Backup plan on border wall?
President Donald Trump threatens action if Congress rejects his demand for $5 billion for a wall.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he is considering a backup plan if Congress rejects his demand for $5 billion in funding for his border wall.
Trump’s remarks, made Tuesday during an Oval Office interview with The Washington Post, are a sign that he could be softening his position on the issue ahead of a Dec. 7 deadline. Trump has previously declared that he is willing to force a partial government shutdown if lawmakers do not agree to the $5 billion figure.
Republicans control both the House and Senate until the new Congress convenes in January.
“We need Democrat votes to have a wall,” Trump said. “Now, if we don’t get it, will I get it done another way? I might get it done another way. There are other potential ways that I can do it. You saw what we did with the military, with the barbed wire and the fencing, and various other things.”
Trump has deployed roughly 5,800 troops to the U.S. border with Mexico, and more than 12 miles of razor wire have been set up in recent weeks, including at the San Ysidro crossing, where U.S. border agents on Sunday fired tear gas at Central American migrants attempting to cross into the country from Tijuana.
Images of mothers and children fleeing the tear gas have prompted outrage in recent days. But Trump said he thought he had the political upper hand, suggesting that footage of crowds of migrants rushing the border would sway public opinion against Democrats.
“We desperately need a wall,” Trump said. “I think that’s been shown better than ever in the last short period of two weeks. I see the Democrats are going to want to do something. Those pictures are very bad for the Democrats.”
While most of the federal government is funded through next fall, the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies will shut down at the end of next week if Congress and the president do not act.
Democrats and a number of Republicans have balked at the prospect of spending billions of taxpayer dollars on a border wall that Trump pledged during the 2016 campaign and in the early days of his presidency would be paid for by Mexico. He has since dropped that claim and said Congress should fund the barrier.
Earlier this year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., agreed to $25 billion for new border security measures in exchange for legal protections for immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But Schumer rescinded the offer amid pushback from Democrats who urged him to take a harder line in negotiations with the president. Trump said Tuesday that “we were very close to having a deal” and predicted that the fate of DACA, which his administration has unsuccessfully sought to end, would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
“The Democrats never thought they were going to win that, and then you had another couple judges rule, and then you had judges rule the other way,” Trump said, referring to a series of rulings by courts around the country. “It’s going to be settled I assume in the Supreme Court.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday that negotiations with Democrats as well as the administration on the issue of border wall funding were ongoing and that “we’re trying to get the president the money he would like for the wall.”
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, held to their support for a bipartisan $1.6 billion deal agreed to earlier this year.
“We believe that is the right way to go,” Schumer said. “If there’s any shutdown, it’s on President Trump’s back.” He declined to say whether Democrats would agree to $5 billion spread over two years.