With just hours left before a potential government shutdown, Washington is locked in a bitter standoff. Democrats and Republicans are pointing fingers, refusing to negotiate, and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers bracing for furloughs or even layoffs.

The shutdown clock runs out at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. To keep the government open, the Senate would have to pass a short-term measure approved by the House that extends funding for seven weeks. But talks have gone nowhere, and the prospect of a deal is fading by the hour.

SCHUMER ACCUSES GOP OF “BULLYING”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of trying to “bully” Democrats by stonewalling on health care subsidies and other priorities.

“It’s only the president who can do this. We know he runs the show here,” Schumer said, after a White House meeting on Monday that produced no breakthroughs. “Republicans have until midnight tonight to get serious with us.”

Democrats say the dispute is about protecting health care for millions. They want to extend subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and roll back Medicaid cuts passed as part of Trump’s tax bill earlier this summer.

TRUMP DIGS IN

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders insist they won’t make changes to the funding bill, describing it as a simple, “clean” measure. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Republicans “are not going to be held hostage” by Democratic demands.

Instead of moving toward compromise, Trump escalated the fight. On Monday night he posted a fake video mocking Democratic leaders. On Tuesday, he warned that a shutdown could mean “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”

DEMOCRATS FACE PRESSURE TOO

For Democrats, the situation is tricky. The party has long criticised shutdowns as destructive, yet many of their voters are urging a showdown with Trump. Some activists even demanded Schumer resign earlier this year after he helped advance a Republican funding bill.

Schumer now argues the circumstances have changed, especially after Trump’s sweeping tax law that cut Medicaid. “We have less than a day to figure this out,” he said Tuesday, blasting Trump for “trolling like a 10-year-old” on the internet.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the fake video Trump shared “racist and fake AI.”

WHAT’S AT STAKE

If no deal is reached, the consequences will be immediate. The White House has already told agencies to prepare for workforce reductions. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day of a shutdown. Some could even lose their jobs.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat whose state is home to many federal workers, said some employees have told him they’re fed up. “They’ve been on a slow, shutdown firing since the beginning of this administration,” Warner said. “They want us to push back.”

Federal agencies are bracing. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a pop-up banner already blames Democrats, warning: “The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people.”

A FAMILIAR CRISIS

This isn’t Trump’s first shutdown showdown. Back in 2018, his demand for border wall funding triggered a 35-day closure — the longest in U.S. history — until flight delays and unpaid federal workers forced him to relent.

This time, the sticking point is health care. And with the deadline just hours away, the question is whether either side will blink — or whether the country will tumble into another costly shutdown.

– Ends

(With inputs from Associated Press)

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