Government Shuts Down as Bill to Extend Funding Is Blocked; Senators Continue to Seek Deal

Right Now: The United States government has officially shut down. Lawmakers are now scrambling for a quick deal to reopen it and buy them more negotiation time.

• Much of the federal government officially shut down early Saturday morning after Senate Democrats, showing remarkable solidarity in the face of a clear political danger, blocked consideration of a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating.

• But senators from both parties were scrambling for a new deal to reopen the government quickly, possibly just hours after the midnight deadline passed.

• The roll call, which is still technically open, was 50 in favor and 48 against. Sixty votes are needed to end debate and move to a final vote. Five Democrats voted to end debate, while four Republicans voted with most of the Democrats to block the bill. See how the senators voted »

• After it became clear that the bill lacked the votes need to move forward, senators remained on the chamber’s floor past midnight, apparently discussing whether some compromise could be reached.

• See how the shutdown will affect federal agencies »

The White House laid blame for the shutdown on the Democrats.

Minutes before the midnight deadline expired, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, delivered a statement on Twitter blaming Senate Democrats for she called the “Schumer Shutdown.”

Lindsey Graham proposes a three-week extension.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, released a statement proposing a three-week funding extension, a week shorter than the bill the House had passed.

In the statement, he said that he thought that lawmakers were “inside the ten yard line” on finding solutions to immigration and other issues involved in the debate over the spending bill.

Soon after Mr. Graham’s statement, Mr. Trump interjected on Twitter casting doubt on whether lawmakers can reach a deal.

OPEN Graphic

Schumer leaves White House meeting with Trump.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, wrapped up a closed-door meeting with President Trump at the White House, with no imminent deal to avert a shutdown.

Mr. Schumer told reporters outside the Capitol: “We had a long and detailed meeting. We discussed all of the major outstanding issues. We made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussions will continue.”

A senior White House official gave a less-sunny summary of the meeting, suggesting it was “cordial” but that a lengthy list of obstacles still remains.

Mr. Trump, who headed into the Situation Room for a briefing soon after the meeting, was alone in the room with Mr. Schumer and their chiefs of staff.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, John F. Kelly, had told him that no deal had been struck at the White House meeting.

“He said there were no agreements with Senator Schumer, and the president told him to go back and talk to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and work it out,” Mr. Cornyn told reporters.

It was unclear when — or if — the Senate would vote on the measure passed Thursday night by the House to fund the federal government until Feb. 16.

Photo

Trump-Schumer meeting worries immigration hard-liners.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas spent much of the final stretch of the 2016 Republican presidential primary race warning that Donald J. Trump, then a candidate, would be an unreliable Republican who, if elected, would align himself with some of the Democrats he had given money to as a New York real estate developer.

Democrats such as, well, Mr. Schumer.

So when Mr. Cruz was asked on his way into a luncheon on Friday afternoon if, in light of the Trump-Schumer sit-down, he was concerned that his prophecy could bear out, he could not entirely suppress a smile.

“I think it would be a serious mistake to pass a major amnesty bill that gave a path to citizenship to millions of people here illegally and that continued chain migration,” he said, careful to avoid any explicit mention of Mr. Trump. (There are far fewer than a million “Dreamers” — young immigrants brought illegally as children who are seeking protection — but if they are eventually granted a path to citizenship, they could conceivably sponsor family members abroad.)

Doing so, Mr. Cruz continued, “would be inconsistent with the promises we made to the working men and women in this country and inconsistent with the mandate of the 2016 election, so I very much hope we don’t go down that road.”

Asked if he was nervous about Mr. Trump meeting with Mr. Schumer, without any congressional Republican leaders in the room, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri was more succinct: “Yes.”

— Jonathan Martin

White House officials outlined what may be involved in a shutdown.

Officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget spent the past week consulting with federal agencies on contingency plans in the event of a shutdown, the fourth time in the past year that they have had to make such preparations.

More than 1 million active duty military personnel will serve with no lapse, they said, but could not be paid until the shutdown ends. Agencies such as the Department of Energy that have funding that is not subject to annual appropriations can use that money to stay open, the officials said, and the administration is encouraging them to do so. Most mandatory programs — entitlements such as Social Security that are automatically funded rather than subject to congressional appropriations — can continue without disruption.

Officials said Mr. Trump may travel on Air Force One to carry out his constitutional responsibilities, such as a planned trip to Davos, Switzerland, next week — although it was not clear if trips to Mar-a-Lago, his exclusive Palm Beach club, for golf and socializing, such as the one he had planned for this weekend, would fall into that category.

