Drama, no results as Trump warns of a ‘long’ shutdown
IRS recalls 60% of workers to handle filings, pay refunds
WASHINGTON — Staring down the next deadline to pay federal workers, the White House shifted tactics Tuesday, trying to bypass House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to negotiate with rankand-file lawmakers as President Donald Trump dug in for a prolonged shutdown.
The House and Senate announced they would stay in session, canceling an upcoming recess week at home if the shutdown continued, which seemed likely.
On the shutdown’s 25th day, Trump did not move off his demand to have Congress provide $5.7 billion to build his promised border wall with Mexico.
Democrats say they will discuss border security once the government has reopened, but Pelosi is refusing money for the wall they view as ineffective and immoral.
The president, on a conference call with supporters ers, showed no signs of backing down.
“We’re going to stay out for a long time, if we have to,” Trump said. “We’ll be out for a long time.”
With some 800,000 federal employees furloughed or working without pay, Trump suggested the partial shutdown that has clogged airport security lines and shuttered federal agencies was going smoothly.
“People are very impressed with how well government is working with the circumstances that we’re under,” Trump said.
The Internal Revenue Service said it is recalling 46,000 of its employees furloughed by the government shutdown — nearly 60 percent of its workforce — to handle tax returns and pay refunds. But the employees won’t be paid.
With the official start of the tax filing season coming Jan. 28, the Trump administration has promised that taxpayers owed refunds will be paid on time, despite the disruption in government services.
Tuesday also brought another day of high theatrics, but low substance.
The president, who a week ago seemed intent on declaring a national emergency in order to build the wall, has turned his attention back to Congress as polling shows he is taking much of the blame for the standoff.
The White House invited rank-and-file lawmakers to lunch with Trump at the White House as part of a strategy to build support from centrist Democrats and newly elected freshmen, including those from areas where the president is popular with voters.
But the White House quickly learned the limits of that approach. None of the House Democrats took Trump up on the offer.
One, Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., “welcomes the opportunity to talk with the President about border security,” his spokesman said, “as soon as the government is reopened.”
The White House will try later this week, inviting a bipartisan group of lawmakers known as the Problem Solvers caucus to talks.
Trump urged his supporters to call Democratic lawmakers to press them to support the wall to reopen the government
A group of House Democrats made its way to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office demanding that he consider Housepassed bills to fund the government. McConnell was not in his office at the time, so the Democrats left a note.
McConnell says he doesn’t want to waste the Senate’s time and will only bring up measures that Trump will sign into law. Democrats, he said, have turned Trump’s wall into “something evil” and it’s time to get the country off the “political carousel” of the shutdown fight.
Republicans complain that Democrats are the ones who are refusing to budge, and they say it’s up to Pelosi to bring Trump a new offer.
“The president — who is not well-known for flexibility — has been more flexible than the other side,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of GOP leadership.
The effects of the 25-day partial government closure intensified around the country, with workers facing deepening anxieties about mortgage payments and unpaid bills.
Hopes of side deals being cut by the White House seemed unlikely, as did the prospect of groups of senators meeting privately to forge a compromise.
As the White House invited lawmakers to lunch Tuesday, Pelosi gave her blessing for lawmakers to attend. She told her team that the group can see what she and others have been dealing with in trying to negotiate with Trump.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon agreed to keep several thousand U.S. troops deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border until Sept. 30, expanding a controversial mission that began last fall and already was extended once.
The troops’s role will transition from “hardening” border crossings to “mobile surveillance and detection” and putting up more concertina wire between ports of entry, according to a Pentagon statement.