Bipartisan talks on reopening the government began to materialize less than a day into the shutdown, with Republicans and Democrats trying to find a middle ground on expiring Obamacare tax credits.

The federal government entered its first full day of a shutdown on Wednesday, and so far neither side of the aisle is willing to buckle as the hours ticked by.

Still, in the middle of Senate Republicans’ third attempt to pass the House GOP’s short-term funding extension, a group of nearly a dozen senators huddled on the floor in the first public display of negotiations so far.

‘There are glimmers of hope, and I think they’re bipartisan,’ said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who was in the huddle.

The conversations on the floor came as Republicans demanded that Democrats yield and provide the votes to reopen the government, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., doubled down on his position that Democrats wouldn’t budge without ‘serious’ movement on Obamacare premium subsidies.

‘Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans’ healthcare,’ Schumer said. ‘It’s clear that the way out of this shutdown is to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to address the looming healthcare crisis that faces tens of millions of American families.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., appears willing to slowly chip away at Senate Democrats through a de facto war of attrition and plans to bring House Republicans’ bill to the floor for a vote again and again.

The Senate will be out on Thursday to observe Yom Kippur but is expected to return Friday and possibly vote into the weekend on the continuing resolution (CR) that would reopen the government until Nov. 21 to give lawmakers more time to finish work on the dozen spending bills needed to fund the government.

Thune told Fox News Digital that he expected to talk to Schumer ‘in the next day or two.’

‘He’s indicated that he’s interested in doing that,’ Thune said. ‘I’m not sure what we’ll achieve by that, but I think there are, I mean, things seem to be moving on their side. We just keep telling them to ‘give us — open up the government, and we’ll get on with regular business.’’

Thune and Senate Republicans have argued that Senate Democrats’ rejection of the GOP’s CR is hypocritical, given that when former President Joe Biden was in office, Schumer and his caucus routinely voted for ‘clean’ extensions — like the GOP’s current proposal.

But the issue for Democrats was multifaceted. 

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was among the many lawmakers holding a confab on the Senate floor, and while he didn’t divulge full details of the private talks, he said a major issue for him was about ensuring that a ‘deal is a deal.’

‘Anything we agree to, because it’s not a clean CR if the president will tear it up tomorrow,’ he said. ‘In the past, we voted for clean CRs, but the president has shown that he’ll take the money back.’

Among the options tossed around in the huddle were a 10-day funding extension once floated by Schumer, which he quickly shot down earlier this week, or passing the Republican plan to actually give lawmakers time to negotiate a solution to the expiring tax credits.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said there were no high-level discussions quite yet, but that any path forward had to be ‘enforceable.’

‘The bottom line here is that I sense real concern among my Republican colleagues about what happens to the people they represent if we go off the cliff on the Affordable Care Act,’ he said, referring to Obamacare.

And Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who helped facilitate the conversation, said it’d be ‘great’ if lawmakers were able to get something figured out before the Nov. 21 deadline in the GOP’s bill, but that he and other Republicans were still pushing Democrats to support their legislation.

‘It’s not like there’s anything that they should be objecting to with regard to what’s in the existing bill,’ he said. ‘This is their hostage, and we’re just telling them, ‘Look, we’ve got support on the other side to fix the issues that you have a concern about, but it’s going to take time to negotiate those through.” 

President Donald Trump is open to talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ‘without any preconditions,’ a White House official said, as South Korea’s unification minister warned Pyongyang’s missiles could reach the U.S. mainland.

‘President Trump in his first term held three historic summits with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un that stabilized the Korean Peninsula. U.S. policy on North Korea has not changed,’ a White House official told Fox News Digital. ‘President Trump remains open to talking with Kim Jong Un, without any preconditions.’

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young used blunt language in Berlin this week, telling reporters, ‘North Korea has become one of the three countries capable of attacking the U.S. mainland,’ according to the Yonhap News Agency. ‘What needs to be acknowledged should be acknowledged rationally.’

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Chung’s claim.

Yonhap also reported that Chung said Pyongyang’s ‘strategic position is different’ than in 2018, when Trump and Kim held their first summit in Singapore. 

‘Acknowledging this reality should be the starting point’ in dealing with the regime, Chung told reporters.

But experts say North Korea has long held the capability to reach the U.S. mainland with intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

‘They’ve tested ICBMs for a long time,’ said Bob Peters, senior research fellow for strategic deterrence at the Heritage Foundation.

‘The question, then, for a long time, is, do they have a warhead that can go underneath a nose cone on an ICBM that goes by definition, exo atmospheric, comes down and then hits a target with some semblance of accuracy and then detonate and produce a nuclear yield,’ Peters added. ‘That’s been the real question — do they have that capability? That’s not what it sounded like the South Korean minister said.’

Meanwhile, Kim has said dialogue with the U.S. is possible, but on his terms. 

‘If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearizing us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,’ state media quoted Kim as saying.

A meeting with Kim would make Trump’s fourth sit-down with the dictator, at a time when his nation has once again grown increasingly hostile to U.S. interests. 

In July, the White House said Trump ‘remains open to engaging with Leader Kim to achieve a fully denuclearized North Korea.’ But North Korea asserted it would not meet the U.S. president if he was going to demand denuclearization. 

On Monday, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong told the United Nations General Assembly that his country will never give up its nuclear program, Reuters reported.

Trump is scheduled to travel to Asia later this month for an economic leaders’ summit with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. A senior U.S. official said no Demilitarized Zone meeting with Kim is currently on the agenda.

