The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate blasted the House Freedom Caucus’s continuing resolution demands, saying the hard-line conservative caucus is putting Congress on track for a government shutdown.

Earlier on Monday, the House Freedom Caucus released a list of three demands that must be met for it to support a short-term continuing resolution. Any short-term stopgap funding measure must be passed alongside conservative legislation, specifically the Secure the Border Act of 2023, which the House passed in May, and there must be policy passed to “address the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department” and end “woke” policies at the Pentagon.

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This intensified the contentious appropriations battle and has no chance of making it out of the Democratic-controlled Senate or White House. In response, the Democratic leaders, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), ripped the Freedom Caucus’s demands.

“House Republicans are determined to shut down the government and crash our economy,” Jeffries said in a social media post. “We will fight these MAGA extremists every step of the way. For. The. People.”

Schumer issued a similar statement, saying that if the House decides to go in a “partisan direction” with a continuing resolution, it will lead to a “Republican-caused shutdown.”

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The demands also make Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) job significantly more difficult. The House has struggled to pass its appropriations bills amid pushback from the far-right and centrist wings of the Republican Conference, with members on both ends of the spectrum issuing demands about what they want and don’t want in the appropriations bills. This led to the House breaking for August recess one day early, as it could not come to an agreement on the agriculture appropriations bill.

It became clear it would be difficult to pass all 12 appropriations bills by the Sept. 30 deadline, so last week, McCarthy said on a member-only conference call that he expects a short-term continuing resolution will be necessary to give both chambers more time to pass and negotiate their appropriations bills. But getting a continuing resolution passed was always going to be difficult, and it will be even more so following the new demands by the Freedom Caucus, which made clear it would oppose any effort to pass a continuing resolution without the three conservative policies attached.

Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.