The top congressional Democrats want a meeting with President Donald Trump as the government shutdown stretches on.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that both he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., reached out to Trump on Tuesday to set up a confab with the president.

The top Senate Democrat said the duo ‘urged’ Trump to meet with them, and that they were open to setting up ‘an appointment with him any time, any place.’

‘Hakeem and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the healthcare crisis, address it and end the Trump shutdown,’ Schumer said. ‘He should sit — the things get worse every day for the American people. He should sit down with us, negotiate in a serious way before he goes away.’

Congressional Democrats, particularly Schumer and his Democratic caucus, have remained steadfast in their demands for an extension to expiring Obamacare subsidies. Though Senate Republicans have been open to holding a vote on the matter after the government reopens, Democrats want an ironclad guarantee that the subsidies will be extended well before their expiration at the end of this year.

Should Trump relent to their request, it would mark the first meeting among the trio since Schumer, Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met in the Oval Office a day before the shutdown began.

Lawmakers left that meeting with no agreement to avert the shutdown, which has now dragged on for 21 days.

Senate Democrats have also blocked Thune and Republicans’ attempts to reopen the government 11 times. Another vote on the House-passed continuing resolution, which would reopen the government until Nov. 21, is expected on Wednesday.

And like the many attempts before, that latest effort is expected to fail.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans met with Trump for lunch at the White House Tuesday afternoon.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Thune reiterated that Senate Republicans were united in their war of attrition strategy to continue putting the same bill on the floor again and again. He noted that Trump would likely agree to meet with Schumer and Jeffries, but only after Senate Democrats unlocked the votes needed to reopen the government.

‘We have negotiated. I don’t know what there is to negotiate. This is about opening up the government,’ Thune said. ‘We have offered them several off-ramps. Now, the Democrats want something that’s totally untenable. I mean, they want $1.5 trillion in new spending. They want free healthcare for people who are noncitizens in this country. That is just a flat nonstarter. It doesn’t pass the Senate. It won’t pass the House. It won’t be signed into law by the president.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries’ and the White House for comment but did not immediately hear back. 

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Justice Department for allegedly making false statements to Congress.

Jordan accused Brennan of lying in his 2023 Judiciary Committee testimony by denying that the CIA used the Steele dossier in prepping the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russian election interference, and falsely claiming the CIA opposed including the dossier.

The Steele dossier was a series of reports detailing President Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. It was compiled and delivered to the FBI in 2016 by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.

In Jordan’s letter, he alleged subsequent investigations ‘confirmed that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Steele via the law firm Perkins Coie and opposition research firm Fusion GPS to provide derogatory information about Trump’s purported ties to Russia, which resulted in the discredited dossier.’

In July 2025, the Trump administration declassified documents which appear to show Brennan approved the decision to include the dossier, despite objections from senior CIA officials.

During a transcribed interview on May 11, 2023, Brennan stated that ‘the CIA was not involved at all with the [Steele] dossier.’

Yet, according to the declassified documents, the decision to incorporate information from the dossier in the ICA ‘was jointly made by the Directors of CIA and FBI.’

‘Brennan’s assertion that the CIA was not ‘involved at all’ with the Steele dossier cannot be reconciled with the facts,’ Jordan wrote in the letter. ‘As the newly declassified documents show, a CIA officer drafted the annex containing a summary of the dossier; Brennan made the ultimate decision, along with then-FBI Director James Comey, to include information from the dossier in the ICA; and, as discussed further below, Brennan overruled senior CIA officers who objected to the inclusion of the dossier material.’

While past the five-year statute of limitations on criminal prosecution, Jordan also accused Brennan of providing false testimony during a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) hearing in 2017 — a move Jordan said ‘indicates a pattern of Brennan’s willingness to lie to Congress about the Steele dossier.’

