Lawmakers lean toward border bill

Trump not ‘thrilled’ but wants to avoid shutdown

WASHINGTON – The House will vote Thursday on a border security bill to avoid a government shutdown amid signs that President Donald Trump will sign the legislation while seeking other sources of money for his promised border wall.

A majority of Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate indicated support for the legislation, although many emphasized that they would wait to see the text of the bill before making a final decision.

Some hard-line conservatives and liberals continued to hold out against the measure, though some conservatives who said they plan to vote no signaled they would give Trump leeway to sign the bill.

Leaders of both parties urged their colleagues to back the bill, which would provide $1.375 billion for a border barrier, much less than the $5.7 billion Trump demanded for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. The wall was one of his signature pledges during his presidential campaign.

“It goes without saying that neither side is getting everything it wants – that’s the way it goes in divided government,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “It won’t be a perfect deal – but it will be a good deal.”

In the House of Representatives, the “overwhelming majority” of Democrats will support the legislation, said Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

At the White House, Trump said he wants to see the final bill before deciding whether to sign it.

“We’ll be looking for land mines” in the bill’s text, he said.

Hours earlier, Trump said he was not “thrilled” with the proposal. But as the deadline approached to fund the government by midnight Friday, Trump made it clear he does not want a repeat of the record 35-day shutdown that was triggered late last year over the impasse on border wall funding.

“A shutdown would be a terrible thing,” he said.

Trump suggested again that he would look elsewhere for additional border wall funding.

“We have options that most people don’t understand,” he said.

The border security deal, announced late Monday by a bipartisan group of negotiators, would restrict how the $1.375 billion could be spent, limiting construction chiefly to “bollard”-style barriers.

Trump suggested he could get the rest of the money for a wall by declaring a national emergency – allowing him, in theory, to use defense money for wall construction but also inviting legal challenges on whether the president has the legal authority to declare an emergency in this case.

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney suggested another option: moving money from other accounts to pay for walls, fences or other kinds of barriers.

Democrats vowed to sue or otherwise prevent Trump from any effort to use other government money for his border wall.

Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., proposed a bill designed to block Trump from using disaster recovery funds to build the barrier.

“Taking recovery funds from disaster victims as ransom for a border wall would be a new low, even for this president,” Garamendi said.

Trump came under fire from some conservatives for even considering the new deal.

“Trump talks a good game on the border wall, but it’s increasingly clear he’s afraid to fight for it,” commentator Ann Coulter tweeted about the latest proposal. “Call this his ‘Yellow New Deal.’ ”

In a positive sign for the proposal’s prospects, one of Trump’s conservative allies signaled that the president’s base would support him if he signed the deal, as long as it was part of a broader approach to border security.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., blasted the bipartisan proposal on Twitter as “hardly a serious attempt to secure our border” and said he plans to vote against it.

But he said that if the deal’s framework is supported by legislation, “then there is a strong case to be made that the few incremental advances in this bill are better than a continuing resolution to keep the government open.”

“No one will criticize the president for signing it as long as it is part of a multistep approach to make our communities safer,” Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told USA TODAY in a text message.

Lawmakers must pass the legislation by midnight Friday, when funding will lapse, or risk another government shutdown.