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Trump Threatens a Government Shutdown That Will ‘Last for a Very Long Time’ Trump Threatens a Government Shutdown That Will ‘Last for a Very Long Time’
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump warned early Friday that a partial government shutdown “will last for a very long time,” seeking to blame Democrats for a potential government funding lapse that he said last week he would proudly own. WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday sought to pin blame on Democrats for a looming government shutdown that he had previously said he would proudly own, saying he hoped to keep funds flowing past midnight but that his adversaries must choose to fund his border wall.
“If enough Dems don’t vote, it will be a Democrat Shutdown!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “House Republicans were great yesterday!” “Now it’s up to the Democrats as to whether or not we have a shutdown tonight,” Mr. Trump said at the White House, moments after meeting with Senate Republicans who have repeatedly informed him there were not enough votes to sustain his position. “I hope we don’t, but we are totally prepared for a very long shut down. This is our only chance that we will ever have, in our opinion.”
Hours away from a Friday midnight deadline, when funding was set to run out for a number of federal departments, the president unleashed a flurry of morning tweets as he reveled in a House vote on Thursday that passed stopgap spending legislation that would extend funding until early February, with an additional $5.7 billion to begin construction of a wall on the border with Mexico. It was a striking reversal from his televised declaration during a combative meeting with congressional Democrats a week ago that he relished the prospect of shuttering the government to force them to accept a wall, and would not blame them for the outcome.
The legislation is expected to fail in the Senate, where Democratic votes are needed to top the 60-vote threshold. The White House announced the president will meet with Senate Republicans at 10:30 to discuss next steps. Meantime, Mr. Trump sought to pin blame for a funding lapse on the Democrats — a reversal from his vow in a combative televised Oval Office meeting earlier this month that he would be “proud to shut down the government for border security.” Hours before a midnight deadline when government funding will lapse, confusion reigned on the Senate floor as leaders struggled to win agreement to begin debating stopgap spending legislation passed by the House Thursday night that would keep the government running through Feb. 8 and provide $5.7 billion to begin construction of a wall on the border with Mexico, Mr. Trump’s signature campaign promise.
House Republicans succeeded in rounding up the votes on Thursday to pass a spending bill with the president’s wall money, a potentially important step in the now-familiar shutdown blame game. Instead of Mr. Trump vetoing legislation to keep the government funded, it will now fall to Democrats in the Senate to filibuster a funding bill, stopping it from reaching the Oval Office. But the measure was doomed, given that it would need bipartisan support to advance and Democrats are uniformly opposed. What was supposed to be a 15-minute vote dragged on for more than an hour as Republican leaders toiled even to secure a majority to agree to consider the bill, with two retiring Republican senators who have been sharply critical of Mr. Trump threatening to block the move.
The president also urged Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to endorse the “Nuclear Option” and abolish the ability of the minority party to filibuster and delay votes over spending measures. The so-called nuclear option was used by Senate Democrats to lower the Senate threshold to 51 votes and end a Republican blockade of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees. It was then extended by Senate Republicans to end possible filibusters of Supreme Court nominees. “Why move to proceed to a bill that has no future?” asked Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who voted against the measure. “Let’s do one that actually can pass.”
Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, huddled in hushed conversations with Republicans and Democrats and shuttled on and off the Senate floor as he delayed casting his vote, trying to determine whether it was better to block the measure altogether or allow it to advance, providing an opportunity to revise it and remove the wall money.
Democrats made it clear the proceedings were a waste of time.
“The Senate will take part in a pointless exercise to demonstrate to our House colleagues and the president what everybody knows: There are not the votes in the Senate for an expensive taxpayer-funded border wall,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader.
And President Trump shelved plans to go to his winter home in Florida, seemingly preparing for a shutdown. At the same time, he showed no sign of retreating from his demands.
During a meeting with Republican senators, Mr. Trump refused to give them specifics about what kind of plan he could support, including how much money he would accept for fortifying the border, despite their repeated efforts to ascertain his conditions for a deal, according to a Senate official briefed on the session who insisted on anonymity to describe it. The president talked at length about the wall and repeatedly pressed the senators about eliminating the filibuster so they could fund it with 51 votes.
Republicans seemed resigned to the fact that the wall funding would have to fail once more in the Senate before it would be possible to persuade the president to consider an alternative — if doing so would ever be possible.
“In my view, this legislation would be quite uncontroversial — quite uncontroversial — in a more normal political moment, in a moment where both parties put the national interest above any personal spite for the president,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. “I support the additional border security and disaster assistance that the House added to the bill, and I’m proud to vote for it.”
Privately, officials on Capitol Hill and at the White House conceded that the measure would fail, and they had no clear Plan B. In the absence of a plan for averting a shutdown, Mr. Trump spent the day maneuvering to ensure that Democrats would shoulder the blame notwithstanding his public courting of the dysfunctional denouement.
He began the day warning on Twitter that a partial government shutdown “will last for a very long time.”
“If enough Dems don’t vote, it will be a Democrat Shutdown!” Mr. Trump wrote. “House Republicans were great yesterday!”
He was referring to a nearly party line vote in the House on Thursday night to add the wall funding to the stopgap spending bill despite almost certain defeat of the measure once it reached the Senate. House Republicans also added roughly $8 billion in disaster aid for farmers, a critical sweetener that helped advance a bill that they feared until the last moment might not have enough votes to pass.
Yet the only certainty to emerge was an intense round of political blame-shifting. House passage of the wall funding did shift the dynamics of the fight, putting Senate Democrats in the position of being the spoilers of a measure to keep the government running.
Democrats, who believe their leverage will only grow when they assume the majority in the House in January, did not appear to be cowed by the tactic.
