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Version 2 Version 3
Trump Rejects Potential Shutdown Compromise as He Prepares to Meet Congressional Leaders Trump and Democrats Dig In After Talks to Reopen Government Go Nowhere
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday torched a compromise that his own vice president floated with Democrats last month to stave off a government funding lapse, saying $2.5 billion in border security spending was insufficient as he renewed calls for $5 billion for his border wall amid a shutdown that has stretched into its 12th day. WASHINGTON — President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders dug in Wednesday for a lengthy partial shutdown in a newly divided government after a White House meeting — the first in 22 days — yielded no agreement on a way to break an impasse over Mr. Trump’s demands for billions of dollars for a border wall.
He also rejected suggestions from Republican senators that negotiators revive a compromise that would twin border-wall money with legislation to shield young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children from deportation and grant them legal work permits. During the contentious meeting in the Situation Room, Mr. Trump made his case for a wall on the southwestern border and rejected Democrats’ proposals for reopening the government while the two sides ironed out their differences.
The comments ahead of a meeting with congressional leaders set back any notion that the shutdown could be nearing a negotiated end. They were a remarkable public rejection of a plan that Vice President Mike Pence broached with Democrats behind closed doors 12 days ago, in the hours before a midnight deadline to avert a shutdown, and which his team has quietly continued to push in the days since. “I would look foolish if I did that,” Mr. Trump responded after Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, posed the question to him directly, according to three officials familiar with the meeting, who described it on the condition of anonymity. He said that the wall was why he was elected, one of the officials said.
And they confirmed the concerns of Democratic leaders who had privately questioned whether they could trust senior White House officials to broker any compromise that could then be rejected by a mercurial president who has often shifted his position at the last moment, especially when it comes to immigration. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said after the meeting that he had no intention of putting Democratic bills to reopen the government to a vote if Mr. Trump would not sign them.
“No, not $2.5 billion, no — we’re asking for $5.6” billion, Mr. Trump said during a cabinet meeting, hours before he was scheduled to host Republican and Democratic congressional leaders for a border security briefing in the White House Situation Room. “We’re hopeful that, somehow, in the coming days and weeks, we’ll be able to reach an agreement,” Mr. McConnell told reporters at the Capitol, offering an ominous timeline.
The larger figure refers to the amount Mr. Trump has demanded for the wall, which the House endorsed in a vote last month, but which failed to garner even majority support in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to prevail. The events underscored the personal and political crosscurrents standing in the way of any compromise between a president unwilling to lose face with his core supporters on his signature campaign promise and newly empowered Democrats — poised to assume control of the House on Thursday — who refuse to give ground on an issue that has come to symbolize Mr. Trump’s immigration policies.
“This is national security we’re talking about,” Mr. Trump said. With the partial government funding lapse dragging into its 12th day and affecting 800,000 federal employees, the confrontation in the Situation Room only served to highlight the depth of the divide.
The president’s blustery broadside underscored the difficulty of forging a compromise to end the shutdown impasse between Mr. Trump, who has dug in on his signature campaign promise, and newly ascendant Democrats, who have refused to embrace the idea of a wall and are loath to consider a politically tricky agreement with a president who might change course at any moment. Besides Mr. Pence, he rejected proposals floated by Senators Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “Could be a long time, or it could be quickly,” Mr. Trump said of resolving the shutdown. “It’s too important a subject to walk away from.”
“Could be a long time, or it could be quickly,” Mr. Trump said of resolving the shutdown logjam. “It’s too important a subject to walk away from.” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who is in line to be elected speaker on Thursday, said: “We are asking the president to open up government. Why would he not do it?”
Mr. Trump’s remarks were the second time in as many weeks that he has publicly undercut the vice president after Mr. Pence had privately assured lawmakers that the president was willing to embrace a compromise. After the vice president told Senate Republicans two weeks ago that Mr. Trump supported stopgap spending legislation to keep the government funded through Feb. 8, the Senate unanimously passed the measure, only to have the president say he would refuse to sign it. “He could not give a good answer,” Mr. Schumer said.
Wednesday’s Situation Room gathering, to be held in the secure room in the White House basement where military operations are tracked and other sensitive discussions unfold, was a conscious effort by Mr. Trump and his aides to infuse a sense of national-security crisis into the immigration discussion. It will be the president’s first face-to-face meeting with Democratic leaders since a combative session last month when he said he would insist that any government spending bill include money for a wall on the southwestern border — and would proudly own the consequences if that meant a shutdown. Mr. Trump tried creative ways to persuade the Democrats that they should support his wall. At one point, he said Ms. Pelosi should back it because she was “a good Catholic” and Vatican City is surrounded by a wall, according to one of the officials familiar with the discussion.
