[A]s the House prepared to vote on a short-term spending bill, co-authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to avert government shutdown, President Donald Trump announced he would not sign a measure that didn’t include $5 billion for his border wall.
“He has thrown a curveball to the Republican Congress. People thought there had been an agreement worked out,” Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said. “The Republicans are in disarray. They won’t vote for something to keep the lights on in government if the president isn’t going to sign it.”
The government shutdown, which will take effect at midnight Friday if a deal is not reached, would place 660,000 federal employees on furlough, with half forced to work without pay.
It would also close nine federal departments and dozens of federal services including the Justice Department, the Farm Service Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Park Service, and the Department of Transportation, among others.
The stopgap bill, which would keep the federal government funded through Feb. 8, was passed with bipartisan support in the Senate Wednesday evening, and sent to the House on Thursday.
Leahy and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., co-authored a “continuing resolution” that did not give the president $5 billion in funding he has demanded from Congress for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Leahy said Wednesday that he was confident it would pass.
But in the House, members of the Republican Freedom Caucus met late Wednesday and agreed it was not acceptable to pass a government funding measure without the money the president had demanded.
At noon on Thursday, as the Senate’s continuing resolution was being debated on the House floor, Trump met with House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in the White House.
After the meeting, Ryan and McCarthy told reporters that Trump would not support the stopgap measure.
“The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came over from the Senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security,” Ryan said. “So what we are going to do is go back to the House and work with our members.”
McCarthy said Republicans want to make sure the government remains open, but that all the Senate did by passing the short-term funding measure was kick “the can down the road.”
After that announcement, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., criticized the president on Twitter for ignoring an “unanimous U.S. Senate bill to fund the government.”
“While Trump heads off to his exclusive golf club in Florida, his Christmas gift to some 800,000 federal employees is to deny them their paychecks,” Sanders wrote.
Trump, the “great friend” of American workers, is now prepared to ignore the unanimous U.S. Senate bill to fund the government.
While Trump heads off to his exclusive golf club in Florida, his Christmas gift to some 800,000 federal employees is to deny them their paychecks. https://t.co/cuMRN3C3po
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 20, 2018
By Thursday evening, the Republicans had added $5.7 billion for border security and $7.8 billion in emergency funding to the short-term measure. House Republicans were confident the new bill would be passed.
But Welch said Democrats were not on board.
“We won’t support that,” Welch said. “Democrats have always supported border security, but the president has turned this into a political issue.”
The House vote is expected to take place Thursday night. If the measure passes with the additional border wall funding, it will return to the Senate on Friday, when a deal will have to be reached if the government is to remain open.
Before Trump lauded the successes of the new farm bill on Thursday, he told members of the press and Congress that any measure that funds the government must include additional money for border security.
“I’ve made my position very clear. Any measure that funds the government must include border security,” Trump said. “I look forward to signing a bill that fulfills our fundamental duty to the American people.”
Trump added that it is the Democrats that are forcing the government shut down as they “continue to oppose border security.”
Welch said he is not sure if a deal will be reached to stop the partial government shutdown before the Friday deadline, but did say the president has already done further damage to public trust in the government.
“It’s just another nick in the erosion of trust that this type of impulsive presidential behavior has on this country’s institutions,” Welch said.
