Government shutdown updates: Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations blamed President Donald Trump for the nascent government shutdown in a Wednesday statement.

"The federal government is shutting down right now because President Trump and his administration chose chaos and pain over responsible governing," AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said.

"Now, countless jobs, the essential government services we all rely on and the economy powered by our workforce are in jeopardy -- all because the administration wants to take one more swing at wrecking the Affordable Care Act and throwing working people off our health care," she added.

"The labor movement's message to the administration is clear: Get to work. Fund the government. Fix the health care crisis. Put working people first," Shuler wrote.

-ABC News' Beatrice Peterson

Military accounts on X notified users Wednesday morning of a hiatus in updates due to the government shutdown.

"There is a lapse of appropriations and there will be limited updates," the official Pentagon X account said.

U.S. Army Europe and Africa and U.S. European Command both posted similar statements.

Military pages directed users to a Pentagon webpage noting, "Military personnel will continue in a normal duty status, without pay, until such time as a continuing resolution or appropriations are passed by Congress and signed into law."

The federal government officially entered a shutdown at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday amid an impasse on Capitol Hill over competing congressional spending bills.

A Democratic-backed spending bill that would also extend health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and reverse cuts to Medicaid failed in a last-ditch vote on Tuesday.

A GOP-backed stopgap bill that would have funded the government for the next seven weeks also fell short of the needed 60 votes just hours ahead of the deadline.

President Donald Trump and Republicans have cast blame for the shutdown on Democrats' health care demands, while Democrats insist Republicans need to negotiate.

As the clock ticked toward a funding lapse, White House Office of Management and Budget told federal agencies to begin preparing their plans for an "orderly shutdown."

An estimated 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day the federal government remains closed, according to the Congressional Budget Office. While many workers deemed essential -- such as air traffic controllers, airport security officers and some members of the military -- will remain on the job, they will not be paid until after the shutdown ends.

The Trump administration has threatened mass layoffs of some federal workers during the shutdown.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to come to the negotiating table after the upper chamber failed to pass a measure to avert a government shutdown that is now just hours away.

"We want to sit down and negotiate, but the Republicans can't do it in their partisan way, where they just say it's our way or the highway," Schumer said at a news conference following Senate votes Tuesday night.

Pressed on what the Democrats' strategy is to get Republicans to negotiate, Schumer said, "The strategy is the American people are demanding it and are going to demand it more and more on Oct. 1 [and] Oct. 2."

Schumer rehashed the failed votes on the Senate floor -- placing the blame on Republicans who "have failed to get enough votes to avoid a shutdown."

Asked if he can guarantee with 100% certainty that the GOP's short-term continuing resolution would not reach 60 votes in another round of votes, Schumer carefully responded, saying, "Look, the bottom line is, as I said, our guarantee is to the American people that we're going to fight as hard as we can for their health care, plain and simple."

He said the GOP-backed seven-week stopgap measure is "totally partisan" because "there was no input from Democrats."

Schumer stood firm on Democrats’ health care demands, calling for extending Affordable Care Act subsidies and reversing Medicaid cuts.

"The bottom line is, we need to stop these premiums from going up dramatically. We need to do it now, not in October, when people get the notices; not in November, when they have to decide whether to drop health care or reduce the health care they get," he said.

-ABC News' Lauren Peller