Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said of Democrats: “We’ve called their bluff, and they didn’t blink. At this point it would kind of strain logic to assume that going deeper into this when Republicans are likely to get the blame will benefit us more.”
Nonetheless, at noon, House Republican leaders summoned reporters and photographers into a gilded room overlooking the National Mall, directing the cameras to capture the empty seats — for Democrats, they said — at the table.
“The way to resolve our differences is to sit down and talk,” said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican. “And as you can see here, there’s no one here on the other side of the table.”
The scene so irritated Mr. Reid that he soon strode onto the Senate floor to denounce such “silly, empty Republican stunts.”
His Republican counterpart, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, also took to the floor. “Well, Democrat leaders in Congress finally have their prize — a government shutdown that no one seems to want but them,” he said. “House Republicans worked late into the night this weekend to keep the government open. And Senate Democrats dragged their feet.”
Mr. Reid, a former boxer, interrupted with a jab. “My friend the Republican leader spoke as if George Orwell wrote his speech,” he said. “This is ‘1984,’ where up is down, down is up, east is west.” Nobody was happier to have the government closed than the Tea Party, Mr. Reid said, adding, “We had a good day for the anarchists.”