‘The HPSCI report and the CIA memorandum confirm not only that the Steele dossier was used as a basis for the ICA, but that Brennan insisted on its inclusion,’ Jordan wrote. ‘This stands in stark contrast with Brennan’s testimony to HPSCI that the dossier was not used in drafting the ICA. … Brennan’s testimony before the Committee on May 11, 2023, was a brazen attempt to knowingly and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to material facts.’

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates

Former PBS host and ex-Boeing engineer Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ will join former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to headline a rally with Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger on Tuesday in the hometown of their party’s forefather.

Spanberger will rally with Buttigieg and Nye in Charlottesville – the city that birthed President Thomas Jefferson – while across town at the college founded by America’s third president, GOP lieutenant gubernatorial candidate John Reid will headline a public ‘Dome Room’ forum hosted by pollster Larry Sabato’s University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Spanberger’s rally occurs as she tries to separate herself from scandal-plagued attorney general candidate Jay Jones.

Nye and Spanberger are expected to receive a welcome in the notable blue dot in the sea of rural Shenandoah Valley red that is Charlottesville.

Trump Winery and its Albemarle Estate lodging, managed by Eric Trump, lies on the opposite side of town, down the street from Monticello itself. The road that runs from Jefferson’s estate to Trump’s is regularly lined with dozens of large American flags abutting the estate’s property line.

That contrast will be evident Tuesday, as Spanberger enlists celebrities in hopes of propelling her to victory, while Reid, who has claimed to be pulling within neck-and-neck of Democrat Ghazala Hashmi, also seeks to engage with the public in the closing days.

While she has condemned Jones’ comments, Spanberger has continued to decline to call for him to drop out – while pivoting this week to attacking her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, on her pro-life views.

An ad released Monday criticized Earle-Sears’ support for a near-total abortion ban and in turn positioned Spanberger as the champion of individual rights.

Moving from medical science to engineering, Nye resurfaced this week clamoring against President Donald Trump at a ‘No Kings’ protest in his hometown of Washington, D.C., where he accused some in the MAGA faithful of being ‘Confederates.’

‘We are here to tell our lawmakers that what’s going on in our government is wrong. They must stop the abuses of this petulant president and his circle of sycophants… This president and his associates cannot tolerate dissent. To them, our free speech is frightening. They are arresting people and denying due process in courts,’ Nye said in part.

The former star of PBS’ ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ and the engineer-by-trade who invented an aircraft implement while working for Boeing, slammed Trump for trying to ‘silence television hosts.’

When asked about Nye’s switch from science to politics, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson remarked, ‘You mean Bill Nye the Liberal Activist Guy?’

While Republicans are not the party typically associated with major Hollywood and celebrity endorsements, over his decade-plus in politics, Trump has garnered several very vocal stars in his camp.

‘Charles In Charge’ star Scott Baio has been most vocal as of late, saying in 2024 he believed the U.S. was always a ‘MAGA’ nation.

Jon Voight has routinely released stern X videos addressing the public and/or public officials on Trump’s bona fides:

‘Who else has faced greater challenges and enemies since Lincoln?’ he asked.

Mel Gibson, who played a version of Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion in ‘The Patriot,’ has been complimentary of Trump while remarking that 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris had ‘the IQ of a fence post.’ Trump has since appointed him a ‘special ambassador.’

Just on the other side of Skyline Drive from Jones’ rally site is the former district of then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert – the Republican whom Jones envisioned shooting in the head in texts revealed earlier this month.

Earle-Sears repeatedly interjected during the two gubernatorial candidates’ debate to urge Spanberger to call for Jones to drop out once and for all.

On Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, headlined a fundraiser with Earle-Sears at the home of a Tysons Corner real estate developer.

A Spanberger campaign official confirmed to Fox News Digital that the Democrat will appear in the coming days with former President Barack Obama at a rally as well.

