Republican leaders have stuck to a straightforward position in their standoff with Democrats over government funding: No negotiations until the shutdown ends.
But as the impasse drags on, some rank-and-file Republicans are starting to wonder if it’s time to change tactics.
Several GOP lawmakers have suggested that President Donald Trump take a more direct role in resolving the shutdown in recent days, including potentially opening up negotiations with Democrats if it’s what’s required to end the standoff.
“If he gets involved, he can move it,” GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville said of Trump. “He can make a decision on what we do.”
“We absolutely need him,” GOP Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey told CNN. “He has the strength and skills to get it done. The speaker is doing a great job, but we need Trump.”
The restlessness within the Republican conference comes as both sides have continued to dig in, leaving no clear avenue toward reopening the government without a major shakeup in the dynamics on Capitol Hill.
And it signals growing unease in parts of the GOP with the toll that the shutdown is taking on the country and over which party will ultimately shoulder the blame — even as Trump and Republican leadership project confidence that their strategy will win out.
“At the end of the day, to move this needle and get this thing off the bubble, President Trump will have to get involved,” said Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia. “That’s probably what will have to happen.”
Trump has not spoken with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries since before the government shuttered weeks back, a White House official confirmed earlier this week. The two Democratic leaders said Tuesday they’d put in a new request for a meeting with the president.
Yet so far, Trump has opted to steer clear of the day-to-day maneuvering despite his self-fashioned image as a dealmaker, tasking House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune with managing the shutdown instead.
They have so far refused to entertain any negotiations with Democrats, vowing not to bend to demands for concessions on health care in exchange for funding the government. Johnson, who has kept in regular touch with the president, has similarly dismissed the idea of getting Trump more directly involved.
“He (Trump) is not going to negotiate with the Democrats, who have taken the American people hostage. We’re not going to pay a ransom to reopen the government,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.
A frustrated Thune insisted to CNN on Tuesday that there is no “plan B” for ending the shutdown, signaling Republican leaders will keep forging ahead and pressuring Democrats to simply accept the House’s short-term funding bill.
The extended standoff represents a departure from prior shutdowns, where funding lapses have typically prompted a scramble on both sides of the aisle to reach an agreement. During the last lengthy shutdown — a 35-day stalemate during Trump’s first term prompted by his insistence on funding for a border wall — lawmakers repeatedly floated proposals aimed at breaking the logjam, while Trump went as far as to cancel a holiday trip to Mar-a-Lago to remain in Washington amid the crisis.
But this time around, Republican and Democratic leaders have so far found little reason to talk — with each resorting instead to attempting to outlast the other. There are no weekend meetings or meaningful negotiations. And the House hasn’t even been in session for over a month, with Johnson vowing not to bring the chamber back until Democrats are ready to cave.
Trump on Tuesday hosted Senate Republicans at the White House for a lunch billed in part as an effort to encourage continued solidarity, predicting in a speech that Democrats would ultimately lose out politically.
“They are the obstructionists,” he said. “The reason they’re doing it is because we’re doing so well.”
In conversations with senators over a meal of cheeseburgers, Trump signaled that he was open to talking with Democrats, and he later reiterated the stance in remarks from the Oval Office, saying he he had just “one little caveat”: only when the government opens.
That stated position is in line with talking points echoed by congressional Republican over the last three weeks.
“He’s open to a conversation if there’s something substantive they have to offer, but the idea that they can hold the government hostage in a shutdown is not going to work,” Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota said, as senators returned from the White House clutching MAGA hats and other White House memorabilia.
Trump also touted the opportunity the shutdown has provided him to seize greater authority over the government’s vast operations and workforce, bragging about deep cuts to the federal workforce and funding cuts aimed primarily at ramping up pressure on Democrats. White House officials have sought to fire more than 4,000 government employees, while halting billions of dollars meant for infrastructure and energy projects in Democratic states and districts.
“They’re not going to get a lot of things back,” Trump said of the cuts, later adding that “maybe indirectly, they’re doing good” by giving the administration an excuse to hack away at unwanted parts of the government.
The White House has telegraphed deeper cuts in the coming days, with budget chief Russell Vought saying he hopes to lay off more than 10,000 federal workers in total. Trump in the meantime has redirected funding to pay military service members and law enforcement officers, in steps that have effectively allowed crime and immigration initiatives central to his agenda to move forward unimpeded.
Yet while Trump has reveled in the newfound leeway, some on Capitol Hill have grown increasingly impatient with the standstill. And with Democrats showing no fresh signs of backing off their stance, they argued that Trump may be the only one who can apply the direct pressure needed to force a resolution.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley went as far as to encourage Democrats to start contacting Trump directly. “He would answer anybody. They could call him. He would answer. I mean, he’s like very accessible,” he said Monday.
Democrats have similarly called for Trump to re-engage with Capitol Hill, as part of their bid to secure an extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.
“We know that House and Senate Republicans don’t do anything without getting permission from their boss, Donald J. Trump. And the reason why there have been no negotiations – zero negotiations – since Republicans shut the government down is because Donald Trump clearly wants the government shut down,” Jeffries said, arguing that “Trump definitely needs to get involved” and “off the sidelines.”
But despite the rising pressure on both sides of the aisle, Republican leaders have indicated no willingness to budge.
“I don’t know what there is to negotiate,” Thune said at the White House. “Open up the government first.”
Within the West Wing, officials have so far projected a similar resolve. They’ve seized on recent polling showing some subtle shifts among voters toward blaming Democrats for the impasse. And as Democrats’ have begun to push for direct talks with Trump, aides have interpreted it as a sign that the party’s position is growing increasingly untenable — and further confirmation that there’s no reason now to give them an easy out.
“This is just frantic wishcasting from the Democrats because they’re in disarray and their shutdown strategy has led them into a trap,” one White House official said. “Our position has not changed in terms of what we want, and our feelings on the government shutdown.”
