Trump rejects temporary shutdown solution
Graham proposed short-term reopening
WASHINGTON — With the government in week four of the shutdown, President Donald Trump rejected a short-term legislative fix and dug in Monday, declaring he would “never ever back down.”
Mr. Trump rejected a suggestion to reopen the government for several weeks while negotiations would continue with Democrats over his demands for $5.7 billion for an impregnable wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The president also edged further away from the idea of trying to declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress.
“I’m not looking to call a national emergency,” Mr. Trump said. “This is so simple we shouldn’t have to.”
No cracks were apparent in the president’s deadlock with lawmakers after a weekend with no negotiations at all. His rejection of the short-term option proposed by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina removed one path forward, and little else was in sight. Congressional Republicans were watching Mr. Trump for a signal for how to move next, and Democrats have not budged from their refusal to fund the wall and their demand that he reopen government before border talks resume.
The White House has been considering reaching out to rank-and-file Democrats rather than dealing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to try
and chip away at Democratic opposition to the wall. A White House official said plans were in the works to call freshman representatives, especially those who initially did not support Ms. Pelosi’s bid for the speakership.
It was uncertain whether any Democrats would respond to the invitation.
Separately, about a dozen senators from both parties met Monday to discuss ways out of the shutdown gridlock. Participants included Mr. Graham and Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Tim Kaine, D-Va.
Sen. John Cornyn, RTexas, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy., was aware of the group’s effort but added, “I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s blessed it.” The odds of the group producing a solution without Mr. Trump’s approval seemed slim. In the past, centrists of both parties banding together have seldom resolved major partisan disputes.
The impact of the 24-day partial government closure was intensifying around the country. Some 800,000 federal workers missed paychecks Friday, deepening anxieties about unpaid bills, and about half of them were off the job, cutting off some services. Travelers at the Atlanta airport, the nation’s busiest, dealt with waits of more than an hour Monday as no-shows by security screeners soared.
Mr. Trump spent the weekend in the White House reaching out to aides and lawmakers and tweeting aggressively about Democratic foes as he tried to make the case that the wall was needed on both security and humanitarian grounds. He stressed that argument repeatedly during a speech Monday at a farming convention in New Orleans, insisting there was “no substitute” for a wall or a barrier along the southern border.
Mr. Trump has continued to insist he has the power to sign an emergency declaration to deal with what he says is a crisis of drug smuggling and trafficking of women and children at the border. But he now appears to be in no rush to make such a declaration.
Instead, he is focused on pushing Democrats to return to the negotiating table — though he walked out of the most recent talks last week — and seized on the fact that a group of House and Senate Democrats were on a retreat in Puerto Rico. Democrats, he argued, were partying on a beach rather than negotiating — though Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer were not on the trip.
White House officials cautioned that an emergency order remains on the table. Many inside and outside the White House hold that it may be the best option to end the budget standoff, reopening the government while allowing Mr. Trump to tell his base supporters he didn’t cave on the wall.
However, some GOP lawmakers and White House aides have counseled against it, concerned that an emergency declaration would immediately be challenged in court. Others have raised concerns about rerouting money from other projects, including money Congress approved for disaster aid. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also warned that acting under an emergency order would set a troubling precedent for executive power.
In the House, Democrats look to keep the pressure on Mr. Trump by holding votes this week on two bills: one that would reopen the government until Feb. 1, and a second that would reopen it until Feb. 28.
Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the bills offer “additional options” to end the shutdown and would give lawmakers time for negotiations on border security and immigration.