Trump says he doesn’t want a government shutdown
Lawmakers still talking to resolve lingering issues
WASHINGTON — As congressional leaders urged their colleagues to support a bipartisan border deal, President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he did not want to see the government shut down at midnight Friday, indicating he was leaning toward signing the compromise legislation.
“I don’t want to see a shutdown. A shutdown would be a terrible thing,” Trump said, later hinting he had “options that most people don’t understand” to build his border wall without congressional approval.
The remarks, made to reporters in the Oval Office as Trump met with the president of Colombia, inched him toward embracing a bipartisan border deal that fell far short of his demands for wall funding. But without a shutdown as leverage, he appeared to have little choice but to sign it if it clears Congress.
Under a deadline
On Capitol Hill, negotiators rushed to turn the border compromise into voluminous legislation in time for a House vote Thursday night and a Senate vote Friday, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, encouraged their troops to support it. Both leaders acknowledged the legislation would not satisfy every member: The agreement deprives Trump and his Republican base of a victory on the wall, but it gives more money for border fencing and immigration detention than the left wing of the Democratic Party wanted.
But with the impact of the last government shutdown — the longest in the nation’s history — fresh, few were in the mood to risk another funding lapse.
“As with all compromises, I say to people, support the bill for what is in it,” Pelosi told reporters Wednesday. “Don’t judge it for what is not in it. We have other days to pass other legislation.” Speaking on the Senate floor, McConnell said the outcome reflected “the way it goes in divided government” and warned against letting “unrelated cynical partisan plays get in the way of finishing this important process.”
The compromise measure, assembled by senior members of both parties Monday night, includes $1.375 billion for new fencing along the border with Mexico, far short of the $5.7 billion Trump sought for a steel or concrete wall — and less than was included in the deal he rejected in December, which prompted the shutdown.
As of Wednesday afternoon, lawmakers and aides were working to resolve lingering issues in the spending package, which includes funding for the Department of Homeland Security and six unfinished spending bills.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, DTexas, one of the 17 House and Senate lawmakers negotiating a compromise, said there were late discussions about where new fencing could be built in the Rio Grande Valley to address local and environmental concerns. White House officials pushed back against efforts to empower local governments to block the installation of new fencing.
They were also objecting to a provision that would provide back pay to federal contractors deprived of payments during the last shutdown. And there is debate over whether to include an extension of the Violence Against Women Act, which expires Friday.
Trump said the White House had yet to see the legislative text of the deal, and when aides do, “We’ll be looking for land mines.”
Because the text had yet to be finalized, multiple lawmakers declined to offer definitive answers about their support of the bill. But most Democrats indicated they would support the legislation, even before the text was finished, in part because it would stave off another government shutdown and includes Democratic priorities in the other six bills.
Other liberal lawmakers expressed concerns about the funding levels for the number of beds for detained immigrants and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which some had campaigned to abolish. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., one of the more prominent advocates for abolishing ICE, said she was leaning against it. Others were noncommittal.
Escobar wants details
“I’m trying to maintain an open mind, but I need details,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, whose district includes most of El Paso.
“The barriers are going to be an issue,” she added, noting she would prefer no funding for the Department of Homeland Security until it is audited. “I want to know where and what they look like.”
For some Democrats, the biggest issue is detention slots under the control of the Trump administration. The agreement authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to fund about 40,000 beds for detainees, many of them in centers run by for-profit companies and ICE near the border in Texas, Arizona and California.
House Democratic aides described the language as a “glide path” from the current level of 49,000 detention beds back to Obamaera levels of 35,000 or fewer.
But a summary of the provisions drafted by Senate Republican staff members placed the average number of beds funded under the deal at a much higher number — 45,274, including 2,500 for families. And that could rise to as many as 58,500 beds, Republican aides asserted in internal communications, because federal Cabinet departments have latitude in how they use funds.