Shutdown deadline looms as talks stall

WASHINGTON — As negotiations over a border security hit a snag, the White House on Sunday would not rule out another federal government shutdown even as it signaled a willingness to obtain funding for President Trump’s proposed wall by other means.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in appearances on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and “Fox News Sunday,” said “you absolutely cannot” eliminate the possibility of another shutdown on Friday if a deal is not reached over the wall. The White House had asked for $5.7 billion, a figure rejected by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and the mood among bargainers has soured, according to people familiar with the negotiations not authorized to speak publicly about private talks.

“You cannot take a shutdown off the table, and you cannot take $5.7 off the table,” Mulvaney told NBC, “but if you end up someplace in the middle, yeah, then what you probably see is the president say, ‘Yeah, OK, and I’ll go find the money someplace else.’”

A congressional deal seemed to stall even after Mulvaney convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at Camp David on Friday. While the two sides seemed close to clinching a deal late last week, significant gaps remained and momentum appears to have slowed.

The White House and many Republicans want to push the amount that would be spent for building physical barriers to $2 billion or higher. Democrats have said they will keep that figure below $2 billion, with some saying they support perhaps half that. In addition, Democrats are pushing to reduce the number of apprehended migrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency. Republicans are resisting.

“I think talks are stalled right now,” Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Sunday on Fox. “I’m not confident we’re going to get there.”

Mulvaney insisted that Trump “is going to build the wall.”

“We’ll take as much money as you can give us, and we’ll go find the money somewhere else, legally, and build that wall on the southern border, with or without Congress,” he said.

The president’s supporters have suggested there are executive powers that he could use to divert money from the federal budget for wall construction, though it was unclear if they would face challenges in Congress or the courts.

Declaring a national emergency also remained an option, Mulvaney said, even though many in the administration have cooled on the prospect.