Trump Willing to Shut Down Government Over Wall Funding, But Open to Plan B
Trump wants $5 billion to fund a wall.
Will border wall funding determine if the government shuts down next week?
President Donald Trump told Politico that “he would ‘totally be willing’ to shut down the government” if he doesn’t receive $5 billion in border wall funding, but The Washington Post reported that Trump said “[T]here are other potential ways” he can get it.
Congress has to “pass seven appropriations bills by next Friday, or risk a lapse of funding that would interrupt operations at the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, State Department and other federal agencies.”
Republicans still have control of the House and Senate until next month when the Democrats will take over the House. The Republicans will have two more seats in the Senate.
More than likely Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will become Speaker of the House again. In October, she said that she doesn’t see any Democrats voting for wall funding. She told Harvard students that she wouldn’t “be willing to trade” anything for wall funding and described it as a “manhood issue for the president.”
Trump sounded a little casual about wall funding on Tuesday with The Washington Post:
“We need Democrat votes to have a wall,” Trump said. “Now, if we don’t get it, will I get it done another way? I might get it done another way. There are other potential ways that I can do it. You saw what we did with the military, just coming in with the barbed wire and the fencing, and various other things.”
Trump has deployed roughly 5,800 troops to the U.S. border with Mexico, and more than 12 miles of barbed wire have been set up in recent weeks, including at the San Ysidro crossing, where U.S. border agents on Sunday fired tear gas at Central American migrants attempting to cross into the country from Tijuana.
Trump’s tone changed on Wednesday during an interview with Politico:
“I don’t do anything … just for political gain,” Trump said. “But I will tell you, politically speaking, that issue is a total winner. People look at the border, they look at the rush to the police, they look at the rock throwers and really hurting three people, three very brave border patrol folks — I think that it’s a tremendous issue, but much more importantly, is really needed. So we have to have border security.”
Trump was referring to a confrontation at the southern border on Sunday in which some migrants threw rocks at U.S. Border Patrol officers, although his claim that three were seriously hurt is unsubstantiated.
His insistence on $5 billion for the wall — “I am firm,” he said — does suggest a real risk of a partial government shutdown. Congress must pass seven appropriations bills by next Friday, or risk a lapse of funding that would interrupt operations at the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, State Department and other federal agencies. Democrats will take control over a slice of Washington in 37 days, the first time they’ve controlled any lever of power in Trump’s Washington.
Trump met with Republican House leaders on Tuesday, but we do not know how they will fund the wall. Sources within the GOP have optimism they’ll receive some support from Democrats “so they start 2019 with a fresh spending slate.”
Two Republican leaders spoke after the meeting:
“The real question is, do Democrats want to shut the government down over whether or not to keep America safe? That’s a serious question they’re going to have to ask at a time when there are people attacking our own law enforcement agents at the border,” said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who met with Trump on Tuesday afternoon along with other House Republican leaders.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who also attended the meeting with Trump, told reporters that the president was “very solid with where he wants to go” on the funding.
“It’s the way our government works that you have to find compromise,” McCarthy said. “And I think what the president’s saying [with] $5 billion, he’s finding compromise there. But we need that to secure the border.”
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Comments
A firm position on something necessary, but insufficient to secure civil rights. Obama did something similar with Obamacare in contravention to civil rights.
honesty…. shutting down the gov is all right with me. It sucks for .gov employees, and I do feel bad for them. But our gov is so big that I think Trump could shut down whole divisions of departments, and no one except the employees would notice.
Can we start with Medicare? Biggest paper waster of all!
Why does it suck for government employees? Since they always get paid in full afterwards it’s a free vacation for them.
Easy. It (censors) with schedules, cuts short business trips that have been planned for months, messes with continuing projects such as experiments that need ‘touched’ every X hours, etc… Although it’s theoretically free leave, you *have* to return to work within X hours after the budget is blessed or it gets counted as Annual Leave, which if you don’t have Annual, you wind up hosed at timesheet time. Heck, you can get gigged if you go see a movie and miss the ‘Everybody sprint to work’ notification that you’re supposed to pick up by telepathy if you turn your phone off.
It’s a royal PITA. At one time, they were so picky about it that they picked up government cell phones, just in case somebody made a billable call during the shutdown. Thankfully, they quit that.
I’ve been married to a GS-14 for 17 years now.
Government shutdowns are an inconvenience. Nothing more.
“It’s the way our government works that you have to find compromise,” McCarthy said.
We could strike a blow for honesty and accuracy by abandoning the simplistic fantasy that the government works.
Every time idiots like Pelosi try to say the wall is unjustified, point them to the new study that shows a gross underestimation of illegal aliens, many of which are not in fact overstayed visas.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0201193
Every “refutation” I’ve read of this study makes a hollow argument that it’s not factual because the census takers can’t miss that many people.
Major flaws to this argument:
1. Appeal to authority. “All hail the mighty census”
2. Conjectural attempts to discredit research with opinion (that the census can’t possibly be that wrong)
3. Unfounded assumptions about compliance and efficacy. Newsflash: illegal aliens don’t comply with census policies or most government agencies out of fear of deportation.
4. Straw man. “It’s not factual” Of course it’s not, and it was never claimed to be. It’s a research study…research is not facts. Data are not facts. Anyone who knows analytics, statistics, and scientific inquiry knows this.
healthguyfsu,
This ain’t about reason. This is about power. The left wants it, and wants it absolutely.
If anyone doesn’t get that, they don’t get the left. Or Crazy Pelosi.
Do you think 5 Billion is just his opening position, and he has another number to negotiate down to in mind?
Chuck Schemer was floating a number of $1.8B today, so I have to assume the “real” number is somewhere between the two.