But hours before it began, what was billed as a somber security briefing took on the sharp tone of a choreographed political showdown, as Mr. Trump made his case anew for his wall and charged that Democrats were sacrificing border security to gain partisan advantage in the 2020 elections. In her first legislative act as speaker, Ms. Pelosi plans on Thursday to bring up two bills to reopen the government. One would fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8, providing a month to break the impasse over border security funding, and a second would provide money for the remaining shuttered agencies and departments through September. The homeland security measure would devote $1.3 billion to border security measures, such as enhanced surveillance and fortified fencing, but not the wall.
Mr. Trump’s rejection of those measures left the prospects of a resolution at their dimmest since the shutdown began on Dec. 22. It also highlighted the difficulty of the current situation, in which Democrats, Republicans and even some White House staff members have found themselves trying to anticipate what Mr. Trump will accept.
Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the incoming minority leader, said the group would meet again on Friday, although Democratic officials said they had received no formal invitation to do so.
There was even some disagreement about why a next meeting could be on Friday.
“It was the consensus of all the participants that it would be easier for House Democrats to negotiate after the conclusion of their leadership elections,” said one person who was in the room and asked not to identified. However, that was not an assessment Democrats shared afterward.
In a pair of evening tweets, Mr. Trump seemed to hold out hope of an agreement, writing: “I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats to pass a bill that secures our borders, supports the agents and officers on the ground, and keeps America Safe. Let’s get it done!”
But the path to such a deal seemed murky at best.
Before he met congressional leaders on Wednesday, Mr. Trump vetoed a compromise that his own vice president floated with Democrats last month to stave off the government funding lapse, saying $2.5 billion in border security spending was insufficient. In the hours before a midnight deadline to avert a shutdown before Christmas, Vice President Mike Pence had broached that number, which his team has quietly continued to push in the days after parts of the government ran out of money.
The president also rejected proposals suggested by two Republican senators, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. They proposed that negotiators revive a compromise that would combine border-wall money with legislation to shield young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children from deportation and grant them legal work permits.
Together, those rejections seemed to confirm the concerns of Democratic leaders who had questioned whether they could trust senior White House officials to broker any compromise that could then be rejected by a president who has often shifted his position at the last moment, especially when it comes to immigration.
“No, not $2.5 billion, no — we’re asking for $5.6” billion, Mr. Trump said during a cabinet meeting, hours before the Situation Room meeting.
The larger figure referred to the amount Mr. Trump has demanded for the wall, which the House endorsed in a vote last month, but which failed to garner even majority support in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to prevail.
Wednesday’s gathering in the Situation Room, where military operations are tracked and other sensitive discussions unfold, was a conscious effort by Mr. Trump and his aides to infuse a sense of national-security crisis into the immigration discussion. It was the president’s first face-to-face meeting with Democratic leaders since a combative session last month when he said he would insist that any government spending bill include money for a border wall — and would proudly own the consequences if that meant a shutdown.
But it quickly turned tense as Mr. Trump argued for his wall and called on Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, who appeared via teleconference from the border in San Diego to stress the need for it, according to two of the officials who were at the meeting.
Mr. Schumer interjected, calling on Ms. Pelosi, who disputed Ms. Nielsen’s statistics, two of the officials said. Ms. Pelosi then laid out the legislative proposals she planned to bring up on Thursday, detailing how the spending measures had all received broad bipartisan support either in committees or on the floor in the Republican-controlled Congress.
Hours before it began, what was billed as a somber security briefing had already taken on the sharp tone of a political showdown, as Mr. Trump charged that Democrats were sacrificing border security for a partisan advantage in the 2020 elections.
“The United States needs a physical barrier,” the president said during the cabinet meeting, comparing the southern border to “a sieve” that allows criminals and drugs to enter the country and facilitates human trafficking.“The United States needs a physical barrier,” the president said during the cabinet meeting, comparing the southern border to “a sieve” that allows criminals and drugs to enter the country and facilitates human trafficking.
“Walls work,” he added, claiming inaccurately that former President Barack Obama has one “around his compound” in Washington, D.C. (Parts of Mr. Obama’s home in Northwest Washington are bordered by a low brick retaining wall and others have iron or chain-link fencing.) “Walls work,” he added, claiming inaccurately that former President Barack Obama has one “around his compound” in Washington. (Parts of Mr. Obama’s home in the northwest section of the city are bordered by a low brick retaining wall, and others have iron or chain-link fencing.)
“We are in a shutdown because Democrats refuse to fund border security,” the president said Wednesday, although Democrats have offered billions of dollars for border security, just not his wall. He charged that Democrats were playing politics with an eye on the next presidential election in 2020. Mr. Trump repeated his false claims about the border wall, including that Mexico was already paying for it, as he promised during his campaign, and that much of its construction had already been completed.