A Senate Republican plans to launch a hearing to put political violence from the left under the microscope.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., plans to announce an upcoming hearing, dubbed ‘Politically Violent Attacks: A Threat to Our Constitutional Order,’ to examine the origins of political violence and extremism that he argued stemmed largely from the Democratic side of the political spectrum.

Schmitt, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, plans to hold the hearing on Oct. 28 and will examine the cross section of the First Amendment and political violence, specifically in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

‘The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk shook the nation to its core, and it was the latest in a long list of examples of left-wing political violence,’ Schmitt said. ‘Many of these attacks come while Americans are exercising constitutionally protected core political speech.’

Kirk’s death prompted a brief moment of reprieve from the typically volatile back-and-forth on Capitol Hill, with many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle calling for a toning down of political rhetoric.

However, as the government shutdown has continued, lawmakers are once again trading barbs as frustrations mount.

The recent ‘No Kings’ rallies across the country renewed discussions among congressional Republicans about political violence among the left, which followed a recent roundtable held at the White House where President Donald Trump hosted independent journalists to share their experiences covering Antifa, a radical left-wing group that Trump recently designated a domestic terrorist organization.

So far, the only confirmed witness for the hearing is conservative commentator and podcast host Michael Knowles, a friend of Kirk’s who recently headlined a Turning Point USA rally at the University of Minnesota.

Knowles himself is no stranger to protests turning violent. He hosted a speaking event focused on transgender ideology at the University of Pittsburgh in 2023 where protesters threw smoke bombs and a firework, which led to a police officer being injured.

During a recent speech at Harvard where he addressed the incident, Knowles said, ‘The left simply commits more violence.’

Knowles lauded Schmitt for holding the hearing in a statement to Fox News Digital, and said that it would serve as an important moment ‘to discuss how Congress can reassert order and hold to account the left-wing ideologues undermining our public square.’

‘This recent uptick in left-wing violence is the culmination of years — really decades — of consistent assaults on their opponents,’ he said. ‘A ‘free marketplace of ideas’ simply cannot exist when ideological bandits keep shooting up the marketplace.’ 

Schmitt referenced both Kirk’s assassination and the University of Pittsburgh incident, along with protests that sprang up around the country following the death of George Floyd.

‘The rise of political violence on the left is deeply disturbing and antithetical to American values, disturbs the free exercise of our constitutional rights and is a threat to our constitutional order,’ he said.

‘Yet, instead of calling out the obvious, the powers that be continue to deny the reality that political violence comes predominantly from one side of the aisle,’ he said. ‘As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, I look forward to getting the American people the answers they deserve about the realities of left-wing political violence.’   

Fox News Digital reached out to Knowles for comment but did not immediately hear back. 

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told reporters on the 21st day of the government shutdown Tuesday that Democrats ‘ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it.’

The Pennsylvania Democrat made the remark on Capitol Hill after being asked for his reaction to Republican senators proposing nuking the filibuster to force the government to reopen.

‘We ran on that. We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it,’ Fetterman said of Democrats.

‘I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it. I ran on that in my so, like, that’s, yeah,’ he added.

Fetterman also said it’s important to open the government so that Americans can get Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, known as SNAP, assistance, adding that, ‘America’s losing’ during the shutdown and that it’s time to ‘open it back up.’

House Republicans voted to pass the GOP’s government funding bill on Sept. 19, mostly along partisan lines.

It was a seven-week extension of fiscal year (FY) 2025 federal funding levels called a continuing resolution (CR), aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a longer-term deal on FY2026 spending.

But in the Senate, where at least several Democrats are needed to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster, progress has stalled.

Senate Democrats have tanked the bill in the upper chamber 11 times since the House passed it.

Three members of the Senate Democratic caucus have been voting with Republicans, but under the current tally, at least five more are needed to hold a final vote on the bill.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Daniel Scully contributed to this report.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said first lady Melania Trump could play a critical role in winning the White House’s support for congressional sanctions on Russia.

‘I think the first lady is our secret weapon,’ Blumenthal said Tuesday.

