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

At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, held less than 10 hours before government funding is set to run out, Majority Leader John Thune said Democrats have a "very clear, binary choice."

"They can choose to keep the government open by voting for a short-term, clean continuing resolution -- 24 pages long -- or they can vote to shut the government down," Thune said. "That's what we're looking at."

Thune is expected to lead the Senate in a vote on Tuesday afternoon on a House-passed seven-week stopgap funding bill, which would require 60 votes to advance. Democrats, who have said they want concessions addressing health care issues, are expected to block that bill from advancing.

Thune, in his remarks, touted that Democrats voted for multiple short-term funding measures under former President Joe Biden.

"It begs the question as to what's changed. And I think what's changed is President Trump is in the White House. This is politics and there isn't any substantive reason why there ought to be a government shutdown," Thune said.

"This is totally avoidable. It is a decision they are going to have to make and if the government shuts down it is on the Senate Democrats," Thune added.

-ABC News' Allison Pecorin

An internal email sent from the Department of Labor and addressed to all agency staff blamed "unrelated policy demands" of Congressional Democrats for the looming government shutdown, according to the email reviewed by ABC News.

"President Trump opposes a government shutdown," the email said.

The email warns DOL staff that "if Congressional Democrats maintain their current posture and refuse to pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded before midnight on September 30, 2025, federal appropriated funding will lapse."

The email is unsigned but sent under the header of official DOL "guidance and information."

A notice on the Department of Housing and Urban Development website also said that "radical left are going to shut down the government."

ABC News has reached out to DOL for comment and have not yet heard back.

-ABC News' Jay O'Brien

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman told ABC News' Rachel Scott that he is "not worried" about a possible government shutdown potentially backfiring on Democrats.

"I'm not really worried about the politics. This is our core responsibility, Republicans or Democrats, is to keep our government open," Fetterman said on Tuesday, hours before the government funding deadline.

Other senators voiced their thoughts on the looming deadline, including Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, who told ABC News, "there is going to be a shutdown tonight."

"I think it will have a real impact on our communities, on our states, on our families," Coons said.

A Republican staffer told ABC News Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's speech to top-ranking admirals and generals came off as a "missed opportunity" to discuss broader issues at the Pentagon and was "pedantic" in its concentration on fitness tests and haircuts.

"Aside from a nod to workforce compensation improvements in the accompanying department memorandums, the event accomplished nothing and looked more like political theater than addressing serious challenges," the staffer said.

Additionally, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Jack Reed called the event an "expensive, dangerous dereliction of leadership by the Trump Administration."

"While American forces confront real threats across the globe, Mr. Hegseth and President Trump chose to pull generals and admirals away from their missions to listen to hours of political grievances," Reed said in a statement.

Reed also said Hegseth's words were "divisive and corrosive to the force itself."

-ABC News' Anne Flaherty