Incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney warned on Sunday the government shut down could last well into the new year as President Donald Trump argued while drones are ‘fun’ it’s only a ‘good old fashioned wall’ that works.
‘It’s very possible that this shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new Congress,’ Mulvaney said on ‘Fox News Sunday.’
‘I don’t think things are going to move quickly over the next few days,’ he added.
Incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said the government shut down could last into new year
Trump continues to defend his wall
With Christmas on the horizon, Congress has adjourned until Thursday, Dec. 27. And Lawmakers are expected to return to work late next week.
The new Congress is sworn into office on Jan. 3. If Mulvaney’s prediction is correct, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi will begin her speakership under the cloud of a shut down.
A partial government shut down began on Friday at midnight amid a fight for funding for the president’s border wall.
Trump is demanding the full $5 billion it would take to build his wall along the Mexico-U.S. border.
On Sunday, he said ‘only a good old fashioned Wall’ works for border security even drones and other technology are ‘fun.’
‘The only way to stop drugs, gangs, human trafficking, criminal elements and much else from coming into our Country is with a Wall or Barrier. Drones and all of the rest are wonderful and lots of fun, but it is only a good old fashioned Wall that works!,’ he tweeted.
Negotiations appear at a stalemate. On Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence and Mulvaney went to Capitol Hill to speak with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer while Trump had lunch at the White House with hardline Republicans who back his wall.
‘Still talking,’ was all Pence had to say of the matter.
On Sunday, Mulvaney sought to push the blame for the shut down on Democrats.
‘The ball is in the Senate’s court,’ he said. ‘We made them an offer yesterday afternoon.’
Mulvaney also hinted that Pelosi was going along with the shutdown to appeal to her liberal base.
‘I think the speaker’s dynamic is in play here,’ he said.
Mulvaney indicated negotiations on the border wall are moving between the $5 billion that Trump needs to fully fund his wall and the $1.3 billion that Democrats originally offered.
‘We’re between $1.6 billion and $1.5 billion,’ he said on ABC’s ‘This Week.”
He brushed aside the infamous Oval Office shouting match a few weeks ago where Trump said he would take responsibility for a shut down. ‘It’s on me,’ the president said at the time.
‘He is proud to be having the fight,’ Mulvaney said on “Fox News Sunday” of Trump.
He also defended Trump’s hard line on the matter.
‘This is what Washington looks like when you have a President who refuses to get along to get along,’ Mulvaney said.
On ABC’s ‘This Week,’ he indicated there was nothing he could do to change the president’s mind.
‘You’re not the chief of the president, you’re the chief of the staff. You’re not going to change the way the president behaves, the president thinks, the president operates,’ he said.
President Trump, meanwhile, will remain in Washington through Christmas and has canceled his plans to go to Mar-a-Lago.
Incoming White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney sought to blame Democrats for shut down
Mulvaney and Vice President Mike Pence met with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (left) on Saturday as incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (right) warned colleagues the shutdown could go into the new Congress
Trump has spent the weekend tweeting a defense of the actions of his administration – the shut down, pulling U.S. troops out of Syria and the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis.
First lady Melania Trump, who had already gone to Mar-a-Lago, will return to the White House to spend the holidays there.
‘Due to the shutdown, President Trump will remain in Washington, D.C. and the first lady will return from Florida so they can spend Christmas together,’ Sanders said.
Additionally, both chambers on Capitol Hill anticipate the impasse will continue into the first weeks of January.
Pelosi warned Saturday night that ‘it is unlikely that there will be any progress to end the Trump shutdown in the next several days.’
In a message to her caucus on Saturday night, The Democrat, who is the presumed next House speaker, claimed:
‘Until President Trump can publicly commit to a bipartisan resolution, there will be no agreement before January when the new House Democratic Majority will swiftly pass legislation to re-open government.
‘Please be assured you will be made aware of any developments to re-open government in the days ahead’.
Donald Trump (pictured) cancelled plans to travel to Mar-a-Lago for Christmas as he deals with major developments on U.S. foreign policy in Syria, two high-profile resignations and a potential governmental shutdown
Trump tweeted on Saturday: ‘I will not be going to Florida because of the Shutdown – Staying in the White House!’ He added the hashtag ‘MAGA’ – or, ‘Make America Great Again.’
On Saturday Vice President Mike Pence visited the U.S. Capitol to meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a bid to broker a deal that would avoid the shutdown lasting longer.
