House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that the bipartisan talks aimed at preventing a government shutdown have ended — at least temporarily — and accused GOP leaders in the lower chamber of abandoning the discussions.

“House Republicans have made a decision to walk away from the four-corners discussions that involved House Democrats, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans related to funding the government in a manner that meets the needs of the American people,” Jeffries said during a press briefing in the Capitol.

The assertion was a sharp contradiction from the comments coming from the top appropriators in both parties just hours before. On Wednesday afternoon, House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the senior Democrat on the panel, said they were still at the table in search of a bipartisan deal to prevent a shutdown after March 14, when funding expires.

Asked what had changed, Jeffries said Speaker........

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