House still plans immigration vote next week despite Trump’s tweet

House GOP leaders plan to move forward with a compromise immigration bill next week despite a Friday morning tweet from President Trump saying he thinks Republicans should hold off on immigration until after the midterm elections.

Trump said Republicans should “stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November,” dealing a setback to lawmakers who were looking to get the president’s support before casting their vote.

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House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday confirmed that the legislation — introduced by Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) — will come to the floor before lawmakers leave for their July 4 recess.

“We have been working very closely with the entire conference taking all ideas in,” McCarthy said Friday on the House floor. “We had a very productive conference last night, and we’ll work through the weekend and will see that bill on the floor next week.”

Changes to the legislation are expected to be made over the weekend. The measure was initially supposed to get a vote on Thursday and was then pushed back to Friday. It was delayed further after a conference meeting Thursday evening, when leadership said it would be postponed to the following week.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said he remains confident that Trump would sign the bill if it makes it through both chambers. The Louisiana Republican said he believes Trump is committed to fixing the issue, but that the president is frustrated with the lack of Democratic support on Republican-backed measures.

“We want to solve this problem and President Trump wants to solve this problem,” Scalise said. “I think what he’s doing in these tweets is expressing his frustration that Democrats are unwilling to work with anybody to actually vote for a legislative solution.”

Scalise’s comments come a day after a conservative-backed immigration bill failed in a 193-231 vote.

Democrats say Republican leaders haven’t made an effort to bring up bipartisan legislation that could potentially make it to the president’s desk, while McCarthy said Democrats were only open to supporting the discharge petition introduced by moderate Republicans, which would have forced votes on four immigration proposals.

“Not everybody gets what they want, because in that bill there won’t be everything that I want,” McCarthy said Friday on the House floor. “Not one person in this room will get everything they want. Will America be safer? Will America be better in the future? And will we have a system that works? The answer will be yes.”