Polish Happy Hour Buffalo to celebrate Polish Constitution Day @ the Adam Mickiewicz Library on Friday, May 3rd

A high-ranking Republican is blaming Democrats over a looming government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) penned an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Monday, claiming that leaders must avert a spending crisis with a bipartisan appropriations process and claiming "Democrats are holding government funding hostage to a long list of partisan demands, totaling more than $1 trillion. And they’re ready to shut down the government if Republicans don’t comply."

Thune was among a group of leaders slated to meet Monday with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, which includes House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

This closed-door meeting is just hours before the Oct. 1 deadline. A White House official described this as a make-or-break moment. It's also the first time Trump will meet with the Democratic leaders since he took office eight months ago.

Thune argues that "Republicans are open to discussion and negotiation on a number of issues."

"But there’s a difference between careful discussion and negotiation during the appropriations process and taking government funding hostage to jam more than $1 trillion in big-government spending in a funding bill designed to last mere weeks," Thune writes. "Major decisions should not be made in haste. And they certainly shouldn’t be made because one party is threatening to shut down the government if it doesn’t get its way."

As Republicans urge Democrats to accept the bill, Democratic leaders have pushed back against cuts to healthcare.

Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to expire this year. And without an extension, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that more than 4 million people will lose healthcare over the next 10 years.

Thune claims that "Democrats have decided to abandon the process."

President Donald Trump stood with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and announced a new ceasefire proposal and peace plan, but critics couldn't help but notice it's missing some critical pieces — namely, that a key party is missing.

Steve Herman, executive director at the Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation, quoted Trump's comment, "Everyone else has accepted it."

"Except Hamas, according to President Trump, explaining his plan calls for a 'Board of Peace' to be headed by himself," said Herman.

It prompted national security lawyer Bradly P. Moss to remark, "So, you know, a peace plan missing a vital party."

"The new official Trump plan for Gaza. Quite a few things to parse out, including accountability mechanisms, who actually makes up the stabilisation force, and what mandate they would have," said Dr. H.A. Hellyer, a geopolitics and security expert on the Middle East and Europe at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.

Even senior Washington Examiner writer David Harsanyi had questions: "This plan has been tried more than once. Palestinians have never been able to meet #1."

Bloomberg's Washington Correspondent Josh Wingrove couldn't help but notice that the plan, "previously described as a '21-point plan,'" now "includes 20 points and an image of proposed withdrawals."

"The points include a call for Gaza's governance to be supervised by a 'Board of Peace' - chaired by Trump himself," added Wingrove.

White House columnist Niall Stanage, at "The Hill," also questioned, "It runs to 20 points but how will point 1 — upon which all else may hinge — be defined or verified and by whom?"

"If Trump is to be the head of the newly established transitional administration in Gaza, it means Gaza is becoming a mandate of the USA. Blair is the Mandate Governor," observed Tuğçe Varol, an academic working on Russian and Turkish foreign policy.