President Trump acknowledged late Friday that the government was heading toward a partial shutdown but insisted it was Democrats’ responsibility to bring the funding lapse to an end.
“Call it a Democrat shutdown, call it whatever you want,” Trump said in a video released hours after the House and Senate adjourned for the night without a deal to avert the shutdown starting at midnight.
“Let’s work together, let’s be bipartisan and let’s get it done. The shutdown hopefully will not last long,” he added.{mosads}
Lawmakers have been wrestling over Trump’s demand that they provide billions of dollars to fund his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Vice President Pence, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner were dispatched to Capitol Hill on Friday to try to secure a deal on a path forward.
The three met with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). Pence and Mulvaney then huddled with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) ceremonial office off the House floor.
Trump in his video warned of violent, criminal gangs infiltrating the U.S. through its southern border while calling for the Senate to approve a bill passed by House Republicans that would fund the rest of the government while including $5 billion for his proposed border wall.
“Our great country must have border security. We don’t want people coming in who aren’t supposed to be here,” Trump says in the video. “It’s very dangerous out there. Drugs are pouring in.”
“Now it’s up to the Senate, and it’s really up to the Democrats, because we need their votes,” Trump said. “We’re going to have a shutdown — there’s nothing we can do about that.”
Trump earlier Friday reversed course and asserted that Democrats were to blame for the potential shutdown.
Democratic leaders, however, said that the president was the only one to blame after he said during a meeting with top Democrats last week that he would carry the “mantle” of a shutdown over his border wall.
Funding for roughly 25 percent of the federal government is set to expire overnight while lawmakers have signaled they will continue trying to make progress on a deal on Saturday, hours after the funding lapse.
Senators have said they will not vote on another funding bill unless it’s on a bill that has the support of both Democrats and the White House.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, met with Schumer on Friday evening to negotiate on a funding package.
Shelby told reporters they had made “overtures” to Democrats but hadn’t gotten a response yet.
“I have not,” he said when asked if he had been told when he could expect a response. “It might be tomorrow, it might be late tonight.”
Pence, Kushner and Mulvaney met with Shelby on Friday evening before leaving the Capitol.
The Alabama senator said that negotiators would like to get a long-term deal on all seven of the remaining government funding bills, but to do so would require a deal on border security and “we don’t know if we can, [but] that is what we’d like to do.”
“I think before we would all have to have assurance if we ever reach a tentative agreement that the president would … agree to what we’ve agreed to and sign it or there would not be an agreement,” he said.
Pressed if he had made an offer to Democrats for $1.6 billon on the border, Shelby declined to discuss specifics of the talks but said that “I think the amount is still under discussion.”
– Jordain Carney contributed.