Democratic senators increasingly see shutting down the government to send a message to President Trump as a political necessity, Democratic aides and strategists say.

These frustrated Democrats think they need to do something drastic to push back on the Trump administration and buck up their own demoralized voters — and the looming, Sept. 30 government funding deadline may be one of their best remaining chances.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) thinks the hardline Democratic strategy is starting to pay off after Trump agreed to meet with Democratic leaders at the White House Monday, something the president had previously refused to do.

“We've been resolute that we need a meeting, that we need a real negotiation, that you don't do this by one party putting together a completely partisan bill, and saying, take it or leave it. So, they felt the heat,” Schumer told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview Sunday.

He warned that if Trump uses the meeting to score political points, Democrats would again defeat a House-passed government funding bill that needs to pass by Tuesday to avoid a shutdown.

“If the president at this meeting is going to rant and just yell at Democrats and talk about all his alleged grievances and say this, that, and the other thing, we won't get anything done. But my hope is it will be a serious negotiation,” Schumer said.

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A group of centrist Democratic senators, however, are leery about their leadership’s bare-knuckled approach to this week’s funding deadline.

A few centrists, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), have quietly put out feelers to their Republican colleagues in hopes of finding some off-ramp from the government funding stalemate.

Shaheen is the lead Democratic sponsor of legislation to permanently extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced........

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