President Trump, on Day 6 of the partial government shutdown, briefly broke with congressional Republican leaders and said he was negotiating with Democrats on health care.
Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have said they would not negotiate with Democrats on that topic until they vote to reopen the government.
In remarks in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump did not lay down the same red line and seemed to tie the health care talks to reopening the government. The president later clarified on social media that the government must reopen first.
“I am happy to work with the Democrats on their Failed Healthcare Policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our Government to re-open,” he wrote.
The president’s post walked back his Oval Office remarks that suggested talks with Democrats had already begun.
He suggested that those talks could be tied to ending the shutdown as he offered a message to Americans who may be feeling its impacts.
“Just hang in there, because I think a lot of good things are going to happen,” he said. “And that could also pertain to health care.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune didn’t take the president’s initial comments as a break from the Republican position and said he expected a clarification.
“I think the message there is [we’ll negotiate] when the government is open,” the South Dakota Republican said.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said the president’s claim that he is talking to Democrats “isn’t true.”
“But if he’s finally ready to work with Democrats, we’ll be at the table,” said the New York Democrat.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, said Mr. Trump’s comments were “interesting” given that neither he nor Mr. Schumer has heard a word from the president or anyone in the Trump administration since their Oval Office meeting last week. But he said Democrats are willing to negotiate “anytime, anyplace.”
Democrats want a bipartisan negotiation to extend their COVID-era expansion of Obamacare premium subsidies.
“If we made the right deal, I’d make a deal, sure,” Mr. Trump said when asked directly about the subsidies.
The pandemic expansion extended the subsidies to families earning above 400% of the federal poverty level and capped out-of-pocket premium costs at 8.5%.
Those enhancements are set to expire at the end of the year, but Democrats want to renew them before Obamacare open enrollment begins Nov. 1 to give insurers time to adjust premiums.
Mr. Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, have repeatedly said they would only negotiate with Democrats on the subsidies once the government is reopened.
The Republican leaders have said they cannot promise a negotiation will result in a solution. Republicans are split on the merits of extending the expanded subsidies since the COVID crisis is over.
“It’s a mixed bag,” Mr. Thune said earlier Monday. “There may be a path forward. I think a lot of it would come down to where the White House lands on that, but certainly not without reforms. We all know the program is broken; it needs to be fixed.”
Later, in the Oval Office, the president was careful not to promise an outcome from health care negotiations.
“The subsidies are so much. It’s billions and billions of dollars that’s being wasted. And we could have much better health care than we have right now,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re talking to them. I’m not saying that’s going to happen.”
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers remained furloughed and will miss a paycheck Friday if the government stays shuttered, although the law requires them to be paid back when Congress appropriates new funds.
Mr. Trump said that there hasn’t been a great deal of pain during the shutdown, but there could be. He said that if the government does not reopen, “at some point,” there will be layoffs of federal workers.
The White House and congressional Republicans have been pressuring Senate Democrats to end their filibuster of a House-passed stopgap spending bill that would reup the prior fiscal year’s funding levels and policies through Nov. 21.
The Senate rejected that measure for the fifth time Monday, the third since the shutdown began last week. The 52-42 vote was short of the 60 needed to overcome Democrats’ filibuster.
For the fifth time, the chamber also rejected Democrats’ counterproposal, which included a permanent extension of the expanded Obamacare subsidies and other health care and spending provisions totaling $1.5 trillion.
Mr. Johnson said he would keep his chamber in recess until the Senate passes the Republican stopgap, which requires five Democrats to flip their votes.
Three senators who caucus with the Democrats, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Angus King of Maine, are already supporting it.
Mr. King told reporters he is considering dropping his support until Republicans provide more specificity on how to renew the Obamacare subsidies.
“This problem is urgent, and just saying, as the leader did on Friday, ‘Well, we’ll have conversations about it,’ it’s not adequate,” he said.
