The 22-day government shutdown is the second-longest in U.S. history

Close like 1995.

the Ongoing government shutdown It became the second-longest outage in U.S. history on Wednesday, surpassing the 1995-96 federal funding outage while continuing into the 22nd day with no end in sight.

Democrats in the Senate Blocked Republican attempts to Government reopening 11 times since Oct. 1, when all but three caucus members voted against moving forward with the House-passed measure to keep federal departments and agencies funded at current levels through Nov. 21.

The Senate is scheduled to step in at 10 a.m. on Wednesday to again try to end the shutdown, with Democratic leaders demanding a meeting with President Trump.

“House Minority Leader Hakeem (Jeffries) and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve and address the health care crisis and end the Trump shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday. “We asked him to meet us, and said we would make an appointment with him anytime, anywhere before he left.”

However, House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that a high-level meeting will not be held until Democrats vote to reopen the government.

“Senate Majority Leader (John) Thune and I visited with President Trump this afternoon and he confirmed that he is ready and willing to have the three of us meet with Leader Jeffries and Senator Schumer as soon as Schumer reopens the government,” Johnson (R-Los Angeles) said. Written on X Wednesday.

At the White House, where Trump held a Rose Garden meeting for congressional Republicans, Thune similarly indicated he was not interested in negotiating with Democrats.

“I don’t know what can be negotiated,” Thune told reporters. “Open the government first.”

The Senate Majority Leader indicated that his strategy would be to continue calling for a vote on the temporary funding bill for seven weeks, despite Democratic opposition To her.

“We will continue to vote to open the government, and ultimately, hopefully the Democrats will come through sooner or later,” Thune said.

Meanwhile, Trump likened Democrats’ refusal to move forward with a clean, lasting solution to an attempt at blackmail.

“We will not be blackmailed into this crazy plot they are planning,” the president said at a White House meeting.

“Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats need to vote for the clean bipartisan resolution (the continuing resolution) and reopen our government – ​​it needs to be reopened now,” Trump demanded.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) insisted that Republicans include an extension of enhanced pandemic health insurance support for about 22 million people who bought Obamacare Affordable Care Act exchange policies in their legislative proposal to reopen the government.

The White House said the benefits will not expire until December 31, allowing time to negotiate once the government returns to work.

The third-longest shutdown in history began on December 16, 1995, and ended on January 6, 1996.

It was preceded by a shorter, six-day shutdown in November 1995, triggered when then-President Bill Clinton vetoed a budget with spending cuts passed by the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

Nearly 750,000 federal workers have been furloughed amid the current shutdown and the Trump administration has moved to permanently lay off thousands.

If the shutdown continues, federal workers will lose their first full paychecks on Friday, and members of the armed forces risk not getting their paychecks the following week, on October 31.

The 35-day government shutdown in 2018-19, which occurred during Trump’s first term, is the longest in US history.