Senators push toward deal to end shutdown as final sticking points remain

By Manu Raju, Sarah Ferris, Ted Barrett, CNN

(CNN) — Senate leaders are moving closer to teeing up votes to end the government shutdown as negotiators met again Thursday morning in an attempt to hammer out final details, according to multiple sources in both parties.

Those details are expected to again be presented to Senate Democrats during a lunch session later in the day – a pivotal meeting that could determine whether Congress can indeed end the longest-ever shutdown anytime soon.

“There are Democrats who are inclined to do the right thing. They’re under an enormous amount of pressure from the left,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters, adding that he would be awaiting results of the Democrats’ lunchtime discussion. “We’ll see if they hold sway today and hopefully we’ll know more about that as the day rolls on.”

The emerging plan is for the Senate to attach another short-term stopgap bill to a larger package of full-year bipartisan bills to fund a handful of federal agencies, according to those sources. There would also be an agreement for a date certain on a vote on extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies — far short of the demand of many Democrats who want an extension in the underlying package that President Donald Trump would sign into law.

The fate of the talks, however, is still tenuous. There’s not yet agreement on some of the biggest sticking points, including exactly how to handle Democrats’ demand on those expiring health care subsidies when Speaker Mike Johnson has said he would not hold a separate vote in the House. Party leaders are also still divided over the end date for the next funding stopgap, with Johnson adamant that funding run through January while Senate Republicans are pushing for a pre-Christmas cliff.

Some Democrats have made clear they would be livid at any promise of a separate vote on health care that does not guarantee Trump signing anything into law.

“I think voters would rightly see it as a surrender,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, adding that Tuesday’s elections, as well as a flood of messages from constituents, have signaled to Democrats that Americans “are saying health care matters.”

It remains unclear when an accord will come together, as well as when the Senate will vote. But even after a deal is reached, it will take several days for it to be processed in both the Senate and the House, which has been out of session since September 19.

The dynamic was also complicated by Democrats’ election results on Tuesday, which has emboldened liberals in both chambers, as well as Trump’s own admission to Senate Republicans that the shutdown is hurting their party politically.

Negotiations between key senators would continue Thursday in one key centrists’ hideaway office in the US Capitol basement as they push to announce a deal before the end of the week — or even by the end of the day, according to multiple sources in both parties.

Republicans have been keeping their leadership and the White House in the loop, one of the sources said. Democrats, too, have been briefing their leadership, another source said.

Thune also personally met Wednesday with two of the negotiators from the Democrats’ side. Sen. Angus King, and independent from Maine, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire.

There is a furious push to show real progress by Thursday night: Senate GOP leaders have previously said the chamber would go on its regularly scheduled recess next week if there does not appear to be progress on bipartisan talks.

Thune on Thursday would not say whether he would keep the Senate in session this weekend and into next week’s scheduled Veterans Day recess if a deal is not reached.

“That depends a little bit on what happens if there’s a path forward to vote whether that’s today, tomorrow, Saturday. We’ll stay and do that. If the far left wins out in this and the Dems dig in then, I don’t know. We’ll see. I think all options will be on the table,” Thune said.

Asked about Democrats’ concerns that Johnson would not comply with any deal on a stand-alone Affordable Care Act subsidies vote, Thune said: “I can’t speak for the House.”

“I think the clear path forward here, with regard to the ACA issue is they get a vote, and we open up the government and we head down to the White House and sit down with the president and talk about it,” the Republican leader added.

Many lawmakers, however, are adamant that they can’t leave town with shutdown effects rapidly piling up, including major staffing shortages at airports that are wreaking havoc on US travel.

Johnson himself told reporters Thursday he is “less optimistic this morning than I was yesterday” because of the pressure that some Democrats are putting on the centrists in their own party not to cave.

“We were hearing there were some common-sense centrist Democrats who were talking to Republicans but what I understand is that Chuck Schumer has pulled them back from that. They’re being instructed and told they can’t go there,” Johnson said.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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CNN’s Dana Bash contributed to this report.