Not clear whether Trump will sign funding deal: White House
WALL WOES: Congress faces a tight deadline to pass legislation to avert another shutdown
WASHINGTON: The White House said on Wednesday it was not clear whether President Donald Trump would sign a government funding deal to avoid a partial shutdown of federal agencies, even as a source familiar with the situation said he likely would.
“We want to see what the final piece of legislation looks like,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters. “It’s hard to say definitively whether or not the president is going to sign it until we know everything that’s in it.”
Congress, which faces a tight deadline to pass legislation to avert another US government shutdown, is considering a compromise measure that does not deliver all the funds Trump had demanded to build a wall along the US border with Mexico.
On Tuesday, the Republican president said he was not happy with the deal and he did not rule out a possible veto of the legislation.
The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives could vote as soon as Wednesday evening, a senior aide said, despite not yet having produced a written copy of the agreement reached by congressional negotiators on Monday night.
The accord must also be passed by the Republican-controlled Senate and signed by Trump by the midnight Friday expiration of a stopgap measure that ended the longest federal shutdown in US history.
The measure’s fate in the House was far from certain given the risk that conservatives and liberals will oppose the compromise for different reasons.
Congressional sources said the deal includes $1.37 billion for new border fencing, about the same as last year — along 55 miles (90 km) of the border — but not the $5.7 billion Trump has demanded to help build his promised border wall.
Senior congressional Republicans, showing little appetite for another shutdown after being heavily criticized for the previous one, urged Trump to support the agreement.
“I think the president will sign it. I think he will do so reluctantly, and then obviously, have to use executive actions to secure our borders,” US Representative Mark Meadows, head of the Republicans’ conservative caucus in the House, told reporters on Tuesday.