Inside the frantic 24 hours that led to a shutdown

Chuck Schumer and Donald Trump chatted over cheeseburgers, and senators from both parties talked a lot. But they could not close the deal.

By BURGESS EVERETT, RACHAEL BADE, ELIANA JOHNSON and SEUNG MIN KIM 01/20/2018 02:43 AM EST

With just hours to spare until the government ran out of money at midnight Friday, Chuck Schumer made Mitch McConnell an offer. Pass a bill to buy 24 more hours to avert a shutdown and work out a budget deal that would also protect some immigrants at risk of being deported, Schumer said, according to senators and aides briefed on the talks.

Republicans had expected they would have to concede something to the Senate Democratic leader to avoid a shutdown. At that moment, they would have accepted a three-week deal, a week shorter than the plan the House had approved a day earlier, according to Republican officials.

But McConnell scoffed at his counterpart’s proposal. “Nonsense,” McConnell replied, according to a GOP senator briefed on the conversation and confirmed by aides.

The rejection was the final blow that sent the government on course for the first shutdown since 2013. The stage was set a week earlier with President Donald Trump’s move to squash a bipartisan immigration deal — and Democrats’ retort that Dreamers must be taken care of as a condition to funding the government.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/20/inside-government-shutdown-congress-trump-352222