By Jennifer Haberkorn and Sarah D. Wire
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hours ahead of a potential government shutdown, Senate Republicans on Friday demanded that President Donald Trump tell them what kind of government money bill he would sign after being whipsawed this week on whether he would insist on funds for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Congress barreled toward an almost certain partial government shutdown, which would start at midnight EST Friday, as lawmakers acknowledged that there is no clear pathway to avoid one unless Trump suddenly drops his demands about the wall. To get through the Senate, any bill would need the support of nine Democrats, who have unanimously rejected money for the wall.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., met privately with Trump at the White House on Friday, and lawmakers briefed on the meeting said the president provided no clarity on how to proceed.
“I don’t believe a strong sense of that came out of that meeting,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
The House and Senate passed conflicting bills this week after contradictory advice from the president — the Senate did not fund the wall, after assurance that Trump would sign a stopgap funding measure, then the House approved $5.7 billion for the wall after Trump reversed course and demanded the money.
Republican senators, even some who agree with Trump on the border funding, were clearly frustrated Friday to be scrambling at the edge of a shutdown.
“It would have been great if they had told us they wanted this fight because we would have started working on it on Wednesday,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who supports the border wall funding. “They now have made that clear.”
“The key here is we have to get clarity form the president on what his priorities are,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Shortly afterward, the Senate voted on the House bill with wall funding. The vote is being held open for hours to allow senators who left town — under the assumption Trump would sign the bill they passed — to return to vote. The bill is expected to eventually fail.
The holiday-season closure of affected agencies is scheduled to begin after midnight EST Friday. It would, among other things, temporarily block the paychecks of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
A shutdown could also exact a political cost: Polling has clearly indicated for years that most voters don’t like the idea of shutting down the government over policy disagreements.
But the polls also show that the two sides each have a different audience with different demands. A large majority of voters overall don’t like shutdowns, but Republican voters support the idea of a fight over the border wall.
In a poll earlier this month by Quinnipiac University, for example, voters by almost 2 to 1 opposed the idea of shutting down the government over money for a border wall. By 51 percent to 37 percent, voters said that if a shutdown happened, they would mostly blame Trump and the Republicans.
But Republican voters disagreed. By 59 percent to 33 percent, self-identified Republicans said they supported shutting down the government over the wall.
Trump has tried to shift blame to Democrats, an effort he renewed Friday. He praised House Republicans for approving the money he asked for and accused Democrats of obstructionism.
“It’s really up to the Democrats — totally up to the Democrats as to whether we have a shutdown,” he said at the White House. “It’s possible that we’ll have a shutdown. I would say the chances are very good because I don’t think the Democrats care very much about this issue.”
It’s a departure from what Trump told Democratic leaders in a televised meeting in the Oval Office last week.
“I’ll tell you what: I am proud to shut down the government for border security,” Trump said then, adding, “I will be the one to shut it down — I’m not going to blame you for it.”
Trump on Friday also pushed again for McConnell to change Senate rules and eliminate the 60-vote threshold needed to pass most legislation, a change so dramatic that many people refer to it as a nuclear option.
“Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!” Trump tweeted.
McConnell and many other Republican senators have repeatedly rejected that idea, and a handful of Republicans reiterated Friday that it is not an option. The filibuster is designed to protect the minority party. It also prevents dramatically different policies from becoming law each time a different party takes control of the Senate.
In another tweet, Trump predicted that a shutdown, if one comes, “will last for a very long time.”
He scrapped plans to leave Washington on Friday afternoon for a holiday vacation at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., and a spokesperson confirmed that Trump will remain in town in the event of a shutdown.
