's farmers and ranchers and this action will release billions in assistance for farmers that Democrats in Congress have held up for over 20 days," the USDA spokesperson said.

Many farmers have faced pressure in recent months as China cuts off soybean purchases amid a trade war with the U.S. The Trump administration has discussed offering upwards of $10 billion in relief to farmers, CBS News reported earlier this month. That potential aid package is on the back burner due to the shutdown, and is separate from the $3 billion in new assistance, a senior administration official said.

Jennifer Jacobs and Olivia Rinaldi

Lines wrapped around a food bank a few miles from the Capitol on Tuesday as hundreds of furloughed government workers showed up, in some cases, for the very first time.

Sandra Wright, who's worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development for 40 years, said she came "just to stock up on food" because she doesn't expect to get paid this week. 

Melissa Westbrook, a 22-year veteran of the Defense Department, said, "I need to pay my bills, so we need this to hurry up and be over with. It's stressful."

Organizers say demand was so high that a second truckload of food had to be brought in.

Pastor Oliver Carter, who helps run the food pantry, said even he's feeling the pinch because his wife is furloughed.

"We got a check last week — half a check, and this week no check is coming, so we should be in line, too, but it's great we can help other people while we can," Carter said.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy criticized Democrats for declining to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open with no strings attached.

"I call it the 'Seinfeld' shutdown because it's a shutdown about nothing," the California Republican told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett, referencing the common joke that the seminal sitcom was a "show about nothing." 

Read more here.

President Trump is only willing to meet with top congressional Democrats after the government reopens, House Speaker Mike Johnson said.

"Leader Thune and I visited with President Trump this afternoon and he confirmed he is ready and willing for the three of us to meet with Leader Jeffries and Senator Schumer as soon as Schumer reopens the government," the Louisiana Republican wrote on X.

Schumer said he and Jeffries reached out to Mr. Trump on Tuesday asking for a meeting.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at his weekly news conference that he and Jeffries "reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the health care crisis, address it, and end the Trump shutdown."

Schumer blasted Senate Republicans for holding what he called a "pep rally," referring to their lunch meeting at the White House in the afternoon. 

"They're at the White House today, not for negotiations or to work on any path out of the shutdown, but for a pep rally," Schumer said. "Apparently Republicans don't have the time of day to fix peoples' health care, to lower costs, but there's plenty of time for a photo op and [to] celebrate their pain."

The New York Democrat warned that if Congress doesn't act by Oct. 31, "millions of Americans will see higher premiums when open enrollment begins Nov. 1."

"The decisions made or not in the next 10 days will determine whether working families can afford their health care next year," Schumer said. "And Americans are desperately looking to Republicans, the party in the majority, to do something about it."

Schumer added, "It's time to stop these parties and celebrations and negotiate with Democrats to end the Trump shutdown, address the health care crisis that they created."

Thune described Senate Republicans' meeting with the president to reporters at the White House. He called it a "great opportunity to meet with the president and talk about something that unifies all Republicans," pointing to the effort to reopen the government with the House-passed measure that the GOP has tried 11 times to advance.

"We're hopeful that this will be the week when we break out of this, and the Democrats come to their senses and decide to open up the government," Thune said.

The South Dakota Republican said the Senate would vote again Wednesday on the House-passed measure, along with a vote this week on a resolution that "essentially would pay anybody who's currently working."

"So, we'll see how the Democrats react to that, but the truth of the matter is, you have a bunch of people here, a united team that believes profoundly that we need to get our government open," Thune said. "If the Democrats want to talk about subjects unrelated to getting the government open again, we're happy to have those conversations, but we've repeatedly now gone through this, and at some point the Democrats are going to have to say 'yes' for an answer."

Thune said "the president, obviously, is very interested in getting the government open." He added that Mr. Trump is "prepared to sit down and have conversations with the Democrats," but he said the president knows that can't happen until the government is reopened. 

Asked whether the president needs to get more involved in negotiations, Thune said, "At some point, but open up the government first." 

"I think the president is willing to sit down," Thune reiterated. "But as we said, open up the government and that can happen."

CBS News justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his reaction to the news that a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter has been arrested for allegedly threatening Jeffries' life. 

"I think the reckless and irresponsible pardon of hundreds of violent felons on Jan. 6 has consequences," Jeffries responded. "There are consequences to that, beyond me. The consequences are, we've seen crimes committed by people who Donald Trump pardoned on the first day he was sworn in to office by folks who have been released back into society all across the country. Some of them violent crimes. And so, there are consequences to these irresponsible actions, and not a single House Republican has walked away from them. Not a single one."

