With the Senate largely idle in observance of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, no votes on funding the government were held Thursday. The Senate is scheduled to return Friday for its fourth vote on a pair of short-term funding bills, but the vote is expected to fail.
Majority Leader John Thune said it is "unlikely" that the Senate will hold votes this weekend. "They'll have a fourth chance tomorrow to vote to keep - to open up the government," Thune told reporters. "And if that fails, then they can have the weekend to think about it, we'll come back, we'll vote again on Monday."
Thune added that he is open to meeting with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, though it depends on what's on the agenda.
"We'll see," Thune said. "If the meeting is focused around just a, you know, a photo op along the lines of what they tried to get out of the White House, I'm not sure there's a lot of purpose in that. But if they want to actually come forward and talk about how to, how to end this thing, yeah, we'll see."
White House warns on firings: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the number of firings during the shutdown could be significant. "It's likely going to be in the thousands," she told a reporter who asked for an estimate, adding, "that's something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here again, is unfortunately having to work on today."
Trump said on social media that he planned to meet with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought to "determine which of the many Democrat Agencies" will be cut and whether the cuts are "temporary or permanent."
Leavitt said that while no plan has been finalized, the White House is "looking at agencies that don't align with the president's values" and "that we feel are a waste of the taxpayer dollar."
In his social media post, Trump needled Democrats for making it easier for him to slash federal agencies, as Vought has long wanted to do. "I can't believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity," he wrote.
Trump had previously distanced himself from Vought's affiliation with Project 2025, the controversial right-wing blueprint for governance from the Heritage Foundation that called for massive reductions in the federal government. But on Thursday, he seemed to celebrate it, referring to Vought as "he of PROJECT 2025 Fame."
Thune also chided Democrats for opening the door to Vought's increased involvement. "This is the risk of shutting down the government and handing the keys to Russ Vought," Thune told Politico, adding, "we don't control what he's going to do."