The remark comes as lawmakers weigh whether to advance a Russia sanctions bill that has been in the works for months. The measure enjoys wide bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, but its future remains uncertain as President Donald Trump recently signaled hesitations about putting his weight behind it.

The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 has 84 cosponsors in the Senate and 113 in the House of Representatives.

If passed, the sanctions package would grant the President of the United States enhanced powers to block energy sales, block visas, halt investment listings, impose tariffs of up to 500%, and more. Those measures are conditioned on the president’s determination that Russia isn’t engaging in good-faith efforts to end the war.

Blumenthal, a coauthor of the legislation alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., believes the moment is ripe to advance the package — even as Trump last week told reporters that ‘it might not be perfect timing’ for new sanctions.

Blumenthal believes the first lady could change the president’s outlook.

‘She is obviously deeply disturbed about the kidnapping of children, which is emblematic of war criminality. I see the need to move our bill as a signal to prove that you can’t slow-walk us and mock us indefinitely,’ Blumenthal said.

Melania Trump announced earlier this month that she had engaged in direct communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin over efforts to reunite Ukrainian children that had been abducted amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Through those efforts, she helped secure the return of eight Ukrainian children. 

‘Putin understands only strength and force, military and economic. I’m very hopeful [Trump] will see the urgency of now,’ Blumenthal said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told audiences last week that he may bring the bill to a vote in the next 30 days but hinted that parts of the bill may need revision before its consideration. 

He did not lay out what areas of the bill need to be addressed.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently made it known she is no fan of President Donald Trump’s project to construct a ballroom at the White House in an appeal to voters, telling them that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is their ‘house.’

‘It’s not his house,’ Clinton wrote on X Tuesday morning. ‘It’s your house. And he’s destroying it.’ 

The social media post included a screenshot of The Washington Post’s report, ‘White House begins demolishing East Wing Facade to build Trump’s ballroom,’ accompanied by a photo of a demolition crew. 

‘President Trump is working 24/7 to Make America Great Again, including his historic beautification of the White House, at no taxpayer expense,’ White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital when asked about Clinton’s post and other Democrats criticizing the ballroom construction. ‘These long-needed upgrades will benefit generations of future presidents and American visitors to the People’s House.’ 

Trump announced Monday that construction had begun on the ballroom, following months of the president floating the planned project to modernize the White House. The project does not cost taxpayers and is privately funded, the White House reported. 

‘I am pleased to announce that ground has been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom,’ Trump said on Truth Social. ‘Completely separate from the White House itself, the East Wing is being fully modernized as part of this process, and will be more beautiful than ever when it is complete!’ 

‘For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc. I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway — with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!’ he continued. ‘The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly. This Ballroom will be happily used for Generations to come!’

The privately funded project will cost an estimated $200 million, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the media in July. The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will accommodate approximately 650 seated guests, according to the White House. 

‘The White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders in other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building’s entrance,’ Leavitt said back in July, adding the new ballroom will be ‘a much needed and exquisite addition.’

Other Democrats also have slammed the construction project, including New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim calling it ‘disgusting.’

‘I wanted to share this photo of my family standing by a historic part of the White House that was just torn down today by Trump,’ Kim posted to X on Monday. ‘We didn’t need a billionaire-funded ballroom to celebrate America. Disgusting what Trump is doing.’

‘Oh you’re trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing? Donald Trump can’t hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom,’ Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren posted to X on Monday. 

‘Republican math. Can afford: Trump ballroom, $40 Billion Argentina bailout, massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires Can’t afford: health care for Americans, SNAP for struggling Americans, tax relief for middle class families,’ Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta posted to X. 

The ballroom construction follows Trump installing two massive 88-foot-tall American flags on either side of the White House this summer in a patriotic endeavor that did not cost U.S. taxpayers a cent, as well as an overhaul to the White House Rose Garden. 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this article.