He continued: "There are consequences when these extremists who are part of the Trump administration label the entirety of the Democratic Party as terrorists or criminals. There are consequences to that, beyond us. We all know what we've signed up for. But there is pain being visited upon the American people, because of actions taken by Donald Trump, supported by House Republicans and Senate Republicans, on day one of his presidency."

At Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries' press conference at the Capitol, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin commented on a CBS News report that a Jan. 6 rioter who was pardoned by President Trump has been arrested for allegedly threatening Jeffries. 

Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the Justice Department should be doing more to prosecute those rioters who have subsequently committed alleged crimes.

"It's an alarming situation, where now we have many of these Jan. 6 defendants who have been picked up on other offenses. The Department of Justice is not zealously prosecuting them for other crimes that they've committed," Raskin said. "They've even taken the position that if other crimes were discovered in the course of the Jan. 6 investigation, they were pardoned for those crimes too. Which is false, which contradicts the actual text of the pardon. But they are bending over backwards to let these people be out."

The Maryland Democrat said "it's a very dangerous situation." 

"And I said on the very day that Donald Trump pardoned 1,600 people, en masse, without obviously studying the details of each individual case, that President Trump and his administration would be responsible for whatever happens with these people. They've got a responsibility to rein them in. Some of them they've hired," he said, referring to a rioter who has been hired at the Justice Department.

"We have a very serious problem with political violence in this country. Thank God that you are safe, Mr. Jeffries, but we are asking for the Department of Justice to get serious about reining these people in all over the country," Raskin said. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, speaking after the president, thanked him for his leadership, while pledging to continue to "be good partners."

"Mr. President, your agenda is the right one for this country. This is your team. We are your partners in achieving and implementing the agenda that you campaigned on and the American people voted for," Thune said. 

The South Dakota Republican said GOP senators "are all here today because your Republican team in the Senate is unified" on the government shutdown.

"Everybody here has voted now 11 different times to open up the government and we are going to keep voting to open up the government and eventually the Democrats, hopefully sooner or later, are going to come around," he said. 

Thune added, "let's hope that the Democrats get wise, and starting perhaps even today, vote to reopen the government so we can get back to work for the American people." There is currently no vote scheduled for Tuesday on advancing the GOP bill.

Mr. Trump blamed furloughs and closures on Democrats, calling the shutdown a "reckless and completely unnecessary affair." But he celebrated the cuts the administration has made to programs in blue states and cities.  

The president joked about "Darth Vader," a reference to the nickname given to Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought during the shutdown. Vought has announced the pause or cancelation of billions of dollars in funds for projects in the three weeks since the shutdown began.

"They call him Darth Vader, I call him a fine man," he said.

"He's cutting Democrat priorities, and they're never going to get them back," Mr. Trump said. "And they've really allowed us to do it."

Mr. Trump said "many of the things that they wanted are things that we don't want, things that are just so bad for our country, and we're cutting those things out."

Mr. Trump said Republicans should defy history by doing "fantastically well" in the midterm elections next year. Historically, the party in power in the White House suffers losses in Congress after a new president takes office, although this is technically Mr. Trump's second term. Democrats took back control of the House in 2018, the first congressional election cycle after he won the presidency in 2016. 

"We're giving you the biggest tax cuts in history, all of these things," the president told Republican senators. "It all adds up that we should do fantastically well in the midterms. The only thing wrong with the midterms is that statistically, when you look, a president gets elected, and for some reason, and nobody, not even the great John Thune can explain to me … for some reason, you lose the midterms. I don't know why."

Mr. Trump said "there should be no reason" for Republican losses next year. 

"We have to win the midterms, otherwise, all of the things that we've done, so many of them are going to be taken away by the radical left lunatics," he said. 

Mr. Trump railed against Democrats for being "obstructionists" in the funding fight, pledging that Republicans will not be "extorted" to end the shutdown.

"From the beginning, our message has been very simple: we will not be extorted on this crazy plot of theirs," Mr. Trump said.

The president said Democrats have "never done this before, nobody has."

"You always vote for an extension," he said. "Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats need to vote for the clean bipartisan CR and reopen our government. It's got to be reopened right now."

Mr. Trump said the Democrats are opposing the House-passed continuing resolution in a "craven and pointless act of partisan spite," accusing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the left of "holding the entire federal government hostage to appease the extremists in their party."

