Trump goes on raging tweetstorm against Democrats over negotiations to avoid a government shutdown
In a series of tweets on Thursday, Trump attacked Democrats over their requests for the spending bill to prevent a government shutdown.
"I promise to rebuild our military and secure our border," Trump tweeted. "Democrats want to shut down the government. Politics!"
The current funding bill for the federal government expires Friday, and if a spending bill is not passed, parts of the federal government will shut down.
Trump highlighted one that would be affected.
"As families prepare for summer vacations in our National Parks - Democrats threaten to close them and shut down the government. Terrible!" Trump said.
While Republicans hold a majority in both chambers of Congress, Democrats could filibuster a spending bill in the Senate. One of the biggest hangups in the negotiations has come over Obamacare, the law formally known as the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats have expressed a desire to include funding for Obamacare's cost-sharing-reduction payments in the spending bill. The payments to insurance companies offset the cost of offering lower-cost insurance plans to poorer Americans and help stabilize the insurance market.
Currently, funding for the payments comes from the White House, and Trump has threatened to end them. Most health policy experts agree that if these payments were halted, insurers would abandon Obamacare's insurance exchanges, and many Americans would either lose health insurance or see their costs skyrocket.
Amid the uncertainty from the White House over the payments, Democrats have attempted to lock them in as a congressional appropriation.
Trump, in his tweetstorm, called funding the payments "bailing out insurance companies." He echoed tweets from Wednesday and earlier on Thursday.
Republicans have introduced legislation that would extend government funding through next week to provide negotiations more time.