Trump digs in, darkening hope for deal to end shutdown.
WASHINGTON — The television is on. The phone is never far away. And President Donald Trump is repeatedly calling allies such as members of Congress and conservative radio hosts, telling them privately that he will not give in on his demand for funding for a border wall.
What the president who campaigned on his ability to cut deals has not done, nine days into a partial government shutdown over his signature campaign issue, is reach out to Democratic congressional leaders to strike one.
Virtually alone in the West Wing since the shutdown began, Trump has instead taken to Twitter to excoriate Democrats, and highlight that he canceled his own vacation to his private club in Florida while lawmakers left the city. He has lamented the negativity of the news media coverage, which has included repeated airings of Trump’s declaration in the Oval Office that he would not blame Democrats for a shutdown, according to people familiar with his thinking.
Even as some lawmakers floated compromises Sunday, Democrats prepared to pass a bill to fund the government as soon as they take control of the House on Thursday. Like the Democrats, Trump appears to have dug in. And the uncertainty over what he might sign threatens to indefinitely drag out a shutdown that has affected 800,000 federal workers and shuttered parts of nine Cabinet-level departments.
Risk on both sides
After Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., met with Trump over lunch Sunday, he said the president would not accept any deal without funding for the wall. But he remained optimistic that a compromise could be reached and encouraged both sides to come together.
“At the end of the day, there’s a deal to be had,” he said Sunday. “We need to start talking again.”
Still, Graham said after the meeting that the president had not signed on to his potential compromise, which would provide wall funding in return for work permits for the young unauthorized immigrants known as Dreamers. Democrats also have no interest in such a plan right now.
The president’s counselor, Kellyanne Conway, and personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, faulted the presumptive incoming House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, for leaving for Hawaii while the government was partly shuttered. They blamed Democrats for not reaching out to forge a compromise.
“Those who have completely walked away from the table are doing no justice to the people of this country,” Conway said on “State of the Union” on Sunday morning.
People close to Trump consider his statement about owning a shutdown regrettable. But White House officials and others close to the president also believe that a shutdown is unlikely to help Pelosi as she takes over as part of the new House majority, and that Democratic officials risk looking unreasonable.
Pelosi allies say that they think the shutdown will help her look like the adult in the room, because she is going to quickly move to end it, demonstrating that Democrats are serious about governing.
Conway did not rule out a presidential veto of the bill the House Democrats plan to advance.
“It depends what’s in it,” she said.
Sen. Richard Shelby, RAla., who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said the Senate would not take up the House bill unless Trump backed it. Sounding frustrated, Shelby used an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” to appeal to the president and Democrats to quit pointing fingers at one another.
“Whether it’s the president tweeting and blaming somebody or blaming the Democrats or whether it’s the Democrats blaming the president, it’s brought us to the impasse that we are today,” he said.
“Nobody’s going to win this kind of game,” Shelby said. “Nobody wins in a shutdown. We all lose and we kind of look silly.”
Negotiations stalled
Before leaving for the Christmas break, House Republicans pushed through a bill that included $5.7 billion for wall funding and border security, knowing such a measure would be dead on arrival in the Senate, where Republicans need Democratic votes to pass spending legislation.
Vice President Mike Pence and Mulvaney subsequently met with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the minority leader, and offered a compromise: $2.5 billion for border security, including new fencing. Schumer countered with three different Democratic proposals, each of which would include $1.3 billion for fencing and border security.
Now, negotiations are at a standstill, with each side insisting the ball is in the other’s court.