Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill

One thing that is clear talking to members of Congress, their staffers and other members of the press is that Democrats and Republicans are not talking to one another - they’re talking at each other.

Hope continues to fade and the rhetoric has largely stayed the same. Both sides blame each other.

We’re waiting to hear from Senators following their lunch, stick with us and we’ll bring you the latest.

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Most of today's action in Congress will take place in the US Senate, which later this afternoon is scheduled to hold one more vote on a Republican-backed proposal to temporarily extend current spending levels and avoid a government shutdown.

Democrats are expected to block that from passing.

The House, which approved similar spending legislation earlier this month, is out of session and many of its members are out of town.

The chamber did hold a brief procedural session earlier today, though, and a large group of Democratic legislators attempted to force a vote on their own government-funding proposal.

Unlike the Senate, the minority party has very little power in the House. The Democrats were quickly gavelled down.

The march toward a shutdown at midnight tonight continues.

President Trump has been speaking to journalists at the White House, and he was just asked about the potential government shutdown.

Trump says it's not inevitable, but it does seem likely to happen.

Trump says he and Republicans are the last ones who want a government shutdown.

"Now, with that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for [Democrats] and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out... cutting programmes that they like," the president continues.

Image source, Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, criticised his Democratic colleagues for not passing a Republican-backed spending bill to fund the government.

"Democrats are blocking it for their own partisan purposes," he said, speaking on the floor of the Senate earlier today. "This is ready to pass right now, this keeps the government open."

He described the Democrat's lack of support as "hostage taking" of federal workers, and said they want a showdown .

Eight Democrats need to support the bill for it to pass, he said.

Nadine Yousif
North America reporter

I've just listened in to a call on how major agencies will function if a shutdown happens. It was hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. They provide experts to explain all facets of government policies and, as its name suggests, does not take a political side.

The main takeaway: Agencies can manage in the immediate term, but the longer a shutdown goes on, the worse it gets.

They say the exact impacts are unclear because some agencies have not put forward contingency plans. That includes the energy department, Nasa, Housing and Urban Development, and the National Science Foundation.

And they noted, as others have, that there will be minimal disruption to the Medicare health insurance program for retirees and the Medicaid program for people with low incomes. Those have their own dedicated funding to pay benefits.

But the center expects both programmes could experience administrative difficulties. Likewise, community health centres and services such as at-home care could be disrupted.

It also sounds as if we might be headed into new territory. With the federal workforce already reduced significantly under Trump, they warned, this shutdown could be worse than past ones in terms of disruptions and delays.

Image source, Getty Images

The US president is currently making an announcement at the White House, it's about access to prescription drugs.

You can click watch live at the top of this page to follow along.

And we will bring you any updates relevant to the looming government shutdown.

Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill

Wyoming Senator John Brasso, like many Republicans, is putting the looming shutdown on the Democrats.

"We need to keep the government open," he tells a group of us here on Capitol Hill.

He says the government shouldn’t shut down and says Democrats will have the chance to vote to keep the government open later today.

Democrats want an agreement to renew the government health-insurance subsidies for low-income individuals that expire at the end of the year. Brasso is among the Republicans against renewing them.

"Those were set up as temporary and were supposed to end when Covid ended, and Covid has ended," Brasso says.

Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill

Image source, Ana Faguy / BBC

I'm here on Capitol Hill, which is eerily quiet. The hallways are basically empty, with very few lawmakers in sight.

But there’s still a palpable tension in the air, as a government shutdown becomes more likely as the hours pass.

At 12:01 ET Wednesday, the government will shutter if Republicans and Democrats can’t come to an agreement as to how to keep the government open.

As of now the parties, and the chambers, disagree on how to proceed.

And lawmakers walking the halls of the Capitol don’t seem confident a solution is imminent.

Stick with us and we’ll bring you the latest.

Cai Pigliucci
Reporting from Washington DC

Image source, Reuters

Minority Leader in the Senate Chuck Schumer has just finished speaking on the Senate floor.

He says that Republicans have not tried to negotiate a way out of the impasse between the two parties that could lead to a government shutdown.

"We stand at the precipice of a government shutdown because Republicans are not serious about keeping the government open," Schumer said.

Republicans have argued that it's Democrats that are "holding hostage" the American people by not passing what's known as a clean Continuing Resolution.

That would extend the current government funding for a short time period while the two sides work through a longer appropriations process.

Schumer said Republicans have until midnight to "get serious" with Democrats on healthcare and funding the government. He added, "But right now they're not even talking to us seriously, they're sort of in la la land."

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House Democrats have just held a briefing about the looming government funding deadline and their core concerns with the spending bill.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says Democrats are focusing on getting back funding for healthcare services.

