Trump supporters donate £11m to help save his Mexico wall
DONALD TRUMP supporters have donated more than £11 million to build his controversial border wall between the US and Mexico.
The President had asked the US Government for $5 billion to fund the project but Democrats in the Senate refused to approve it. Their decision came after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved the request.
The impasse meant the President’s spending plans could not be signed off, forcing a partial Government shutdown.
But as US politicians met last night to discuss ways to break the deadlock, it emerged that in the past six days more than 230,000 people had given $14 million to a crowd-funding appeal aimed at rescuing Mr Trump’s election pledge.
The President yesterday blamed the Democrats for the shutdown, warning: ‘It could be a long stay.’
The news came as Mr Trump’s administration was rocked by another resignation. Brett McGurk, the US official leading the fight against Islamic State, cited his ‘ strong disagreement’ with the President’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria.
A day before Mr McGurk’s resignation, Mr Trump’s Defence Secretary Jim Mattis quit over the same policy.
Mr Trump cancelled his Christmas trip to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, and took to Twitter last night to comment on the Government impasse, saying: ‘I am in the White House, working hard.
‘ News reports concerning the shutdown and Syria are mostly FAKE. We are negotiating with the Democrats on desperately needed Border Security (Gangs, Drugs, Human Trafficking & more) but it could be a long stay.’
The shutdown blocks money for nine of 15 cabinet- level departments including homeland security, transportation and justice.
About 420,000 workers are deemed essential and will work unpaid throughout the closure. An additional 380,000 will be told to remain at home without pay.
Among those ordered to stay away include the vast majority of Nasa staff and 52,000 workers at the Internal Revenue Service.
The US Postal Service, busy delivering Christmas packages, will not be affected because it is an independent agency. Social security cheques will be sent as usual and troops will remain on duty.
The FBI, Border Patrol and the US Coast Guard will also still be functioning, while air traffic controllers have been told to report for duty as normal.
On Wednesday, a deal appeared to have been agreed in the Senate to keep federal agencies open until February 8, but the agreement did not include funding for Mr Trump’s wall.
He then dug his heels in over the issue and insisted that money for the wall must be included for him to sign off the budget.
On Thursday the Republican-controlled House approved $5.7 billion of funding for the wall.
But the bill hit the buffers because Mr Trump does not have the 60 votes in the 100- seat Senate he needs to get his budget passed. Talks were continuing on Capitol Hill last night to resolve the issue.
The longest Government shutdown in US history was 21 days during Bill Clinton’s administration over the budget.
The shutdown comes after a tumultuous week – even by Mr Trump’s standards.
He caused controversy with a decision to halve the number of US soldiers in Afghanistan, and the Dow Jones Index, which Mr Trump used to use as a measure of his popularity, suffered its worst week since the 2008 financial crash amid fears of an economic slowdown.
230,000 people give to crowd-funding appeal