Trump Say Will Shutdown Government Again
Trump Suggests Government Shutdown Could Last for 'Months or Fifty-fifty Years'
WASHINGTON — President Trump threatened on Friday to keep the federal authorities partly closed for "months or even years" if he did not go $five.half-dozen billion for his wall at the southern border, and he warned that he was considering declaring a national emergency to build it without congressional blessing.
Mr. Trump and Autonomous leaders emerged from a two-hour coming together in the White Business firm State of affairs Room without a deal to reopen government agencies that have already been shuttered for two weeks, and the ii sides offered sharply contrasting views of where they stood. By day's end, the 2 sides appeared to be still locked in a stalemate.
Democrats called the meeting "contentious" while the president and Republican leaders in the Business firm called it "productive." And while Mr. Trump announced that he had assigned Vice President Mike Pence to lead a "working grouping" to negotiate with Democrats over the weekend, Democrats said the phrase "working group" was never discussed.
"We told the president we needed the authorities open," Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, told reporters outside the White House. "He resisted. In fact, he said he'd keep the government closed for a very long period of time, months or even years."
Appearing in the Rose Garden later, Mr. Trump confirmed the remark. "I did say that. Admittedly I said that," he said, flanked by Mr. Pence; Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary; and House Republican leaders. "I don't think it will, simply I am prepared."
The impasse, heading into its 3rd calendar week, has closed parts of nine federal agencies, including the Interior Department and the Internal Revenue Service, and left 800,000 federal employees either furloughed or working without pay. Mr. Trump expressed trivial concern for their plight, telling reporters on Friday afternoon that when he hosted members of the Border Patrol union — his political allies — on Th at the White House, they told him not to worry near them, and that he was doing "a great thing for our country."
Friday's effort to spring-start talks was an early test of the new political dynamic in Washington, where Democrats have just taken control of the House for the first time in 8 years. Mr. Trump, trying to seize command of the narrative, followed the session with his rambling Rose Garden appearance. In that location, he said he told Democrats he wants $five.6 billion for the wall — a figure that is a nonstarter for Democrats, who insist he volition become no funding for the bulwark at all.
E'er the real estate developer, Mr. Trump offered his vision for what the wall would look like, proverb information technology would be either solid concrete or solid steel, though "steel is actually more expensive," he said.
The president then boasted that its structure would be a boon for American industry: "All of the border things that we'll exist building will be washed correct here in the good quondam United states of americaA. by steel companies that were practically out of business when I came into office."
As to invoking his emergency powers to build information technology, "I may do information technology," Mr. Trump said. "Just we tin can call a national emergency and build it very rapidly. And information technology's some other fashion of doing it. Simply if nosotros can do information technology through a negotiated process, we're giving that a shot."
But if Mr. Trump is showing no signs of backing down, the pressure may exist edifice on Republicans in Congress. 2 Republican senators have said they want votes to reopen the authorities, and more than a half-dozen House Republicans joined Democrats on Thursday dark to do merely that.
The president was asked if he was still "proud to own" the shutdown — a reference to a comment he fabricated concluding month during a televised Oval Office meeting, when he said he would be proud to shut downward the government over border security.
"I'chiliad very proud of doing what I'm doing," he replied. "I don't call information technology a shutdown. I call it 'doing what you have to do for the benefit and for the safety of our country.'"
The White House later said it has scheduled a meeting for Sabbatum forenoon with aides to House and Senate leaders; it was unclear whether Mr. Pence and the others would be involved.
Behind the scenes, there were some indications that a search for a way out of the impasse was underway. Some conservative commentators, including Sean Hannity of Fox News, who is close to Mr. Trump, may have signaled a path out, suggesting that the president resurrect the former Democratic notion of twinning wall funding with protections for the young immigrants brought illegally to the country equally children who are known equally Dreamers.
Such immigrants are currently protected past Deferred Activeness for Childhood Inflow, or DACA, a programme created past President Barack Obama that Mr. Trump has moved to rescind. On his way to the White House meeting, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, seemed open to such a bargain.
"We tin can notice common ground," Mr. McCarthy told reporters. "DACA is a problem, edge security is a problem and anything that can make certain that we tin get everything together and move forward, I'm willing to hash out."
Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, has also suggested that Democrats could give Mr. Trump an additional $i billion to fortify ports of entry rather than a border wall.
But while Mr. Trump said DACA was raised during the White House session, one Democratic aide, speaking on the status of anonymity to discuss the individual talks, said information technology came upwards only fleetingly. And in the news conference, Mr. Trump made clear that he did not want to address the DACA result — which is now the subject field of several lawsuits that are working their style through the federal courts — until the Supreme Court renders a final decision on whether Mr. Trump's gild to rescind the plan tin stand.
Mr. Trump also raised the issue of ports of entry for immigrants, only again, he eventually stuck to his demand that any strengthening of controls at such ports needed to be complemented with a wall.
The president said he invited Democrats to send negotiators to meet over the weekend with three loftier-ranking officials — Mr. Pence, Ms. Nielsen and Jared Kushner, his son-in-constabulary and senior adviser — to negotiate a bargain to strengthen security along the border. Democrats told reporters after the meeting that they implored the president to first reopen the government then they could negotiate without holding federal operations and employees hostage.
No affair what happens, the government will remain partly shuttered at to the lowest degree through Tuesday because both houses of Congress are adjourned until and so.
On Friday, the president likewise sent a letter to Congress that was an unsubtle brushoff to Autonomous leaders with whom he had previously met on Wednesday. According to a person in that earlier meeting, Representative Nancy Pelosi, who was then on the verge of becoming House speaker, cut off Ms. Nielsen as she reeled off statistics about the edge. In his letter, Mr. Trump said that "some of those nowadays did not desire to hear the presentation at the time, and so I have instead decided to make the presentation available to all members of Congress."
On Thursday, under Ms. Pelosi's leadership, the House passed a 2-nib package to reopen the government. The first measure combines vi bills that have already garnered bipartisan support in the Republican-led Senate; they would reopen nearly all of the shuttered agencies and fund them through Sept. 30, the terminate of the financial year.
The second is a stopgap spending measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8 — a date that Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, proposed toward the end of last year in a measure that passed the Senate past voice vote, only which the president rejected. In their final meeting, Mr. Trump rejected reopening the government while wall talks connected, telling the group, "I would await foolish if I did that."
For his part, Mr. McConnell has refused to take up the Firm parcel, insisting that he will non bring anything to the floor that Mr. Trump will not sign. Democrats argued in the meeting that Mr. McConnell should at least pass the cluster of appropriations bills while standing to negotiate over border security. Simply Mr. Trump over again rejected that thought on Fri.
Mr. McConnell has largely absented himself from the talks, insisting that information technology is upwards to Democrats to resolve the impasse, and one person familiar with Fri's meeting said that Mr. McConnell said very little. But he is showtime to face pressure from Republicans who are seeking re-election in 2020 and are targeted by Democrats.
Two senators from Autonomous-leaning states, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine, take already expressed misgivings over their leaders' intransigence. Mr. Gardner called on his party to end the shutdown, even if information technology meant not funding the wall, and Ms. Collins — who took a leading role in ending a previous shutdown — said she would support measures to fund the authorities in already approved appropriations bills.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/us/politics/democrats-trump-meeting-government-shutdown.html
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