“Abandon your shutdown strategy,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor, addressing his remarks to the president. “You’re not getting the wall today, next week, or on January 3 when Democrats take control of the House.”
The president also urged Mr. McConnell to pursue what is known as the “Nuclear Option” and abolish a rule that allows any senator to block final votes on legislation, often used by the minority party to thwart major bills. The so-called nuclear option was used by Senate Democrats to lower the threshold to 51 votes and end a Republican blockade of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees. Senate Republicans then used the same tactic to end filibusters of Supreme Court nominees.
“Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done!” Mr. Trump tweeted. “Our Country is counting on you!”“Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done!” Mr. Trump tweeted. “Our Country is counting on you!”
Mr. McConnell has long said that there was no support for dismantling the 60-vote requirement on legislation. Mr. McConnell has long said that there was no support for dismantling the 60-vote requirement on legislation, and he and a number of senior Republican senators released statements on Friday morning in advance of the meeting with Mr. Trump making it clear it would not happen.
If the House-passed measure fails in the Senate, which is corralling members back to Washington to convene at noon, it is unclear what prospects remain for keeping the government fully funded past midnight. “The leader has said for years that the votes are not there in the conference to use the nuclear option,” David Popp, his spokesman, said in a statement. “Just this morning, several senators put out statements confirming their opposition, and confirming that there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road.”
Even as Mr. Trump sneered at Democratic opposition and objections to his vision of a concrete wall at the border with Mexico (“It’s like the wheel, there is nothing better,” Mr. Trump wrote), he seemed to acknowledge that the wall funding proposal is considered doomed in the Senate chambers. If the House-passed measure fails in the Senate, which is corralled members back to Washington four days before Christmas to consider it, it is unclear what prospects remain for keeping the government fully funded past midnight.
Even as Mr. Trump mocked Democratic opposition and objections to his vision of a wall at the border with Mexico (“It’s like the wheel, there is nothing better,” Mr. Trump wrote), he seemed to acknowledge that the wall funding proposal is not getting through the Senate.
“No matter what happens today in the Senate, Republican House Members should be very proud of themselves,” Mr. Trump wrote. “They flew back to Washington from all parts of the World in order to vote for Border Security and the Wall.”“No matter what happens today in the Senate, Republican House Members should be very proud of themselves,” Mr. Trump wrote. “They flew back to Washington from all parts of the World in order to vote for Border Security and the Wall.”
“We will get it done, one way or the other!” the president wrote in another tweet, having delayed his winter vacation to stay through the midnight deadline.“We will get it done, one way or the other!” the president wrote in another tweet, having delayed his winter vacation to stay through the midnight deadline.
Solutions to the impasse appeared short for a disgruntled, tired legislative body that has repeatedly failed over the last two years to reach a compromise over funding for Mr. Trump’s signature campaign promise. At times, both sides have floated proposals with something for both sides, such as trading wall funding for protection from deportation for young immigrants brought illegally to the country as children. But the Dreamers-Wall deal seems to have disappeared. President Trump has offered no enticements to Democrats, nor have Democrats suggested they would give even a dollar for a wall. Solutions to the impasse appeared to be in short supply for a disgruntled, exhausted legislative body that has repeatedly failed over the last two years to reach a compromise over funding for Mr. Trump’s signature campaign promise. At times, both sides have floated proposals that sought to pair their disparate priorities, such as trading wall funding for protection from deportation for young immigrants brought illegally to the country as children, often known as “Dreamers.” But momentum for a Dreamers-for-wall deal appears to have evaporated. President Trump has offered no enticements to Democrats, and Democrats, emboldened by midterm congressional elections that handed them control of the House, have Democrats said they would not give even a dollar for a wall.
Even before the House passed its own measure on Thursday, which includes close to $8 billion in disaster relief funding for natural disaster recovery, the two Democratic leaders, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, warned that they would not cave on supplying wall funding.
“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,” Mr. Schumer said. “The Trump temper tantrum may produce a government shutdown, it will not get him his wall.”
With funding set to expire, the nine federal departments and several other agencies were beginning to ready themselves. Some agencies will have enough money in the pipeline to carry them into the new year, but thousands of government workers are expected to be furloughed or required to work through the holidays without pay.With funding set to expire, the nine federal departments and several other agencies were beginning to ready themselves. Some agencies will have enough money in the pipeline to carry them into the new year, but thousands of government workers are expected to be furloughed or required to work through the holidays without pay.
“It’s actually part of what you do when you sign up for any public service position,” Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and chairman of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, told reporters on Thursday. “It’s not lost on me in terms of the potential hardship.”“It’s actually part of what you do when you sign up for any public service position,” Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and chairman of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, told reporters on Thursday. “It’s not lost on me in terms of the potential hardship.”
Several House lawmakers blamed Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer for the impending shutdown, arguing that they were unwilling to compromise on border security. But with Democrats set to reclaim the House majority in two weeks, there is little motivation for Ms. Pelosi to acquiesce to the president’s demands.Several House lawmakers blamed Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer for the impending shutdown, arguing that they were unwilling to compromise on border security. But with Democrats set to reclaim the House majority in two weeks, there is little motivation for Ms. Pelosi to acquiesce to the president’s demands.
In the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s insistence that he would own a government shutdown, House Democratic aides had already begun crafting legislation that would reopen the government come Jan. 3 and the swearing in of new members.In the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s insistence that he would own a government shutdown, House Democratic aides had already begun crafting legislation that would reopen the government come Jan. 3 and the swearing in of new members.
The Senate bill, Democrats argue, is a bipartisan effort that includes money for border security — but with a prohibition on any funds being used for a wall.The Senate bill, Democrats argue, is a bipartisan effort that includes money for border security — but with a prohibition on any funds being used for a wall.