Jeffries urges Trump to jump into spending talks: ‘Get off the golf course’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday that President Trump’s hands-off approach to the congressional budget impasse has prevented any deal to end the shutdown.

Jeffries urged Trump to dive more aggressively into the spending debate, warning that otherwise the government will never reopen. 

"Donald Trump definitively needs to get involved,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol.

“He needs to get off the sidelines, get off the golf course, and actually decide to end this shutdown that he's created.”

Jeffries has been in Washington almost every day throughout the shutdown, urging House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to bring the chamber back to Capitol Hill to launch talks on a bipartisan spending agreement that can pass through both chambers. Without those negotiations — to include an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies — Democrats say they won’t help reopen the government. 

GOP leaders are pushing back, saying they won’t negotiate while the government remains closed. 

Trump huddled with leaders in both parties at the White House on Sept. 29, two days before the shutdown, but has largely kept his distance from the issue since then. Instead, he’s shifted his focus to foreign affairs while refusing Democratic entreaties to meet again on the budget. 

Jeffries said that indifference is by design, and he accused GOP leaders in the Capitol of refusing to negotiate with Democrats solely because Trump hasn’t given them the green light to do so. 

“We know that House and Senate Republicans don't do anything without 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. He wants to inflict pain on the American people,” Jeffries said. 

“And this will not change until Donald Trump gives Republicans permission to sit down with Democrats.”

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) revealed a crack in the GOP’s position, suggesting it’s time for Johnson to bring the House back to Washington to begin work on a stopgap spending bill that can pass through the Senate.