He left the Senate leader’s office empty-handed about 30 minutes later, telling reporters that the two sides were ‘still talking’.
A Schumer aide said that the vice president ‘made an offer. Unfortunately, we’re still very far apart’, the aide told CBS News.
Schumer said the ‘Trump shutdown’ could end immediately if the president simply dropped his demand for money. ‘If you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall,’ Schumer said.
Trump had been scheduled to travel to his Florida resort with his family for the end of year holidays, but said on Friday he would stay in Washington if he and lawmakers failed to strike a budget deal to avert a partial government shutdown.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (pictured) said on Saturday night there would be no agreement before January if Trump ‘does not commit to a bipartisan resolution’
Minority Senate leader Chuch Schumer (left) and Vice President Mike Pence (right) arrive today to hold talks aimed at breaking the impasse and a government shutdown lasting weeks
He left it unclear at the time, however, how long he might remain in the capital.
Trump tweeted on Saturday: ‘I will not be going to Florida because of the Shutdown – Staying in the White House!’ He added the hashtag ‘MAGA’ – or, ‘Make America Great Again.’
The President’s initial plans were to spend 16 days at the so-called ‘winter White House’ – the nickname given for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The U.S. government will officially be partially shut down through the Christmas holiday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Saturday afternoon that no deal was reached and the Senate was adjourned until Thursday, December 27.
Despite Trump’s claims that he was negotiating with Democrats on Saturday over his $5.7 billion U.S.-Mexico border wall, no consensus was reached.
The Senate will now shutter for legislative business until Thursday and the government will remain partially closed throughout the week.
Adjourned: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Saturday afternoon that no deal was reached and the Senate was adjourned until Thursday December 27
Let the work begin! Trump piled on the pressure for his dream ‘great Steel Barrier or Wall’ on Saturday afternoon as Congress struggled to come to a spending bill agreement
The president continued to toot his own horn on Saturday once again stating won’t back down in the fight for a border wall, resulting in no deal
Rise and shine: Trump tweeted on Saturday afternoon that he was hard at work negotiating with Democrats on a deal to pass his wall, but to no avail
He dismissed news reports on the partial government shut down and Syria as fake news
Lawmakers and politicians will head home for the holidays while 420,000 federal employees will have to work without pay over the holidays and an additional 380,000 workers will be furloughed.
The first day of the shutdown played out in uneven ways. The Statue of Liberty was still open for tours, thanks to funding from New York state, and the U.S. Post Office was still delivering mail, as an independent agency.
In Arizona, the Grand Canyon was remaining open with state funding, the governor said.
The memorial to Oklahoma City bombing victims was to continue to operate, but the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Center at College Station, Texas, said its National Archives facilities were closed during the shutdown.
Trump’s re-election campaign sent out a fundraising email late Saturday launching what he called ‘the most important membership program ever – the OFFICIAL BUILD THE WALL MEMBERSHIP’. The president urged donors to sign up.
This week congress failed to come to a deal as Trump refused to stand down on his call for a $5 billion wall at the U.S.- Mexico border and tweeted ‘Let work begin!’ at the border.
The first day of shutdown played out in different ways with the Grand Canyon (left) remaining open with state funding. The Statue of Liberty (right) was still open for tours thanks to funding from New York state
‘The crisis of illegal activity at our Southern Border is real and will not stop until we build a great Steel Barrier or Wall. Let work begin!’ he tweeted on Saturday.
Politicians and lawmakers flocked to Capitol Hill on Saturday hoping to pass a bill before the holiday break, but without success.
‘I am in the White House, working hard. News reports concerning the Shutdown and Syria are mostly FAKE.
‘We are negotiating with the Democrats on desperately needed Border Security (Gangs, Drugs, Human Trafficking & more) but it could be a long stay,’ Trump tweeted Saturday afternoon.
Trump has dismissed reports on the shutdown, his removal of troops out of Syria, and the protest resignation of his Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on Thursday as ‘fake news’.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell pictured leaving the Senate floor where he blamed Friday’s failed bill on Democrats. He adjourned the Senate to Thursday December 27
McConnell addressed the Senate floor on Saturday at 12pm EST blaming Democrats for preventing a bill from going through saying they feel ‘compelled to disagree with the president on almost anything and certainly this’
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said there are three proposals on the table by himself, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell each offering up 1.3billion in border security
While Trump stayed behind in Washington to negotiate with Democrats, his wife, Melania, flew to the family’s Mar-a-Lago compound in West Palm Beach, Florida.
