Congressional Democrats and Republicans remained at an impasse over funding the government after a rare Saturday session, as neither side appeared ready to budge after day one of a government shutdown. The House and Senate are reconvening on Sunday with a Senate vote on a three-week stopgap spending bill scheduled for 1:00 a.m. on Monday, but Democrats are holding firm to their stated position that they will not agree to fund the government until they see a path forward to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally. Republicans and the White House said on Saturday that those immigration talks will resume only when Democrats lift their objections to the short-term funding extension and allow the government to re-open. In the meantime, both sides are playing the blame game. “Negotiating with this White House is like negotiating with Jell-O—it is next to impossible,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. On Sunday morning, President Donald Trump said in a tweet that Democrats “just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked.” He also suggested that the Senate end its filibuster rule, the mechanism that requires a 60-vote threshold to pass legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) office quickly shot down that idea. “The Republican Conference opposes changing the rules on legislation,” David Popp, a spokesman for McConnell, told The Daily Beast.
—Andrew Desiderio
