Government funded to December without funds for Trump’s wall

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful wall” along the nearly 2,000-mile southern border — the defining promise of his campaign and now his presidency — took a quiet yet potentially fatal hit Friday when he signed a government funding bill with a small fraction of the $25 billion he has asked for.

The bill keeps the government operating through Dec. 7, avoiding a politically damaging shutdown that Republican lawmakers had feared just weeks before the November congressional elections. Because Trump had repeatedly threatened to shutter the government if he didn’t get his wall money, only his signature finally put Republican leaders’ fears to rest.

Yet for a second year, he has received but a small installment from a Republican-controlled Congress. And if Democrats win control of the House in November, as they are favored to do, Trump would see his leverage decline substantially.

Whatever the outcome, even administration officials say it will be difficult to force Congress’ hand on the issue in December during a so-called lame-duck session, a post-election period usually reserved only for essential lawmaking.

“The wall is dead. Not gonna happen. Not on the table,” said Frank Sharry, the executive director of America’s Voice, a group that advocates for immigration.

“Here’s the dirty little secret,” he added. “There’s no funding for the border wall because there’s not enough support among Republicans, much less Democrats.”

Allies say Trump was in an unwinnable situation in recent weeks as he wavered over whether to make a final stand. Mexico was never going to pay for it, as candidate Trump promised. Yet neither most voters nor, by extension, many members of Congress support paying for a wall. Even more, both oppose closing the government.

“The president is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t,” said Michael Caputo, a former campaign adviser, speaking just before Trump signed the spending bill. “If he shuts down the government, as he probably should, the Republicans will lose the House and he will not get his wall.”

Although Trump seems likely to lose his chance to build the monument-style edifice stretching up to 2,000 miles that he’s conjured by his rally rhetoric, he can point to limited successes.