‘It has long been the family’s tradition to spend their Christmas holiday at Mar-a-Lago,’ the First Lady’s spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN.
‘Her plans to travel with her son to their Florida home for his winter break have not changed this year.’
Trump’s ideal $5 billion budget would be enough for 215 miles of barrier along the border. Less than half of that amount would cover 100 miles of South Texas frontier that does not currently have a fence, according to Dallas News.
A senior White House official confirmed to DailyMail.com on Saturday that the Trump administration wants 700 miles of wall at the border. Some of the requested $5 billion fund would replace old and wobbly fencing.
He said that the Trump administration still expects Mexico will pay for the wall, even though the nation said it would not.
‘It’s about getting the appropriate amount of money that’s necessary to build those barriers and being able to have the flexibility to build them,’ the senior administration official said.
Trump says he wants to erect a ‘great Steel Barrier or Wall’ and shared a picture of a prototype design showing a 20ft steel slat fence on Friday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell addressed the Senate floor at noon where he blamed the shutdown on the Democrats who ‘feel compelled to disagree with the president on almost anything and certainly this’.
‘We’ve pushed the pause button until the president, from whom we’ll need a signature, and Senate Democrats, from whom we’ll need votes, reach an agreement,’ McConnell said.
On Friday the president tweeted that he was biding his time and that he cancelled his holiday trip to Florida to wait on a bill that would finance a border wall. Twitter users have poked fun at the president for posing signing a seemingly blank page
The President posted a video of himself addressing the nation on Twitter alongside the caption: ‘OUR GREAT COUNTRY MUST HAVE BORDER SECURITY!’ The video shows footage of migrants
‘We don’t want people coming in that aren’t supposed to be here, we want people to come in through a legal process,’ Trump said to the camera
Trump shared this photo on Friday of the steel slat barrier he wants to erect at the border. He’s refusing to back down to a deal without a $5billion border fund
’60 votes in the senate, majority in the House, and President Trump’s signature. That’s what’s needed. That’s what will end this regrettable episode, reopen the lost portions of the federal government and produce the investment in border security that our nation really needs,’ he added.
Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer then took the floor to say there are three proposals on the table by himself, Minority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell each offering up $1.3 billion in border security.
Schumer said he’s open to negotiating with the president on border security, as long as it doesn’t center on a physical wall.
He said: ‘President Trump, if you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall’.
Despite back and forth between politicians and funding proposals, Trump has refused to budge on his stance demanding $5 billion for the border wall.
He had son-in-law Jared Kushner, incoming chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Vice President Mike Pence negotiate at Capitol Hill on his behalf on Friday night where they made it clear that less that $5billion for border security was not enough.
Trump notably previously said he would build a border wall, but would have Mexico pay for it.
The U.S. Capitol dome pictured at the base of the Washington Monument just before sunrise on Saturday just after the government officially partially shut down
Shutdown: The U.S. government was partially closed on Saturday after Congress failed to pass a spending bill
The shutdown will force 420,000 Americans to work without pay over the holidays, 380,000 will be furloughed, and 30 million small businesses to lose access to loans.
But Trump didn’t seemed phase at the thousands of lives affected in the partial government shutdown and instead shared a White House produced video where he echoed the need for a wall.
He dismissed the shutdown as the doing of Democrats, tweeting ‘OUR GREAT COUNTRY MUST HAVE BORDER SECURITY!’ along with his video.
‘We don’t want people coming in that aren’t supposed to be here, we want people to come in through a legal process,’ he says to the camera.
‘It’s very dangerous out there, drugs are pouring in, human trafficking. So many different problems including gangs like MS-13. We don’t want them in the United States…We need a great barrier, and if we don’t have it, it’s never going to work,’ he said.
The shutdown may cripple the nation during the holiday season as thousands will be forced to work without pay or will be furloughed, meaning placed on leave without pay.
Some of the Americans forced to work without pay include 53,000 TSA employees, 54,000 customs and border protection agents, postal office workers and air traffic controllers.
The shutdown will affect nine government departments including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, State, Transportation and Treasury. NASA and state parks will also lose their funding.