Overall, the senior officials said, the administration was working to minimize the effect of the shutdown on Americans. But some things will have to wait. One official said there could be no work, at least in the short term, on the president’s forthcoming budget request for 2019 as long as a shutdown remained in effect.

— Julie Hirschfeld Davis

If government shuts down, the military will feel it.

The Pentagon’s guidance for the approaching government shutdown said that after midnight Friday, active-duty military personnel will go unpaid and a large number of civilian personnel will be furloughed.

In the Thursday memo, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan told those in the Department of Defense that the administration “does not want a lapse in appropriations.”

“The secretary and I hope that the Congress will pass a CR or an annual appropriations bill for defense activities during FY 2018,” he said in the memo. “However, prudent management requires that the department be prepared for the possibility of a lapse in appropriations.”

Active-duty service members will continue operations during the shutdown both in the United States and in conflict zones. Civilians will serve if they “are necessary to carry out or support excepted activities,” but will also not be paid until funds are available, according to the memo.

— Thomas Gibbons-Neff

Other agencies will stay open.

Shutdown, Schmutdown.

The Environmental Protection Agency will remain open next week even if the federal government does shut down, Scott Pruitt, the agency’s administrator, told staff on Friday afternoon.

In a memo to employees, Mr. Pruitt informed the E.P.A.’s nearly 14,000 employees that the agency has the resources to remain open “for a limited amount of time” despite a shutdown. Union officials said they were informed in a conference call with E.P.A. leadership that Mr. Pruitt intends to use carry-over funds to keep the E.P.A. open, a move criticized by environmentalists.

The plan contradicts the agency’s official contingency plan in the event of a shutdown. Posted last month, the 16-page document calls for sending 95 percent of the agency work force home.

The Federal Communications Commission also plans to stay in operation. Brian Hart, a commission spokesman, said, “In the event of a partial government shutdown, because of available funding, the Federal Communications Commission plans to remain open and pay staff at least through the close of business on Friday, Jan. 26.”

— Lisa Friedman

‘Shutdown coming?’ Trump asks, as he delays Florida trip.

Mr. Trump canceled plans to travel to his Florida resort on Friday and will stay in Washington until a spending bill is passed, a White House official said Friday morning.

In an early-morning Twitter post on Friday, he put pressure on Democrats to keep the federal government open.

Marc Short, the White House legislative director, told reporters he’d last spoken to the president Thursday night and that Mr. Trump was making calls to try to negotiate a deal. He wouldn’t say whom Mr. Trump had called.

“We’re trying to keep it open,” Mr. Short said.

He added: “This is not about policy. This is about politics.”

White House budget director grows nervous.

Mick Mulvaney, who heads the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the Trump administration is preparing for “what we’re calling the ‘Schumer shutdown.’” Earlier Friday, Mr. Mulvaney put the likelihood of a shutdown at “50-50.

“We were operating under sort of a 30 percent shutdown” assumption on Thursday, he told reporters. “I think we’re ratcheting it up now.”

“I’m handicapping it now at some place between 50 and 60 percent.”

He added, “But again we’re planning for it as if it’s 100 percent.”

Photo

Mulvaney goes from shutdown instigator to government defender.

Mr. Mulvaney was once a ringleader of the so-called Shutdown Caucus when he helped orchestrate the shuttering of the government in 2013 as a hard-right member of the House.

Now, as Mr. Trump’s budget director, he is doing his best to avert one. At a White House briefing on Friday, Mr. Mulvaney insisted that a shutdown was not a desirable outcome, and that unlike the last such scenario under President Barack Obama in 2013, the Trump administration was doing everything possible to avoid a funding lapse. He said that Democrats “weaponized” the shutdown back then for political purposes.

The tune on Friday was much different from five years ago when it was Mr. Mulvaney who dared Democrats over funding for the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Mulvaney also helped spearhead the debt ceiling brinkmanship in 2011 over Republican demands to cut Planned Parenthood funding.

Republicans did bear much of the responsibility for the 2013 shutdown, and Mr. Mulvaney at the time tried to play down the effect that the standoff was having on the government.

“In many ways, then, this is a government ‘slowdown’ more than it is a shutdown,” he said.

And while Mr. Mulvaney was quick to assail Mr. Obama’s lack of leadership for the most recent shutdown, he said Friday that Mr. Trump should face no such blame if a shutdown happens on his watch.

“There’s no way you can lay this at the feet of the president of the United States,” he said.

Democrats face risks if they block the bill.

