President Donald Trump said Wednesday that a government shutdown ‘could happen’ and it will be Democrats’ fault if it does.
Trump claimed the minority party wants illegal immigrants ‘pouring into our country’ and they’ll close the government’s doors during the holiday season to keep the nation’s porous borders open.
‘We don’t want to have that. We want to have a great, beautiful crime-free country,’ Trump said during a cabinet meeting. ‘We want people to come into our country, but we want them to come on our basis.’
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that a government shutdown ‘could happen’ and it will be Democrats’ fault if it does
Funding for the government runs out Friday, however, GOP leaders have set a plan in motion to keep the money flowing until later in the month. Trump has a meeting with senior leaders of both parties at the White House on Thursday to discuss a long-term spending bill that incorporates measures both sides want.
Lawmakers in the Democratic Party are threatening to let federal spending authority lapse if Trump denies illegal immigrants who came to the country as children safe haven.
Trump had been supportive of a legislative solution to the immigrants’ plight but says he wants to couple permission for them to stay with a total overhaul of the system.
The Republican president wants to switch the U.S. to a merit-based immigration system to cut down on ‘chain migration’ practices that allow extended family members of legal residents to apply for and receive visas.
He has also demanded that Congress appropriate funds for his proposed border wall, which he says is a matter of national security.
Trump on Wednesday ignored Democrats’ pleas to include a measure saving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that he axed with a six-month delay earlier this year on the basis that it was an unconstitutional executive action by the previous administration.
Instead, he focused on their refusal to approve the funds he’s requesting for the border wall.
‘The Democrats are really looking at something that is very dangerous for our country. They are looking at shutting down,’ he said. ‘They want to have illegal immigrants, in many cases people that we don’t want in our country. They want to have illegal immigrants pouring into our country, bringing with them crime, tremendous amounts of crime.’
Trump had been asked as he finished a statement to the press about the possibility that spending authorization would run out, forcing the federal government to send all essential workers home until they approve a bill.
‘It could happen,’ he said.
Trump claimed the minority party wants illegal immigrants ‘pouring into our country’ and they’ll close the government’s doors during the holiday season to keep the borders open. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are scheduled to attend a meeting at the White House on Thursday
‘So the Democrats maybe will want to shutdown the country cause they want people flowing into our country, and I want people coming into our country, but I want to vet those people, and I want to vet them very carefully,’ Trump said, ‘because we don’t want to have radical Islamic terrorism in this country, and we don’t want to have crime in this country.’
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who supports a fix to the federal program that protects the immigrants in the end-of-year-spending bill, has also said a shutdown is ‘possible.’
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell completely ruled it out on Sunday.
‘Look, there’s not going to be a government shutdown. It’s just not going to happen,’ the GOP leader said.
House Republicans announced Monday that they intend to pass resolution extending a government spending resolution until Dec. 22. McConnell encouraged the Senate to take it up and approve it when it comes through in a statement today.
The big four – McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Nancy Pelosi – will be at the White House tomorrow for a discussion with Trump about an immigration compromise.
Trump’s party will most likely have to work with Democrats on a long-term spending agreement to get a bill through the gridlocked Senate.
In a statement Monday, Pelosi and Schumer provided a list of issues they want to see action on in the fiscal year 2018 resolution, including the DREAM Act ‘along with tough border security measures.’
‘There is a bipartisan path forward on all of these items,’ they said.