Mexico….bribe them.
Let’s say….a billion to Mex gubmint for 2019……to be paid early 2020.
The string attached….to get the money, Mexico must stop illegals passing into America….hitch….for every illegal apprehended…..we subtract ex # of dollars from the 2020 “pay off.”
addition to that – do the same to Honduras, El Salvador, etc. For every one of your citizens we find illegally in our country, we will deduct that from our annual aid to your government.
Use the Executive Branch powers under the Patriot Act to bar ALL transfers of funds from the US to Mexico if they do not secure their side of the border to OUR satisfaction. That would remove the incentive for many of the illegal invaders of our country. If after the end of fund transfers, they still are invading, close the border to all traffic, including commercial traffic. By the way, GM, that would include those cars whose production you moved to Mexico.
As far as the Central American invaders are concerned, those sanctions could be applied to them.
Subotai Bahadur
I support Trump very early on, because he did an event with the families of those killed by illegal aliens very early on. Those families are hurting and we get more of them every day.
But this CRAP, where we have to BEG for a lousy $5 billion, or $1.6 billion, instead of having $25 billion appropriated immediately, makes me ANGRY. How DARE Pelosi mock it, denigrate it. How DARE she?
That witch has all the trappings of wealth and power, and she has ZERO interest in the lives of normal Americans. HOW DARE SHE rub our noses in that?!?!
And Trump, he needs to push for all he’s worth. He’s done so much just with force of will. But if there’s anything we need, it is the Wall. And changes to immigration. WHATEVER it takes, including a Jacksonian thumbing your nose at the 9th circuit so-called “judges.”
Damn it. We either act to defend America, or just admit, the jig is up, we couldn’t keep her, and she’s Dead Woman Walking.
Pelosi should drive a bus in my county, where so many of the kids are illegal aliens or anchor babies, that it’s obvious in two decades, it will be basically latin, here — with their atrociously corrupt violent culture.
I’m in metro Atlanta.
Excuse me, I forgot: for Pelosi, America being overrun by uneducated foreigners is a feature, not a bug.
Regardless, Trump needs to decide if he wants to rock along, like all other politicians, trying to wait until after the NEXT election to save America, which means just watching her burn.
I didn’t vote for America to burn. I voted for a warrior to GET IT DONE.
Dear President Trump:
What’s it going to be? Are you going to take the heat and get it done, or have you decided you made a mistake walking into the kitchen?
Ted Cruz was willing to take the heat on the slowdown over ObamaCare. Is Ted Cruz the man we should have chosen?
“Ted Cruz was willing to take the heat on the slowdown over ObamaCare. Is Ted Cruz the man we should have chosen?”
No, not at all. But thank you very much for disclosing your conflict of interest. Moving on now …
Cruz is great, and in many ways more qualified to be president, but I don’t believe anyone other than Trump could have survived the ongoing attack from the news industry, the Democrats, and the entrenched government bureaucracy, that any non-Democrat who was elected would have been subjected to. Trump isn’t necessarily the best man for the job, but in the present circumstances, he’s the only man for the job.
It isn’t a matter of “taking the heat and getting it done”. It’s a matter of finding the money to do it, which Congress refused to supply years ago when they authorized building a wall — and which they never intend to supply because they don’t want to interfere with illegal immigration. I doubt they will give him anything whether the government is shut down, or not — this is a hill the Democrats are willing to die on, because it involves procuring them a continuing supply of voters (and the Republican leadership and their donors don’t want it either). There will be no wall unless Trump can find a way to divert money from something that has already funded by Congress — and not then, unless a way can be found to do it without incurring charges that money appropriated for other purposes has been mishandled and spent in unauthorized ways (they would impeach him for that).
Do it. Worst thing that could happen to the GOPe and the Dems would be for people to realize that they don’t need the government. Shut it down for 6 months and no one will ever want it back.
doh – finger slip. Totally meant to thumb up, and slipped to a down. Apologies.
My new mantra for Trump is “Put up or shut up”! We were going to get the FISA warrants declassified before the midterms and then silence. Now we are hearing he will declassify things that will hurt the Dems if they try to subpoena him or his admin. His first year went pretty much like we all had hoped it would but now he seems to be getting into the BS mode more often. Make your threat and stand your ground, shut it down! We will support you.
Unfortunately the government has wormed its way into so many things that a shutdown can, in some unfortunate cases, be seriously annoying. I know of an American who lives in England. His US passport expired while he was visiting the US. He was planning to renew it during his visit; all very sensible and reasonable. However, as it happened, his visit coincided with one of the shutdowns, and nobody was issuing passports. No passport, no travel. So he was stuck here while waiting for the government to get back to work. Now of course that’s better than being stranded in, say, Zimbabwe, but it’s still stupid and expensive.
So what will they shut down this time? USDA inspections of beef? The FAA? Air Traffic Control? The CDC, maybe—so how will we keep track of the diseases illegals are bringing into the country in the name of diversity? Recall how Obama made the last “shutdown” as high-profile and annoying as he could; I don’t expect Trump to be so petulant, but it might be hard to shut down only things which are of no consequence to anybody.
By law, “essentials” continue to operate. Social security checks go out, law enforcement continues, etc.
If saving the damn country from literally tens of millions of illegal foreigners – and tens of millions of chain migration legal foreigners – isn’t worth a shut down, then America isn’t worth much at all. She’s a dried up, dusty nothing.
If she’s already dead, you’re right – no point in a brief, limited shut down to save her. She’s not worth it.
The highest standard of living man has ever known, isn’t worth any effort or inconvenience. Got it.
So, EXACTLY, what do you say to the families of dead soldiers, and to soldiers who are permanently maimed by war? Just curious.