This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/politics/government-shutdown-trump.html

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
White House Signals Retreat on Shutdown Threat White House Signals Retreat on Shutdown Threat
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The White House signaled on Tuesday that President Trump may be backing down on his demand for $5 billion from Congress for a wall on the border with Mexico, easing fears of a Christmas government shutdown that would begin at midnight Friday. WASHINGTON — The White House signaled on Tuesday that President Trump might be ready to capitulate on his demand for $5 billion for a wall on the southwestern border, but negotiations on a spending deal remained stalled as lawmakers awaited a White House strategy to avert a Christmastime government shutdown.
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said on Fox News there were other ways to secure his demand and deliver on a signature campaign promise — one that Mr. Trump previously said was willing to shut down the government over. “We’ll see what happens,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Tuesday about the chances of avoiding a shutdown. “It’s too early to say.”
She said the administration has a “number of different funding sources we could use” to reach $5 billion, suggesting that the money could be found for border security in the spending bills still pending in Congress. But she also conceded that the administration could settle for the highest number offered by congressional Democrats — $1.6 billion — in a Homeland Security spending bill that already contains about $26 billion in all for border security. Days before midnight Friday, when funding for large parts of the government will lapse, Mr. Trump’s flirtation with a retreat on his wall only underscored the dysfunction at the tail end of the all-Republican majority on Capitol Hill. The White House blamed the Republican-controlled Senate for failing to pass legislation to bridge the divide, while Republican leaders said they were still unsure what the president was willing to sign.
That $1.6 billion offer from the Democrats expressly prohibits the additional border money to be used on a wall. “We are disappointed in the fact that they have yet to vote on something or pass something,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters.
“That’s something that we would be able to support,” Ms. Sanders said, “as long as we can couple that with other funding resources that would help us get to the $5 billion.” Minutes later, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, told reporters at the Capitol that he was still trying to determine what Mr. Trump would accept.
She added: “At the end of the day, we don’t want to shut down the government, we want to shut down the border.” “I’m in consultations with the White House about the way forward,” Mr. McConnell said, adding that he hoped to have more information later “about what the president is willing to sign.”
It was not immediately clear what Ms. Sanders was referring to, but in a midday meeting Tuesday with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, proposed a measure that would allocate $1.6 billion for border security apart from Mr. Trump’s wall, plus about $1 billion for the president to spend as he saw fit on immigration, according to a senior Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential. Republicans worked to create a package that would allow Mr. Trump to declare victory in retreat, but they came up empty, unable to forge a plan that would satisfy a president intent on fulfilling a signature campaign promise and Democrats emboldened by an impending takeover of the House.
Democrats would reject that plan given that it includes a “slush fund,” the aide said. Instead, senators and senior congressional aides in both parties said an agreement was close at hand to essentially push the government spending fight into the new year, when Democrats will assume control of the House and Mr. Trump’s negotiating leverage — already on the wane — will be considerably weakened.
The quickening pace of negotiations was a marked contrast to the past seven days. Only a week ago, Mr. Trump publicly castigated Senator Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California in a televised Oval Office meeting where he vowed to shut down the government if Democrats refused to allocate money for the wall. He proclaimed himself “proud to shut down the government for border security.” Mr. McConnell said a stopgap measure — aides said it would last no longer than February — would “end up, in effect, punting this year’s business into next year.”
Ms. Sanders’ suggestion — one so far not publicly reiterated by the president — may be no more than the latest development in a budgetary battle marked by fizzling negotiations and lawmakers wary of approaching the president with legislation that he will not sign. “I think it’s not a very desirable outcome,” he said.
But Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said his party would be open to the idea. “We’d certainly very seriously look at it,” he told reporters.
After days of eerie quiet with a partial shutdown looming, the burst of activity suggested that all sides might be preparing for a brief holiday reprieve from their stalemate.