While thanking Senate Republicans for a strong attendance at the lunch, Mr. Trump referenced the one Republican missing — Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

"We're just missing one person, you'll never guess who that is," Mr. Trump said to laughter. 

The president continued, "he automatically votes no on everything. He thinks it's good politics, it's really not good politics. He's an automatic no."

Still, Mr. Trump said, "if he wanted to come, I'd probably let him come, right? I'd let him come. Begrudgingly, but I'd let him come."

Paul has consistently been the sole Republican to vote against the House-passed measure to fund the government. He told reporters at the Capitol earlier Tuesday that he was not invited to the lunch meeting at the White House.

Mr. Trump touted the Senate Republican leadership team, calling the top GOP senators "outstanding."

The president called Senate Majority Leader John Thune "my friend," praising the South Dakota Republican for doing "an amazing job."

"Thank you, John," the president said. "I didn't get to know John as well in the first term, and I've gotten to know him very well over the last nine months, John, and you're doing a fantastic job, thank you very much."

Mr. Trump also thanked the Senate GOP's campaign arm, along with the Republican conference's work to confirm his nominees.

President Trump greeted Republican senators at the White House for lunch, beginning his address to lawmakers around 12:30 p.m. 

"What a friendly group this is," Mr. Trump said as he began speaking. "No Democrats are here, right?"

The president touted the renovations to the White House Rose Garden, which was overhauled to include a stone patio earlier this year. Mr. Trump has hosted several events on the patio in recent weeks. Senators are seated at chairs around tables, under umbrellas.

"It was done, we did it, brought it back to health," he said. "It was in very bad shape, actually, and we brought it back to health." 

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has consistently been the sole Republican to vote against the House-passed measure to fund the government, told reporters at the Capitol that he was not invited to the meeting at the White House on Tuesday. 

Asked whether the move was about his opposition to some of the president's agenda, Paul said, "I don't know, because there are other people who occasionally vote against him as well."

"I don't think it's a real smart strategy. But it is their prerogative," Paul said. "They rule the roost over there, they can make decisions on who they want to invite. I think in the end, it's not a great tactic for them."

The development comes after a back-and-forth in June over whether Paul and his family were invited to attend the White House annual congressional picnic. And as recently as Friday, President Trump criticized Paul on Truth Social, calling him "a nasty liddle' guy" and claiming "he just never votes positively for the Republican Party." Paul is a deficit hawk who consistently opposes continuing resolutions to keep the government funded. 

Grace Kazarian and Kaia Hubbard

After a vote on a judicial nomination, Senate Republicans loaded into a pair of buses for the short trip across town to the White House, where they will have lunch with the president.

Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, outlined the GOP position ahead of the meeting with the president later in the day, telling reporters that "the whole purpose of lunch today is to keep all the team together to make sure that we don't have any weak links."

When asked at what point the president needs to get directly involved in the shutdown, Marshall said "if I've learned one thing from President Trump, it's timing, and he's going to know when the moment's right."

"And it's not yet," Marshall added.

The Kansas Republican said "whenever the Democrats want to fund the government, then we're happy to sit down and fix the ACA."

Democrats have demanded an extension of health insurance tax credits in order to reopen the government. Marshall, a physician, said that Democrats have to be willing to address "at least three major issues" when it comes to health care, pointing to fraud, the cost of the premiums and high deductibles. 

"So it's a very broken system, it's going to take weeks to figure out how to fix that," he added.

Marshall called the funding lapse "a political shutdown." He said, "I'm not sure who's winning the political war right now out there, the messaging, but certainly we feel pretty good about where we are right now."

House and Senate Republican leaders suggested Tuesday morning that the GOP measure that would fund the government until Nov. 21 may need to be extended as the shutdown stretches on.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the funding measure's end date was a decision made by appropriators "to allow for seven additional weeks so they could finish the job" on full-year funding measures. He said Democrats are "eating up the clock" and preventing the appropriations process from moving forward as intended, although he said appropriations work is still proceeding. 

On whether the Nov. 21 date would allow enough time for the work to conclude, Johnson said, "That's becoming a very dicey prospect right now because we need every single day."

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that there should be conversations happening now about extending the current funding measure beyond Nov. 21. He said as the end date gets closer, it's "increasingly clear" that Democrats are "not interested in the solution, they're interested in having a political issue that they can use in the campaigns."

