Senate leaders said Friday that they had agreed to continue debate on a spending bill — but would only vote on legislation that could win the backing of the House and President Trump, meaning a shutdown was not off the table.
The agreement was announced about six hours before Friday’s midnight deadline to pass legislation that would avoid a shutdown — and Democrats and the White House were still at loggerheads over Trump’s demand for $5 billion for his long-promised border wall.
“As we said to President Trump a week ago, his wall does not have 60 votes here in the Senate, let alone 50 votes. That much is now clear,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor moments after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the agreement to keep talking.
“Democrats have offered three proposals to keep the government open, including a proposal offered by Leader McConnell that passed the Senate unanimously only a few days ago. We are willing to continue discussions on those proposals with the leader, the president, the speaker of the House and the leader of the House.”
McConnell said he hoped Democrats would negotiate with Team Trump to avoid a shutdown — and stressed that the next vote would only be on a bill all parties agreed on.
“I hope Senate Democrats will work with the White House on an agreement that can pass both Houses of Congress and receive the president’s signature. So, colleagues, when an agreement is reached, it will receive a vote here on the Senate floor,” he said.
The move came after Vice President Pence broke a 47-47 tie to move the Senate’s version of the House bill to the floor to debate.
The missing senators did not make it back to DC from their districts in time to cast their votes.
The announcement came after Pence, Trump adviser Jared Kushner and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney huddled with Schumer behind closed doors at their request to find a way to avoid a shutdown.
But Trump said earlier Friday that Americans should prepare themselves for “a very long shutdown.”
And he did a 180 on his televised vow that he would be “proud” to own a shutdown and would not blames Democrats, doing just that at the White House while signing the criminal justice reform bill.
“It’s really up to the Democrats, totally up to the Democrats, as to whether or not we have a shutdown. But it’s possible that we’ll have a shutdown, I would say the chances are probably very good, because I don’t think Democrats care so much about, maybe, this issue, but this is a very big issue,” Trump said.
“They’ve devoted their lives to making sure it doesn’t happen. It’s up to the Democrats. It’s really, the Democrat shutdown. I hope we don’t, but we’re very well prepared for a very long shutdown,” he said.
But last week, the president was singing a different tune.
“I am proud to shut down the government for border security. I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you. I’m going to shut it down for border security,” Trump told Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leaders.
Because of Senate rules, the GOP would need at least nine Democrats to jump the fence, an unlikely scenario at best, to get the 60 votes needed to pass the bill, which was approved by the House the day before.
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said he doubted the issue would be resolved on Friday, while John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said there may be room for compromise but that Trump was unlikely to go for any bill that does not include wall funding.
Another Republican senator, Bob Corker, had bluntly said, “The $5 billion is not going to pass.”
In a series of early-morning tweets on Friday, Trump urged McConnell to take up the amended bill from the House.
A senior Senate Republican aide said there was hope that Democrats and Republicans could find a “sweet spot” in a temporary spending bill that would provide more money for border security than was in the bill the Senate passed earlier this week — but not the $5 billion for a wall that the House of Representatives approved.
With Reuters