It means 42,000 Coast Guard employees and 5,000 Forest Service Firefighters will be forced to work without pay, according to projections by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
However, agencies that that are ‘essential to the safety of life and protection of property’ will continue to operate.
Holiday travel will not be halted in the shutdown as TSA and border agents will continue to work – albeit without pay.
The U.S. Postal Service, Medicare reimbursements, and social security will also continue to be operational in the shut down.
President Donald Trump sent his son-in-law Jared along with his incoming chief of staff and Vice President Mike Pence to Capitol Hill to negotiate with the Senate Democratic leader
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell walks to his office during ongoing negotiations Friday
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer depart after speaking to the media on Thursday
The government will only be partially shut down as Congress already funded 75 percent of the federal government through September 2019, according to AJC.
And no one knows just when the the shut down will end.
Trump himself said he’s ‘totally prepared for a very long shut down’.
This is the third government shutdown for the Trump administration. On January 20 of this year a shut down ensued after Republicans refused to fund DACA. Another shutdown followed on February 9, which Trump stopped hours later.
The longest ever government shutdown took place in late 1995 to 1996 and lasted 21 days. In 2013 another shutdown lasted 16 days.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released a statement following the shutdown.
‘Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House,’ they said. ‘But instead of honoring his responsibility to the American people, President Trump threw a temper tantrum and convinced House Republicans to push our nation into a destructive Trump Shutdown in the middle of the holiday season.’
Chuck Schumer released a joint statement with Nancy Pelosi following the shutdown at midnight
The government shut down at dawn on Saturday which left 420,000 Americans forced to work without pay over the holidays and 380,000 federal employees furloughed
A projection of the impacts of the shutdown pictured above showing that 53,000 TSA employees and 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents will be forced to work the holidays without pay
They continued: ‘President Trump has said more than 25 times that he wanted a shutdown and now he has gotten what he wanted.’
They added that Democrats have offered Republicans ‘multiple proposals to keep the government open… which include funding for strong, sensible, and effective border security – not the president’s ineffective and expensive wall’.
Senators said Friday evening that they would not vote on any additional legislation to keep the government open until the president struck a deal with Democrats.
The upper chamber adjourned a little after 8pm EDT without coming to a conclusion.
Despite the government shutdown, which closed public parks and monuments, the city of New York independently announced they’d keep Lady Liberty’s torch burning using their own funds.
New York’s Governor Cuomo announced Saturday that the state of New York will intervene to keep the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island open and running in light of the shut down, covering the $65,000 a day costs of those operations.
On Saturday Congress held their own negotiations, scrambling to come to a solution. House members were told they’d get 24 hours’ notice before a vote.
But no conclusion was made as Democrats refused to up the budget amount to $5 billion for the border.
‘The irony of this is that we all know this is going to end. It’s not going to be different from the deal the president reneged on,’ political pundit Josh Rogin said on CNN.
Saturday’s debate focused on not just how much money to allocate to the border, but where the money can be doled out.
‘What is fencing, what is land ports of entry, what’s technology, what’s staffing? I think there’s a general agreement … that we need to do border security. Now’s figuring out how much for each amount,’ Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said to CNN.
‘Right now we’re trying to finalize all the final text and to be able to make sure everyone’s looked at it, everyone’s agreed, signed off on it…Then we’ll move to a vote 24 hours from there,’ he said on Saturday morning.
‘We’ve agreed in the Senate we’re not bringing anything to the floor until we know all three bodies have agreed to it,’ he added.
What Trump wants is a $5 billion border wall fund for a total of 700 miles of barrier. And he has the support of several Republican officials.
‘I commend the president for standing strong on securing the border..He doesn’t intent to capitulate. He’s not going to,’ Senator Ted Cruz said.
Friday ended with McConnell leaving the Capitol saying talks remained ‘constructive’, which stretched into Saturday’s day of no resolution.
On Friday the president tweeted that he’s biding his time, sharing a photo of himself behind the Resolute Desk with a stack of folios containing recently-passed legislation.
‘Some of the many Bills that I am signing in the Oval Office right now,’ he said. ‘Cancelled my trip on Air Force One to Florida while we wait to see if the Democrats will help us to protect America’s Southern Border!’
Twitter users then poked fun at the president for posting a picture of himself seemingly signing a blank page.
The government shutdown may prove to be devastating for the U.S. economy if it doesn’t get resolved soon.
