“We hope the President will go into this meeting with an open mind, rather than deciding that an agreement can’t be reached beforehand,” Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi wrote in a joint statement. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Trump, Democrats restart talks to avert shutdown Schumer and Pelosi will go to the White House Thursday — one week after pulling out of a meeting because Trump lashed them on Twitter.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday they will meet with President Donald Trump to resume high-stakes negotiations to avoid a government shutdown at week’s end.

The Thursday sit-down at the White House with Trump and GOP leaders would amount to a do-over of the meeting Democrats ditched last week over a fiery Trump tweet that slammed the Democrats and cast doubt on the prospect of reaching a deal. The boycott caused a political spectacle and temporarily halted talks on a broader spending deal congressional leaders have been negotiating behind the scenes.


“We hope the President will go into this meeting with an open mind, rather than deciding that an agreement can’t be reached beforehand,” the Democratic leaders wrote in a joint statement.

Government funding runs out Friday at midnight, though Republican leaders believe they have the votes to push back that deadline until just before Christmas. Both parties hope to have reached a bipartisan, two-year agreement on overall spending levels for defense and nondefense programs by the time funding runs out again on Dec. 22.

That year-end deal is also likely to include other long-stalled legislative priorities, including addressing funding lapses for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the National Flood Insurance Program.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Senate Republican, said "probably not all [GOP senators] but most of them" will support the brief, two-week funding fix when it hits the Senate floor later this week.

"It's a matter of just making the government function," Thune said.

Democratic leaders reiterated on Monday that they are seeking a compromise to extend protections for the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children and are protected by an Obama-era program that Trump is ending in March.

Though top congressional Republicans would prefer to defer the immigration battle to early next year, several key GOP lawmakers are getting impatient and trying to work up their own legislative fix for Dreamers in order to pressure leadership.

Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) quietly began working with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) several weeks ago in a new "gang" to craft Dreamer legislation that could pick up 60 votes, according to a Flake spokesman. Flake and Bennet worked together nearly five years ago to write the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform measure. Aides declined to name all the senators who are involved, although Democratic officials said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois is also engaged in the talks.

"To have those kids go through another end of the year without knowing what their status is, is not good," Flake said Monday evening. "There are a couple of issues we still need consensus on, but we're getting close on a number of them."

House GOP leaders plan to pass a two-week stopgap on Wednesday to buy more time for striking a broader spending deal. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy promised on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum that "we'll get out of this mess."

But the major question remains the Senate, where Republicans will need Democrats to pass any stopgap legislation and the Democratic leadership has declined to say whether it will offer votes to avert a government shutdown, even if some of its members say they'll vote for a stopgap bill.

"It doesn’t make a difference whether we do [vote for the continuing resolution] or not," said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. "The Republicans are in charge."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she expects enough Democrats to support the bill: "The last thing we need is for the government to shut down."

Enacting the temporary patch would likely allow GOP leaders to postpone Democratic demands on prickly political issues like the deal for young immigrants and funding for the children’s health care program.

The two-week stopgap does include language, however, that would make more funding available until month’s end to states that are running out of money for administering the children’s health program.

House GOP leaders believe they can secure enough votes from Republicans alone to clear this week’s stopgap bill without making concessions to Democrats. But some conservatives have scoffed at the idea of punting until Dec. 22, which they fear will lead to a rash of spending before Christmas.

House Freedom Caucus members have asked Ryan for a stopgap through Dec. 30 instead.

“It’s still up in the air,” one House GOP staffer said about whether Republicans will back the two-week continuing resolution. “It’s like a Kabuki dance in slow motion.”

Defense hawks have also balked at the idea of a stopgap bill through the end of January, warning of budgetary uncertainty for the Pentagon.

With that in mind, some House Republicans are pushing a strategy that would include a full year’s worth of funding for the Defense Department on one of the stopgap bills this month.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) said that strategy would allow the House GOP to take a “bigger stand.”

“I don’t think there’s an appetite among … defense hawks in Congress for a long-term CR going into the next year,” Gallagher, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday was confident Congress could pass a short-term funding bill. "We'll pass it before the end of the week," he said on the floor of the two-week measure.

And Republican leaders, despite some agitation from their rank and file, see no justification for Democratic demands for tying a so-called Dreamers deal to legislation intended to prevent a government shutdown.

"You hear our Democratic colleagues say, well, they’re going to shut down the government unless we capitulate on the DACA fix, which is not going to happen," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said on Monday.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney noted over the weekend that Democrats who are hell-bent on getting a Dreamers deal aren’t the only ones threatening to withhold votes on government funding. Some House “right-wingers” have threatened opposition, he noted, as well as lawmakers from hurricane-hit states who want more disaster aid.

“This just sheds light on the fact that the spending system is broken when any little group can sort of hold the government hostage,” Mulvaney said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “We need to get beyond that. I think that we will. I don’t think you'll see a government shutdown.”

John Bresnahan, Rachael Bade and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.