Trump wants to add funds for border wall, defense to stopgap bill

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants Congress to add defense funding and money for a new wall along the Mexican border in a near-term spending bill intended to keep the government open past April 28, but Capitol Hill Republicans signaled they will reject the idea to avoid a shutdown as well as the deep cuts that the new spending would require.

Trump’s request, outlined in conversations with White House officials and in a memo from budget director Mick Mulvaney, calls for $33 billion in new defense and border spending — and $18 billion in cuts to other priorities, such as medical research and jobs programs.

But it appeared that few on the Hill shared the White House’s appetite to flirt with a government shutdown over the border wall, which Democrats have pledged to oppose and which even some conservative Republicans object to.

Several senior Republicans said Tuesday that Trump’s wall request is not likely to be included in the stop-gap budget plan, which would merely authorize current spending levels to continue past April 28 — but instead will be considered during separate negotiations later this year to add new spending to the current budget.

“Congress will decide what they want and what they don’t want,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., one of a half-dozen Republicans engaged in spending negotiations to reject the request. “I don’t think we need a shutdown argument, period. I don’t know any rational person who wants a shutdown.”

Just days after the defeat of the American Health Care Act, the disagreement could set up yet another showdown between Hill Republicans and the White House as Trump attempts to take immediate action on some of his controversial pledges.

John Czwartacki, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said Tuesday that the defense funding cannot wait and the requested cuts were an attempt to maintain fiscal responsibility alongside Trump’s pledge to dramatically increase military resources.

The White House had already asked to jumpstart spending this year — including $30 billion for defense generally, in addition to $3 billion for border security, half of which would begin construction for the wall — but Mulvaney’s effort to force the issue in the near-term bill was new.

So were the detailed spending cuts intended to offset the defense spending.