Trump, Pelosi harden stance on border wall

Congress, White House are no closer to resolving dispute.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday predicted failure by the congressional committee tasked with resolving the U.S.-Mexico border wall standoff and preventing another government shutdown, saying any deal must fund his wall but he doesn’t expect lawmakers to get there.

The president’s bleak assessment came as Republican senators suggested he keep his distance from their negotiations. The comments made clear that a week after the nation’s longest-ever government shutdown came to an end, Congress and the White House are no closer to resolving the dispute that started it in the first place — even as another shutdown deadline looms two weeks from now.

“I don’t think they’re going to make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office a day after the bipartisan group of House and Senate negotiators met for the first time. “I see what’s happening. They’re all saying, ‘Oh, let’s do this, but we’re not giving one dime to the wall.’ That’s OK.

“But if they’re not going to give money for the wall, it’s not going to work,” Trump said. “And if it’s not going to work, then the politicians are really wasting a lot of time.”

Trump spoke shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., ruled out money for the wall in the committee’s final product, saying: “There’s not going to be any wall money in the legislation.”

But she said that “enhanced fencing” could have a role in a comprehensive border security solution, adding that “if the president wants to call that a wall, he can call it a wall.”

Members of the committee charged with producing a compromise insisted that such outside interference from party leaders on both sides could only inhibit them from reaching a deal, with several saying that left to their own devices they could do it in a day. But any agreement would require assent from Trump and Pelosi, leading some on the committee to question whether their efforts would ultimately be futile — and raising the question of what will happen on Feb. 15 when the current stopgap bill funding the government expires.

Trump again suggested he could end up circumventing Congress by declaring a national emergency that would allow the military to build the wall, although such a declaration is opposed by many GOP lawmakers and would be certain to get tied up in court.

“I believe if the speaker and the president and everybody, and the leaders of our parties in the Senate, would let us, the appropriators, do our jobs, we could do this,” said Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., warning that without such freedom to negotiate, the outcome may be no deal at all.

“I think we’re going to have to have a comprehensive approach, we’re going to have a wall and a fence, technology and everything,” Shelby said. “Or, maybe, nothing.”

The GOP message to Trump was a turnaround from two weeks ago, in the midst of the shutdown, when Republicans stood staunchly with the president.

Even lawmakers who are not part of the 17-member “conference committee” were watching warily as Pelosi and Trump seemed to harden their stances over the course of Thursday.

“You’ve got unyielding and unreliable, and that doesn’t make for a successful negotiation,” said Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del. “I admire Speaker Pelosi’s fierce determination to hold to her position, but I frankly think the work of the committee is to find an appropriate resolution.”