On Tuesday, the White House indicated President Trump was no longer demanding the inclusion of $5 billion to fund the building of a border wall in the final DHS appropriations bill. The deadline for passing the appropriations bill is Friday, December 21.
Last week, President Trump had a public argument with incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over the amount that Congress would approve for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and even the usefulness of border barriers to prevent illegal immigration.
With at least a partial shutdown of the government looming, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that “We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion." Sanders said that the White House take the $1.6 billion already agreed to by the Democrats and “couple that with other funding resources.”
Both the President and Congressional leaders expressed their unwillingness to shut the government down over border wall funding, and the indication from the White House today is that President Trump is backing off his threat not to sign an omnibus funding bill that does not contain the full $5 billion in wall funding he demanded last week.
Schumer is reportedly still negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over whether the $1.6 billion in border security funding could only go toward repairing existing barriers or could be used to fund new ones.
Soon-to-be Speaker Pelosi is entirely opposed to any funding of barriers on the border. "It's the wrong thing to do. It doesn't work. It's not effective. It's the wrong thing to do and it's a waste of money," Pelosi told NBC News.
Read the full CNBC story here.
