US Senate meets Saturday to end gov't shutdown, expected to reconvene Sunday

ISTANBUL

US Senate held a rare Saturday session to end the government shutdown, with no resolution yet in sight.

The chamber adjourned early Saturday evening and is anticipated to meet again on Sunday, the media reports said. Lawmakers will continue sessions until the government reopens, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters.

Senators are working to finalize three long-term appropriations bills forming the core of the Republicans' plan to resolve the funding impasse.

Thune’s strategy involves advancing the House-passed continuing resolution and amending it to include the “minibus” appropriations package along with a longer government funding extension. A vote to start this process could take place on Sunday.

Both sides remain at odds. Democrats proposed reopening the government in return for a one-year extension of health care tax credits, but Republicans quickly rejected the offer.

The Republican senators spent Saturday denouncing the Affordable Care Act, mirroring President Donald Trump’s remarks earlier in the day.

In a Saturday post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump criticized the insurance program introduced under former President Barack Obama, arguing that it has failed to improve the country’s healthcare system.

He recommended to Senate Republicans that “hundreds of billions of dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, be sent directly to the people so that they can purchase their own, much better, healthcare, and have money left over.”