Mcconnell: Let’s get border deal
Senate GOP chief eschews need for Trump’s prior OK
WASHINGTON — The Senate’s top Republican on Tuesday pushed congressional bargainers to reach a border security deal without first getting President Donald Trump’s approval.
Capitol Hill talks to resolve an impasse over Trump’s demands for billions of dollars for his long-sought border wall were making progress, participants said. But with lawmakers facing a deadline to complete their work by Feb. 15 or confront a renewed shutdown, Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., said he’s not seeking Trump’s blessing in advance.
Mcconnell told reporters that negotiators “ought to reach an agreement, and then we’ll hope that the president finds it worth signing.”
Trump is seeking $5.7 billion for a U.s.-mexico border wall, but it’s clear that the House-senate negotiations won’t approve nearly that much. The Senate put a $1.6 billion plan on the table last year, though many House liberals think even that amount is too high.
The developments came in the hours before Trump’s annual State of the Union address.
At the same time, negotiators on the House-senate panel sounded increasingly optimistic of reaching an agreement. The lead Senate GOP negotiator, Richard Shelby of Alabama, said that he had a good conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and that staffers are making progress in behind-the-scenes talks.
“Both sides have moved,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-MO., said. “And hopefully we’re going to continue to see movement.”
Negotiators are leaning on border-security experts to sort through their options. While Trump is insisting on physical structures like walls, fences and vehicular barriers, Democrats are focused more on next-generation scanners, additional manpower and help for detained migrants.
“We’re looking to see if there’s a way to get together in a comprehensive way, whether it’s a barrier, whether it’s a fence, whether it’s technology, whether it’s more personnel. I think it might be all of that,” Shelby told reporters.
A group of House GOP lawmakers returned from a fact-finding trip to Texas, New Mexico and San Diego. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-tenn., said that he came away from the trip with a better sense of what approaches work best in varied locations but that fences or walls are a key piece of the border security puzzle.
“The wall deters people, and it buys the agents time,” Fleischmann said.
Texas Rep. Kay Granger, top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, was also on the trip and said it “absolutely” strengthened her conviction that physical barriers must be part of any agreement.
She said she thinks a bipartisan agreement is “doable” and added, “I don’t want another shutdown.”