The longer it stretches, the more risks the economy faces. Financial markets were already shaken on Thursday when President Donald Trump threatened to shut down the government unless his border wall is funded.
Experts speculate that the shut down could threaten the second-longest U.S. financial expansion on record and could lead to a recession and wane deficit spending.
Directly the shutdown won’t hurt economic growth very much because 75 percent of the government is already funded. But it could shave $1.2 billion off the nation’s gross domestic product each week it stretches on, according to S&P Global Ratings.
How the partial shutdown could affect the U.S. economy
America’s economic expansion may see a decline as a result of the risks posed by the government shut down that started Saturday morning.
Experts say that if the Congress doesn’t pass a funding bill soon, the stock market will continue to fall, Trump’s administration will implode with chaos, and interest rates may hike, and a trade war could erupt with China.
According to Gregory Daco, the chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, the U.S. economy will remain strong but the government should be wary of the falling stock market.
‘What really matters is how people perceive these headwinds – and right now markets and investors perceive them as leading us into a recessionary environment,’ Daco said.
The stock market was rattled on Thursday by President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the government unless his border wall is funded and federal agencies were closed on Friday at midnight.
As tensions with the incoming Democratic House majority have reached a fever pitch, Trump warned Friday that he foresees a ‘very long’ shutdown.
Experts say that Trump’s administration will only become more dysfunctional as the shutdown stretches on.
The White House already appears to be a revolving door of officials, as Defense Secretary James Mattis notably resigned earlier this week in protest of Trump’s decision to pull American troops from Syria.
How markets respond to the shut down could lead to a recession or growth.
The shutdown is unlikely to hurt economic growth very much, even if it last awhile, because 75 percent of the government is still being funded.
Each week of the shutdown would shave a relative minuscule $1.2 billion off the nation’s gross domestic product, according to S&P Global Ratings estimates.
As Trump struggles to cooperate with Democrats, the federal support through deficit spending will likely wane this year, according to Lewis Alexander, U.S. chief economist at Nomura.
As a result of declining deficit spending, the economy is widely expected to weaken from its roughly three percent growth this year, which would be the strongest performance since 2005.
Stocks have been tumbling since October with the Dow Jones Industrial Average sinking nearly 15 percent and it may continue to plunge with the shut down.
The plunge followed a propulsive winning streak for the stock market that began in 2009.
But investors are internalizing all the latest risks, including Trump’s trade war with China and higher borrowing rates, and how much they might depress corporate profits and the economy.
Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, warns that tumbling stock prices could lower consumer confidence which could sink stocks further and hurt the overall economy.
All eyes are turned to China after Trump imposed tariffs against a huge swath of goods from China. China has retaliated in kind with its own tariffs on U.S. products. These import taxes tend to dampen economic activity and diminish growth.
Experts say the shutdown will lead to chaos in the Trump administration, could further tumble stocks, and could weigh on the global economy
‘The trade war with China is now the biggest impediment to U.S. economic growth,’ Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in his forecast for the first half of 2019.
In part because of the taxes Trump imposed on Chinese imports, manufacturing growth appears to be slowing, with factory owners facing higher costs for raw materials. The president has held off on further escalating tariffs to see if an agreement – or at least a lasting truce – can be reached with China by March.
Any damage from trade wars tends to worsen the longer the disputes continue. So even a tentative resolution in the first three months of 2019 could remove one threat to economic growth.
Officials also fear an overall economic downturn after the Federal Reserve raised a key short-term rate four times this year and envision two more increases in 2019.
Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve says that the Fed could gradually raise borrowing costs and limit potential U.S. economic growth because of the job market’s strength. But if they miscalculate and raise rates too high or too fast, it could trigger a downtown.
From a global perspective, the world economy seems to be slowing down.
U.S. trading partners in Europe and Asia are weakening or are expected to expand at slower speeds. Their deflating growth can, in turn, weigh down the U.S. economy.
Several other global risks abound. There is Britain’s turbulent exit from the European Union. Italy appears close to recession and is struggling to manage its debt. China, the world’s second-largest economy after the U.S., is trying to manage a slowdown in growth that is being complicated by its trade war with Trump.
‘Next year is likely to be challenging for both investors and policymakers,’ Alexander, the Nomura economist, concluded in his outlook.
Still, the U.S. on its own looks encouraging with unemployment near a half-century low and with tame inflation rates.
The length of the shutdown will determine should how severe these risks are and may determine the future of the nation’s financial growth.