Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got into a rare direct back-and-forth on the Senate floor ahead of the shutdown deadline.

“Democrats have a choice to make. They can shut down the government and subject the American people to all the problems that come with a shutdown, many of which, as I’ve said, they’ve enumerated in the countless quotes they’ve made in the past,” Thune said. “Or they can join Republicans to pass a clean, nonpartisan short-term funding bill and keep the government’s lights on. For the sake of the American people, Mr. President, I really hope they choose the latter.”

Thune yielded the floor, at which point Schumer borrowed the chart Thune was referring to, which showed that 100% of Democrats had voted for nearly every Biden-era continuing resolution. Schumer agreed with the figures, but said the context was different. 

“Yes, that’s true. Guess why? In each case, Democrats negotiated with Republicans and said, let’s have a bipartisan bill. The leader says it’s a clean bill. It’s a partisan bill. Not once were Democrats asked for what input should be in the bill. We were not told about it. We were not asked about it,” he said. “You cannot pass legislation in the Senate, when it comes to appropriations, unless it is bipartisan.”

As Thune stood at his desk across the aisle from Schumer, the Democratic leader reiterated his position that his party wants to extend health care tax credits and restrict the president’s ability to rescind funding.

“To say the appropriations process is working is wrong. It’s not working,” Schumer said.

“The way that we’ve done it — and it’s a different business model than the one he used — we actually have the Appropriations Committee sit down, and the date that they came up with, Nov. 21, was agreed upon by the House and Senate appropriators, Republican and Democrat,” Thune said, referring to the date that funding would be extended to under the House-passed continuing resolution.

“The Democrat leader and his colleagues have the same leverage on November the 21st. This is a short-term CR. This is what we do all the time around here,” Thune continued, holding up a copy of the bill and pointing it at Schumer. “We have until the end of the year to fix the ACA credit issue, and we’re happy, as I said yesterday and I’ve said on multiple occasions, to sit down with you to do that.”

Thune then walked off the floor as Schumer reclaimed his time.