Key Points

"Democrats say that they care a lot about lowering health care costs. And yet, when the president took historic action to work with the drug companies to lower prescription drug prices, the Democrats did nothing to help us... What they have done instead is to shut down the government because we won't give billions of dollars to health care funding for illegal aliens...," Vance told reporters at White House.

He also blamed the Chuck Schumer AOC wing of the Democratic Party for the shutdown, despite the "overwhelming majority" of congressional Republicans and a few moderate Democrats supporting "opening the government"

"To American people who are watching, the reason your government is shut down at this very minute is because despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans and even a few moderate Democrats supported opening the government, the Chuck Schumer AOC wing of the Democratic Party shut down the government because they said to us, we will open the government but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health..."

Earlier on Tuesday, the US federal government officially shut down after a deadlocked Congress failed to pass a funding measure to keep the government running -- and the Capitol is unclear as to what would follow, CNN reported.

Leaders of both parties are privately and publicly adamant that they will not be blamed for the funding lapse: Republicans insist Democrats need to simply agree to extend current funding for another seven weeks.

Democrats refuse to do so without major concessions for lending their votes to pass any funding measure in the Senate, as per CNN.

Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are placing the blame squarely on US President Donald Trump and Republicans.

"After months of making life harder and more expensive, Donald Trump and Republicans have now shut down the federal government because they do not want to protect the healthcare of the American people," the Democratic leaders said in a joint statement.

- ANI