Trump holds firm on wall
Shutdown looks likely over $5B for border
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump torpedoed a spending deal and sent the government careening toward a Christmastime shutdown Thursday over his demand of $5 billion for a wall on the southwestern border, refusing to sign a stopgap measure to keep funds flowing past midnight Friday.
With Trump unwilling to admit defeat on his signature campaign promise despite a clear lack of votes to get it through Congress, House Republican leaders
scrambled for a way out of the year-end morass. On a dizzying day in the Capitol, they prepared legislation to add $5 billion for the wall to a measure to extend government funding into February, in a last-ditch effort to force it through in the final hours of their majority. It would also put them on record backing the president’s hard-line immigration promises.
The bill is almost certain to die in the Senate, where it would need bipartisan support. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, told senators scattered around the country to return Friday for another vote. The House approved it on a nearly party-line vote of 217-185.
“It is a shame that this president, who is plunging the nation into chaos, is throwing another temper tantrum and going to hurt lots of innocent people,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said during an evening news conference in the Capitol, as the House prepared to vote on its revised measure. “The Trump temper tantrum may produce a government shutdown; it will not get him his wall.”
Trump appeared undeterred.
“I’ve made my position very clear: Any measure that funds the government has to include border security, has to,” Trump said during a ceremony at the White House, delivering a screed against illegal immigration that recalled the themes of his presidential campaign, including fearsome statistics suggesting that many of the people in the country without authorization were murderers and rapists. “We have no choice.”
Hours earlier, Trump had privately told House Republican leaders during a hastily called meeting that he would not sign legislation passed Wednesday night by the Senate to keep the government running until Feb. 8. His maneuver upended days of frenzied planning by lawmakers in his own party who had tried to devise a strategy that would satisfy a president who refused to say what he would support. As they scrambled, Trump’s attitude about whether to cut a deal or fight appeared to shift by the hour.
The president balked at the Senate bill only after coming under attack from conservative commentators on Fox News and social media for failing to fight for the wall. Personalities like Ann Coulter and members of the House Freedom Caucus warned that if he did not veto the Senate-passed measure that failed to fund it, he would lose the backing of his core supporters — and any chance at re-election.
“The sun has not yet set on our majority,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, wrote in an op-ed article posted on Fox’s website. “Let’s stand up and fight. It’s now or never.”
Meadows then accompanied House Republican leaders to the White House on Thursday to discuss the issue with Trump, and by early afternoon, the House delegation had joined Trump’s chorus.
That spending bill would extend the government funding for nine federal departments and several federal agencies past midnight Friday.
As Republicans toiled to corral the votes, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader who is likely to become speaker in two weeks, used procedural maneuvers to make it clear that it was Republicans who were standing in the way of continuing funding for the government.
“We’re right in the middle of a sort of a meltdown on the part of the Republicans,” Pelosi said. “They’re having a breakdown over this.”
Republican leaders began the day with a sense of dread, worried about opposition to the Senate bill among their rank-and-file but unable to assure them that if they did vote for the package, the president would sign it. Their closeddoor morning meeting devolved into a tense and confused free-for-all.
In the middle of the session, Ryan stepped away to take a call from Trump, who vented his frustration about the situation, according to two officials who were briefed on the call. Moments later, the president took to Twitter to blame leaders in his own party for failing to fund the border wall.
“When I begrudgingly signed the Omnibus Bill, I was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership,” Trump wrote, referring to the $1.3 trillion spending bill he signed in March. “Would be done by end of year (NOW). It didn’t happen!”