Senate Republicans are set to test whether Democrats will make good on their promise to move the government toward a shutdown. But Democrats appear intent on securing concessions that would, among other things, protect from deportation young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, increase domestic spending, aid Puerto Rico and bolster the government’s response to the opioid epidemic.

And they hope that Mr. Trump, scorched by the firestorm prompted by his vulgar, racially tinged comments on Africa last week, will be forced back to the negotiating table.

“Republicans control the House, they control the Senate and they control the presidency,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. “The government stays open if they want it to stay open, and it shuts down if they want it to shut down. It’s time to stop kicking the can down the road and time to start negotiating in good faith.”

If Democrats vote the bill down, the move would hold undeniable risks. Ten Senate Democrats are running for re-election in states that Mr. Trump won in 2016, and many of those states — such as Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and West Virginia — may hold little sympathy for one of the primary causes of the looming shutdown: protecting young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.

But Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, argued on Friday that her party’s opposition to the stopgap bill was paying off.

“Because of the courage and leadership of congressional Democrats, our hand is greatly strengthened in our negotiations” over several Democratic priorities, she wrote in a letter to colleagues.

Ms. Pelosi had urged members of her caucus to vote against the stopgap measure, and only six House Democrats ended up voting for it.

“Last night, House Democrats demonstrated great unity in expressing our values and acting upon them,” she wrote in the letter. “I am writing to thank you and also to express the appreciation of so many across the country who have conveyed their gratitude for our taking a strong stand.”

Read more from Thomas Kaplan and Sheryl Gay Stolberg »

Photo

Don’t worry about that Yosemite vacation.

National Parks will remain open even if the government shuts down, the Department of Interior announced Thursday in a move that could help assuage public anger at Republicans if Congress fails to agree to a budget.

Including the Lincoln Memorial and the Grand Canyon, more than 400 National Park Service parks and properties have been the most visible faces of past government shutdowns.

The last time Congress failed to agree on a budget, in 2013, a group of veterans aided by Republican lawmakers ignored barricades at the World War II memorial in Washington to visit the site. In southeastern Utah, county commissioners decided to reopen Natural Bridges National Monument in act of self-declared civil disobedience.

“We fully expect the government to remain open; however, in the event of a shutdown, national parks will remain as accessible as possible while still following all applicable laws and procedures,” Heather Swift, an Interior Department spokeswoman, said in a statement.

She noted that some services that require staffing and maintenance, like campgrounds and full-service restrooms, will not operate.

“The American public and especially our veterans who come to our nation’s capital will find war memorials and open-air parks open to the public,” she said.

Jacque Simon, the public policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, said federal workers have not yet been given any instructions about how agencies plan to operate or whom will be sent home if a shutdown occurs. Keeping the parks open, she said, is a smart political move.

“The White House is very conscious of what’s popular and what’s not, and I think one of the memorable images from the last shutdown was World War II veterans who had come to D.C. to visit the then-relatively new World War II Memorial being turned away. It was not a good visual,” she said.

Ms. Simon said a shutdown would be an “economic disaster” for federal employees, and said she is concerned that national parks my remain open by the government paying contractors while sending federal workers on furlough. That, she said, would amount to an illegal privatization of the work force.

“We will be watching that very closely,” she said.

Environmental activists criticized the plan to keep open the national parks, calling it dangerous to visitors as well as illegal under the Anti-Deficiency Act of 1998 that mandates the government can’t spend funds that haven’t been appropriated.

“It’s nothing more than a baldfaced attempt to divert Americans’ attention away from the G.O.P.’s extreme agenda,” Scott Slesinger, the legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.

— Lisa Friedman

The I.R.S. would take a shutdown hit at a terrible time.

Mr. Trump has warned that a government shutdown could blunt the effect of his tax cuts, and he could have a point.

Tax filing season starts in less than two weeks, and if Congress does not reach a funding deal, the Internal Revenue Service, which has been swamped with work trying to carry out the new tax law, would take a big hit. That could take a toll on the tax collection agency’s ability to ensure a smooth transition and deal with the tsunami of questions coming from confused taxpayers.

About 56 percent of I.R.S. employees would be sent home in the event of a shutdown.

That comes at a time when the agency is already understaffed, having lost 21,000 full-time employees since 2010 as its budget has dwindled.

— Alan Rappeport

The fault lines over a deal aren’t purely partisan.

While most Republicans in the Senate are likely to vote to keep the government open and most Democrats will oppose that, there are several factions involved. Have a look at who wants what »

OPEN Graphic