Reports have suggested Trump may meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Oct. 30-Nov. 1, though plans are still being finalized. 

In a call last month, Xi invited Trump and first lady Melania Trump to visit China. Trump returned the invitation. 

The same official said progress on nuclear talks depends on China. 

‘The first thing that would need to happen is for the Chinese to acknowledge and be more transparent about its own programs,’ the official said.

U.S. estimates put China’s nuclear arsenal at about 600 warheads in 2024, with projections of 1,000 by 2030. North Korea is believed to possess roughly 50 warheads, with enough fissile material for up to 90.

Pyongyang last year declared an ‘irreversible hegemonic position’ after test-firing its Hwasong-19 intercontinental ballistic missile, which North Korea has claimed can strike the American mainland.

Trump is strengthening deterrence even as he keeps the option of ‘talks without preconditions’ open.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is accusing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of refusing to vote to end the government shutdown in order to kowtow to his left-wing base.

Johnson told Fox News Digital in a sit-down interview that Democrats’ refusal to budge on their current position came up in an hour-long call he held with President Donald Trump on Wednesday afternoon.

‘[Trump is] very bothered by that, that Chuck Schumer would do this, Democrats would do this, because we haven’t,’ the top House Republican said.

He noted that Democrats had voted on a similar measure to what Republicans are offering on 13 different occasions under former President Joe Biden.

‘And even when the Republicans were in the minority, we did the right thing to keep the government open. And we fully expected that Schumer would do that again, as he always has, but not this time,’ Johnson said.

‘This is a selfish political calculation he’s made, that he’s got to prove to the far left that he’s going to fight Trump or something. So we talked about our frustration with that.’

He said Trump appeared ‘happy’ that Republicans remain unified in their federal funding stance but was concerned about the effects of a prolonged shutdown on everyday Americans.

‘But the reason we’re happy about that is because we know we’re doing the right thing for the American people,’ Johnson said. ‘And Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are demonstrating that they are willing to inflict this pain upon the people for their own political purposes. And I think that is a tough thing for them to get over.’

He said of a meeting between congressional leaders and Trump that occurred on Monday, ‘I tried my best in the White House, and he just is in no mood to have a real discussion about these issues. So we are where we are.’

Senate Democrats have now rejected a GOP-led plan to fund federal agencies through Nov. 21 three times.

The measure is called a continuing resolution (CR) and is aimed at buying House and Senate negotiators more time to reach a deal on fiscal year (FY) 2026 federal funding priorities.

The CR would keep current federal funding levels roughly flat while adding an extra $88 million in security spending for lawmakers, the White House, and the judicial branch.

Democrats, furious at being largely sidelined in funding discussions, have signaled they would not accept any bill that does not also extend Obamacare tax subsidies that were enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those enhanced subsidies are due to expire at the end of this year.

But Johnson, who called the Obamacare subsidies an ‘end-of-year issue,’ argued that the bill was a simple extension of federal funding, leaving Republicans with no realistic path for concessions.

‘If it was not clean and simple, if I had loaded it up with a bunch of Republican partisan priorities, then there would be something for us to negotiate. I could take those things off and offer it again. I sent it over with nothing attached at all,’ he said.

‘It quite literally is just buying us time to finish the appropriations process, which was being done in a bipartisan manner. So I don’t have anything to give, there’s nothing I can give. And Chuck Schumer has made such outrageous counter-demands and proposals that he’s the one that has to come to his senses.’

He was referring to Democrats’ counter-proposal for a CR, which would have repealed the Medicaid reforms made in Republicans’ One Big, Beautiful Bill, while restoring funding for NPR and PBS that was cut by the Trump administration earlier this year.

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for a response but did not hear back by press time.

Rejecting reports of a split with the brass, the Department of War says the National Defense Strategy was ‘seamlessly coordinated’ with senior civilian and uniform leaders — and that ‘any narrative to the contrary is false.’

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that multiple senior officers had raised concerns about the forthcoming strategy, pointing to a divide between political leadership.

Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg pushed back on Wednesday, in an on-the-record statement to Fox News Digital.

‘The Department’s National Defense Strategy has been seamlessly coordinated with all senior civilian and military leadership with total collaboration — any narrative to the contrary is false,’ Feinberg said.

A senior War Department official said the strategy was the product of ‘extensive and intensive’ collaboration across the department.

The drafting team included a policy lead, a Joint Staff deputy and representatives from the military services who consulted widely with civilian and uniformed offices.

Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby and the acting deputy under-secretary for policy, Austin Dahmer, met with leaders from every group. The official called that level of policy-shop engagement ‘unprecedented.’

Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, who chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided feedback directly to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Colby, the official said, and both assured him his input would be reflected in the final draft.

The Post report said political appointees in the Pentagon policy office led the drafting and described unusually sharp pushback from some commanders over priorities and tone. 

The War Department disputes that characterization and says the document was coordinated at the principal level and aligned closely with the National Security Strategy.

The pushback comes a day after Hegseth addressed hundreds of commanders at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

In a 45-minute speech, he argued the force needs tougher standards and a tighter focus on warfighting. He has recalled one-star and above officers from around the world to brief in person and has removed several senior general officers as part of a broader overhaul.

Hegseth says new directives will restore rigorous physical, grooming and leadership standards and require combat roles to meet one set of physical benchmarks.

The Washington Post did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.