"We're not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of the American people, not now, not ever," Jeffries says.

"We're here to cancel the cuts. We're here to lower the cost. We're here to save the health care of the American people."

For context, Trump's sprawling budget bill included additional restrictions to Medicaid, the healthcare programme relied upon by millions of disabled and low-income Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nearly 12 million Americans could lose their health coverage by the end of the next decade as a result of changes.

• Read more: What are the key items in Trump's sprawling budget bill?

There's no shortage of political reaction to the looming government shutdown. So, let's take a look at what some of the key players have said.

"We have very large differences on healthcare, and on their ability to undo whatever budget we agree to," the US Senate's top Democrat Chuck Schumer said.

Meanwhile, Vice-President JD Vance told the media: "You don't use your policy disagreements as leverage."

You can listen to more of what they had to say in the video above.

Anthony Zurcher and James FitzGerald

Not all of government will shut down if Congress doesn't pass a spending bill by midnight.

Border protection, in-hospital medical care, law enforcement and air-traffic control would be expected to continue to operate during the stoppage.

While social security and Medicare cheques would still be sent out, benefit verification and card issuance could stop.

Generally, in a shutdown, essential workers continue as normal - some of them without pay for the time being - but government employees deemed non-essential are temporarily put on unpaid leave. In the past, these workers have then been paid retrospectively.

That means that services like the food assistance programme, federally-funded pre-school, the issuing of student loans, food inspections, and operations at national parks are expected to be curtailed or closed.

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

In terms of the substantive demands from each side, Republicans want a short-term extension of current spending levels – essentially kicking the legislative can a bit farther down the road.

They're happy with the way things are going, particularly since the Trump administration has been implementing spending cuts on its own, without the help of congressional budget-setters.

Democrats want that practice to end.

What's the point, they wonder, with negotiating spending-level agreements if Trump will just ignore them?

They also want a firm agreement to renew the government health-insurance subsidies for low-income individuals that expire at the end of the year – something Republicans have been reluctant to do so far.

Those are the negotiating positions of both sides, but government shutdown fights are about more than policy – they're about politics.

Republicans think they have the political high ground.

The party that makes demands in exchange for keeping the government open – in this case the Democrats – typically gets the lion's share of the blame when a shutdown happens.

Trump and Republican congressional leaders are already claiming that they are the reasonable ones.

They're the ones, they say, who simply want to buy more time to negotiate without the adverse consequences of a shutdown.

Of course, Democrats don't see it that way.

Image source, JIM LO SCALZO/EPA/Shutterstock

Earlier this morning, President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter about how many federal workers he plans to lay off if a government shutdown is not averted.

"Well, we may do a lot," he said.

Trump blamed the Democrats, claiming they wanted more people to enter the US illegally.

White House budget chief Russ Vought recently circulated a memorandum explaining how the Trump administration would use a shutdown to make new, long-term reductions in federal spending and employment rolls.

Positions and government programmes deemed "nonessential" during the closure will be permanently shuttered – an expansion of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) cuts from earlier this year.

But Democratic leaders seem to believe the threats are a bluff or a negotiating tactic.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it "an attempt at intimidation".

"Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one - not to govern, but to scare," Schumer said. "This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government."

Anthony Zurcher and James FitzGerald

At this point, prospects for some kind of government shutdown appear high, and Vice-President JD Vance said as much after Trump met the congressional leaders on Monday.

On the Republican side, Trump administration officials have been unwilling, so far, to offer any substantive concessions.

They appear to believe Democrats, as the side making demands in exchange for keeping the government open, will bear the brunt of the public's blame – as they have in some past shutdowns.

Democrats, meanwhile, believe their push for preserving health-insurance subsidies is a popular one.

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

The US is hurtling towards a government shutdown on Tuesday night, and there appears to be little appetite on either side of the partisan divide to avoid it.

A last-ditch meeting between President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders in Congress made little progress. If anything, both sides have been digging deeper into their positions.

"I think we're headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won't do the right thing," Vice President JD Vance told reporters after the meeting at the White House. "You don't put a gun to the American people's head and say, 'Unless you do exactly what Senate and House Democrats want you to do, we're going to shut down your government'."

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said there were still "very large differences" between his party and the White House.

No one sounded optimistic.

We're covering all of the key developments in this story, so stick with us.

A major US government shutdown is looming as a Tuesday night deadline approaches for lawmakers to find a way to agree on a spending bill.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have so far been holding a steady stalemate in their negotiations over certain aspects of the bill, like expiring health care subsidies. If they can’t reach an agreement by midnight, then parts of the federal government will come to a halt.

We'll bring you the latest developments and analysis right here on this page - stay with us.