Extending the funding date would require the House to return to Washington to approve a new measure. The House has not voted since Sept. 19.

House Speaker Mike Johnson criticized Democrats for their position in the shutdown fight, reiterating his stance that there's nothing to negotiate and saying "I don't have anything to offer" as the stalemate stretches on.

"It's now three weeks — three weeks — since the Democrats have decided to close the entire federal government," Johnson said. 

The speaker outlined the toll of the shutdown, calling it "unconscionable." 

"The U.S. economy has now lost hundreds of billions of dollars. We have federal workers who are desperate for pay and uncertain when they will get their next paycheck. You got families wondering if they'll go without food assistance next month because many people rely upon that. New federal loans and disaster aid have come to a complete halt, and the stewards of our nuclear defense stockpile are being sent home on furlough," Johnson said. "Think of the implications of all of this."

Johnson called out Senate Democrats by name for voting against the House-passed measure to reopen the government, claiming "Democrats used to care about the harm that shutdowns caused hardworking Americans."

"But now we can all see very clearly — that was always based on politics and not principle," Johnson said.

The speaker claimed the government would be open "if Democrats were not terrified of their radical base."

Government shutdowns are a relatively recent phenomenon. Before 1980, federal agencies kept operating and spending money during a lapse in appropriations. But a series of opinions by the attorney general beginning in 1980 determined that spending without congressional approval was not permitted.

Since then, the government has shut down 15 times, including the current funding lapse. Most of those shutdowns only lasted for a few days, but a few dragged on for weeks.

The longest shutdown in U.S. history began in late 2018 and stretched into 2019, lasting for 35 days. The impasse revolved around President Trump's demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats, fresh off their victories in the 2018 midterm elections, were not inclined to approve the funding.

The president ended up signing a bill on Jan. 25 to reopen agencies for three weeks, without funding for the border wall. Weeks later, Congress averted another shutdown by passing a measure that included $1.375 billion for the border wall, far less than the $5.7 billion Mr. Trump requested.

Read more about the history of government shutdowns here.

In lieu of taking up the continuing resolution for a 12th procedural vote, the Senate will work to advance or approve three judicial nominations on Tuesday. 

The chamber will reconvene at 10 a.m., according to Majority Whip John Barrasso's office. At 11 a.m., senators will vote on confirming a nominee to the federal bench in Alabama. After that vote, the chamber will recess for lunch until 2:15 p.m.

Two more cloture votes on judicial nominations are set for the afternoon, as well as a vote on final passage for one of them at 5:30 p.m., assuming it advances.

Senate Republicans are set to attend lunch with President Trump at the White House on Tuesday, two sources familiar with the plans confirmed to CBS News. The lunch is expected to be held in the White House Rose Garden.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, told reporters Monday that although he didn't know the lunch agenda, "I know the president's been real good about reaching out and making sure that Republicans are working all on the same page."

"I think most of the conversation is what happens next after the Democrats decide to reopen the government and get off the Schumer shutdown," Mullin said. 

The lunch comes as Mr. Trump has largely remained on the outside of the shutdown dynamics. Asked whether the president needs to get more involved, GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida told reporters "it's our job, it's not the president's job."

"We're the ones that pass the budgets," Scott said. "It's not his responsibility, it's ours."

Nikole Killion, Cristina Corujo and Alan He

The Senate is not scheduled to vote on a House-passed measure to fund the government today after failing to advance the bill for an eleventh time on Monday.

Senate Republicans have repeatedly brought the measure up for a vote, looking to peel off support from Democrats to reach a 60-vote threshold to advance the measure. But Republicans have been unable to win any new support for the measure since the shutdown began, though three senators have routinely crossed the aisle to vote to advance the measure. 

Later this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is also expected to bring up a bill that would pay federal employees and military service members who have continued to work during the shutdown. But moving forward on the legislation would also require support from Democrats. Last week, Thune attempted an alternative approach to restart some funding with a procedural vote on an individual year-long appropriations bill to fund the Pentagon that was blocked by Democrats.

The Senate failed to advance a House-passed measure to reopen the government for an eleventh time on Monday in a 50 to 43 vote, falling short of the 60 yes votes needed. Seven senators did not vote.

GOP leaders had suggested in recent days that they may find more support from across the aisle after the weekend's "No Kings" protests. Support from five more Democrats was needed to clear the hurdle. But no new Democrats voted in favor of advancing the bill Monday.