Clock Ticking: JD Vance Warns U.S. Is Barreling Toward a Shutdown

Looks like Washington is once again barreling toward a government shutdown. Vice President JD Vance sounded the alarm on Monday after a high-stakes meeting at the White House failed to break the deadlock over federal spending.

President Donald Trump and Vance sat down with leaders from both parties, but the talks went nowhere. Vance came out swinging afterward, telling reporters:

“I think we’re headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.”

Standing beside him were House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

The clock is ticking: if lawmakers don’t cut a deal by 12:01 am Wednesday (04:01 GMT), the government starts shutting down. That means offices closed, workers furloughed, and a whole lot of frustration.

Here’s the fight in a nutshell: Republicans want a stopgap bill to keep funding steady until November 21. Democrats are pushing back hard, demanding that healthcare subsidies be extended and cuts to programs like Medicaid be rolled back. They’ve floated a short-term spending patch just to keep the lights on while negotiations continue.

But since Democrats are in the minority in both chambers and Trump has leaned heavily on executive orders, spending bills are one of the few bargaining chips they have left. And they’re not afraid to use them. Vance, meanwhile, accused them of political blackmail:

“You don’t put a gun to the American people’s head and say unless you don’t do exactly what Senate and House Democrats do, we’re going to shut down your government.”

On the other side, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say they’re standing up for Americans hit hardest by Trump’s earlier “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts. Jeffries stressed:

“We believe that simply accepting the Republican plan to continue to assault and gut healthcare is unacceptable.”

Schumer also suggested there’s still a path to avoid disaster if Trump budges:

“If [Trump] will accept some of the things we asked, which we think the American people are for, on healthcare and on rescissions, he can avoid a shutdown, but there are still large differences between us.”

Even though Monday’s talks didn’t deliver a breakthrough, Schumer sounded cautiously optimistic after finally getting some face time with Trump:

“We laid out to the president some of the consequences that are happening in healthcare, and by his face and by the way he looked, I think he heard about them for the first time.”

So here we are again: deadline looming, tempers flaring, and millions of Americans caught in the middle.