Democrats have refused to allocate any money — let alone the $5 billion that Mr. Trump has demanded — for a large, physical barrier like the wall desired by the president to thwart illegal border crossings. Instead, Democrats, in full control of the House, will vote Thursday on two bills to fund most of the government through Sept. 30 and the Department of Homeland Security to Feb. 8. The president has puzzled lawmakers and his own aides with his contention that Mexico is financing the wall through the revised North American Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States. The agreement, which has yet to pass Congress, contains no such proviso, and it is meant to lower tariffs, not raise them.
They would devote $1.3 billion for border security measures, such as enhanced surveillance and fortified fencing.
“We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer,” Ms. Pelosi, who will assume the speakership on Thursday, wrote in a letter to House Democrats on Tuesday night. “Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the president’s third shutdown of his term.”
But Mr. Trump has called the funding proposal unacceptable, saying that it shows that Democrats, as he tweeted on Tuesday, “do not care about Open Borders.” The Senate unanimously passed legislation last month to keep all of the government funded through Feb. 8, without border-wall money, but the Republican-controlled House refused to vote on the measure.
Senior Democratic aides said they had low expectations for the briefing, which they predicted would be a stunt manufactured for dramatic optics with a one-sided presentation from the White House, which would not yield progress toward a resolution of the impasse.
“It’s not often the president gets to hear people tell him when he’s wrong,” said Justin Goodman, a spokesman for Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader. “Democrats intend to do that today.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump repeated his false claims about the border wall, including that Mexico was already paying for it, as he promised during his campaign, and that much of its construction had already been completed.
The president has puzzled lawmakers and his own aides with his contention that Mexico is financing the wall through the revised Nafta trade pact between Mexico, Canada and the United States, known as the USMCA. The agreement, which has yet to pass Congress, contains no such proviso, and it is designed to lower tariffs, not raise them.
And while Mr. Trump claims that the wall is already being built, the Republican-controlled Congress enacted legislation barring any money from being spent to do so, and no such construction has occurred. The Trump administration has spent less than 10 percent of the other border security funding, for fencing and other measures, that Congress provided over the last year.And while Mr. Trump claims that the wall is already being built, the Republican-controlled Congress enacted legislation barring any money from being spent to do so, and no such construction has occurred. The Trump administration has spent less than 10 percent of the other border security funding, for fencing and other measures, that Congress provided over the last year.
As the shutdown showdown nears the two-week mark and Democrats prepare to take the helm in the House, the search for a way out is getting more urgent. Some lawmakers have grown increasingly anxious about its impact on their constituents, including federal workers who are not receiving pay while their agencies are denied funding. Outside the White House, the search for a way out is getting more urgent. Some lawmakers have grown anxious about its impact on their constituents, including federal workers who are not receiving pay while their agencies are denied funding.
Senator Alexander published an opinion piece in The Washington Post suggesting three ways out: Grant the president the $1.6 billion for border security that he requested, without wall funding, plus an additional $1 billion for security at ports of entry; approve a bipartisan bill linking wall funding with protection for young immigrants brought illegally to the country as children; or resurrect the 2013 comprehensive immigration overhaul that included huge increases in border security measures, sweeping changes to immigration law and a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. Mr. Alexander wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post suggesting three ways out: Grant the president the $1.6 billion for border security that he requested, without wall funding, plus an additional $1 billion for security at ports of entry; approve a bipartisan bill linking wall funding with protection for young immigrants brought illegally to the country as children; or resurrect the 2013 comprehensive immigration overhaul that included huge increases in border security measures, sweeping changes to immigration law and a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Meantime, incoming lawmakers showed new concerns about the shutdown’s impact. Incoming lawmakers vented new concerns about the shutdown’s impact.
“This morning I requested that my pay be withheld until the shutdown is over,” Representative-elect Mikie Sherill, Democrat of New Jersey, said Wednesday on Twitter, where she posted a letter to the chief administrative officer of the House making official her request. “This morning I requested that my pay be withheld until the shutdown is over,” Representative-elect Mikie Sherrill, Democrat of New Jersey, said Wednesday on Twitter, where she posted a letter to the chief administrative officer of the House making her request official.
She noted that 800,000 federal workers are not receiving paychecks during the partial shutdown, including thousands in her state. “I came here to govern, not engage in partisan politics at the expense of hardworking Americans,” Ms. Sherill said. She noted that thousands of federal workers in her state were not receiving paychecks. “I came here to govern, not engage in partisan politics at the expense of hardworking Americans,” Ms. Sherrill said.
Representative-elect Max Rose, Democrat of New York, said he would donate his salary for the duration of the shutdown to a local Staten Island charity, likely a nonprofit counseling charity focused on treating addiction and substance abuse.
He said any talk of a broader immigration compromise should wait until the government re opens. “We’re dealing with people’s lives here,” he said in an interview Monday.