The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President, Democrats spar on wall, shutdown
In televised clash, Trump says funding must be approved.
WASHINGTON — Bickering in public with Democratic leaders, President Donald Trump threatened repeatedly on Tuesday to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t provide the money he says is needed to build a wall at the Mexican border.
Trump’s comments came as he opened a meeting with Democratic Senate and House leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, with a partial shutdown looming on Dec. 21 when funding for some agencies will expire. The president and Pelosi tangled over whether the House or the Senate was holding up his proposal. Trump and Schumer discussed the midterm elections — and who will be blamed if a shutdown occurs.
“If we don’t get what we want, one way or the other, whether it’s through you, through military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the govern- ment,” Trump said. “I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down.”
The televised discussion was Trump’s first encounter with the newly empowered Democrats since their midterm victories in the House. It offered a remarkable pub- lic preview of how divided government be over the next two years as the 2020 presidential election approaches.
After the public session, barely a half-hour passed before the Democrats exited their private meeting with the president, issuing stern warnings.
“This Trump shutdown, this temper tantrum that he seems to throw, will not get him his wall and will hurt a lot of people,” Schumer said.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan acknowledged Tuesday that the GOP-led House has yet to pass legislation that includes the $5 billion in border wall funds that Trump has been requesting. Ryan likely lacks sufficient votes from Republicans who will lose their major- ity at the end of the month.
Trump is seeking far more for his long-stalled wall than the $1.6 billion the Senate has agreed to for border secu- rity, including physical bar- riers and technology along the U.S. southern border.
The Oval Office meeting between Trump, Vice Pres- ident Mike Pence and the Democrats began civilly, with Trump noting prog- ress for bipartisan criminal justice legislation in the Sen- ate. But the session quickly unraveled as he mentioned his promised wall.
When Pelosi said Trump did not have sufficient supp ort for the wall in t he House, Trump interjected: “Nancy, I do.”
Pelosi later said: “This has spiraled downwards.”
After Pelosi and Schumer noted Democratic success in the midterm elections, the president asked whether Republicans had won the Senate in the November election. “When the president brags he has won North Dakota and Indiana, he’s in real trouble,” retorted Schumer with a smile.
Pence, a former House m em b er, sat silently as Trump and the Democrats bickered. Pence later called the meeting a “good discussion.” Asked to describe the atmosphere in the private meeting that followed, Pence called it “candid.”
Pelosi and Schumer have urged Trump to support a measure that includes a halfdozen government funding bills largely agreed upon by lawmakers, along with a separate measure that funds the Department of Homeland Security at current levels through Sept. 30. The homeland bill includes about $1.3 billion for fencing and other security measures at the border.
If Trump rejects that, Democrats are urging a continuing resolution for funding through Sept. 30.