The standoff between President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer over confirming Trump’s nominees has reached a boiling point, with Trump telling Schumer to “go to hell” in a Saturday post on social media. This development comes after intense talks between Senate Republican leader John Thune, Schumer, and the White House failed to yield a deal, prompting the Senate to head into recess without resolving the issue.
According to sources briefed on the conversations, Schumer had requested federal funds be released and that Trump agree not to push another legislative package that would slash federal funding. However, Trump called Schumer’s demands “egregious and unprecedented,” indicating that the talks had collapsed. Trump’s social media post showed he wasn’t interested in agreeing to Democrats’ terms, instead urging Republicans to “go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing.”
“Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL! Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country. Have a great RECESS,” Trump wrote.
On the Senate floor Saturday night, Thune asked for unanimous consent for the chamber to vote on a handful of nominations and then break for a month. However, Democrats had been slow-walking Trump’s lower-level nominees, forcing Thune to keep the Senate in session this weekend to confirm them. Schumer made several demands to agree to let a batch of nominations be quickly confirmed by the Senate, including the unfreezing of federal funds for programs like the National Institutes of Health and foreign aid.
Schumer also wanted Trump to agree not to attempt to push through another package to slash federal funding known as “rescissions” after a $9 billion package to codify some cuts was approved earlier this summer. In a news conference Saturday night, Schumer said Democrats were “serious” about finding a “reasonable path” to allow bipartisan consideration of Trump’s nominations, but the president wouldn’t agree to the terms.
“In a fit of rage, Trump threw in the towel, sent Republicans home, and was unable to do the basic work of negotiating. Is this the ‘Art of the Deal’?” Schumer said, pointing to a poster printed with Trump’s social media post. Schumer declined to get into details of the negotiations but said both sides were “getting close on a whole lot of issues, and Donald Trump just pulled the rug out from under people.”
Thune told reporters that “the asks evolved on both sides quite a bit over time” but “we never got to a place where we had both sides agreed to lock it in.” Thune suggested that Republicans could consider rules changes to speed up the process when they return in September, stating, “There’s going to be some conversations around how to fix this over the course of the next month, and I think that I would say that’s a distinct possibility.”
However, Schumer warned that “it would be a huge mistake” for Republicans to try to change Senate rules and said the chamber should focus on passing appropriations bills in a bipartisan way in September.