Ms. Sanders offered the first glimmers of a way out of the impasse in an interview Tuesday morning on Fox News, in which she said Mr. Trump — who only a week ago said he would be proud to force a shutdown over wall funding — did not want to see government funding lapse. She said the president was open to spending options short of the $5 billion lump sum he has demanded, and would find “different funding sources” to finance the wall.
“The president has asked every agency to look and see if they have money that could be used for that purpose,” she told reporters later.
Still, that would require approval from Congress, which Democrats said they would not grant.
Mr. McConnell had suggested a plan that would have provided $1.6 billion for border security but prohibited spending it on a wall, while allowing Mr. Trump to spend as much as $1 billion in unspent funds from other agencies on his immigration priorities. Mr. Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the presumptive incoming speaker, quickly rejected it.
“Leader Schumer and I have said that we cannot accept the offer they made of a billion-dollar slush fund for the president to implement his very wrong immigration policies, so that won’t happen,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters.
Mr. Schumer noted that Democrats had already proposed two ways of extending funding for the Department of Homeland Security without spending for the wall, and that Mr. Trump had yet to offer an alternative and appeared to be out of options.
“They need congressional approval — they’re not getting it — for the wall,” Mr. Schumer said. “The ball remains in the president’s and Republicans’ court to accept one of our common-sense proposals.”
A week ago, Mr. Trump publicly confronted Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi in a televised Oval Office meeting where he vowed to shut down the government if Democrats refused to allocate money for the wall and suggested a shutdown over his demand was to his political advantage. The scene robbed congressional Republicans of their ability to blame a potential impasse on Democrats, and they have spent the days since casting about for ways to choreograph a compromise that would protect Mr. Trump’s ego and still be broadly acceptable.
Ms. Sanders appeared to embrace one such possibility on Tuesday, when she said the White House might accept the $1.6 billion proposal. B ut it was unclear if Mr. Trump would follow suit, particularly after Democrats ruled out allowing him to spend additional money from other accounts on the border wall.
Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the top Democrat on the committee that negotiated the spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security, rebuffed Ms. Sanders’s claim that other funds could be used to reach the $5 billion mark.Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the top Democrat on the committee that negotiated the spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security, rebuffed Ms. Sanders’s claim that other funds could be used to reach the $5 billion mark.
“If you’ve got that kind of cushion in your budget and you don’t need that money, use it to pay down the debt,” he said.“If you’ve got that kind of cushion in your budget and you don’t need that money, use it to pay down the debt,” he said.
“We gave him what he wanted,” Mr. Tester added, referencing the administration’s formal request for $1.6 billion. “He ought to take it.” “We gave him what he wanted,” Mr. Tester added, referring to the administration’s formal request for $1.6 billion. “He ought to take it.”
Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said negotiations are ongoing ahead of the midnight Friday deadline, after which much of the government runs out of money. Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the delicate negotiations were continuing.
“We’ve got a lot of parties involved, and we’ve got to thread the needle,” Mr. Shelby said.“We’ve got a lot of parties involved, and we’ve got to thread the needle,” Mr. Shelby said.
Republican congressional leaders expressed bewilderment on Monday about whether a deal could be reached to continue funding the government past the Friday deadline, and what Mr. Trump’s intentions were.
“I think it will all work out, but I don’t know of a specific plan,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican, emerging from a meeting of the party’s Senate leaders on Monday evening.
Asked what the most likely vehicle would be for resolving the impasse, Mr. Cornyn said: “Believe it or not, there is no leading contender.”
Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the third-ranking Republican, was similarly stumped. Asked what Mr. Trump’s thinking was about averting a shutdown, he said: “I’ve not seen any recent revelation on that.”
“There are so many permutations of how this could end,” Mr. Thune added. “At the moment, we’re like everybody else, waiting to see if a deal can be struck.”
But on Tuesday, Mr. Shelby struck a more optimistic tone.
“There’s hope,” he said. “People are listening to each other, but that could stop.”