Conservative Republicans weren’t rushing to publicly defend President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he demanded funding for his border wall even if a government shutdown is required to force Congress’s hand.
DailyMail.com reached out to spokespersons for a dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus and six conservative U.S. senators, including communications directors working for Sen. Ted Cruz and Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows.
None responded with on-the-record messages of support for Trump’s position. Only two would broach the subject on background.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his promised wall between the U.S. and Mexico must be funded, even if the fight leads to a government shutdown – a position that had few Republicans backing him up on Wednesday
This view of an existing but unfinished border fence near Yuma, Arizona shows the self-defeating nature of previous attempts to secure the U.S. border
One congressional spokeswoman said that while her boss ‘believes that border wall funding should absolutely be included in a government funding bill,’ he ‘sees no reason that with a unified Republican government that ran on securing our borders, that that should ever have to lead to a shutdown.’
A senior aide to one of the senators said it’s unlikely that the White House will find a cheering section for the idea on Capitol Hill.
‘This idea of a shutdown over border wall funding is going to mess with some pretty delicate negotiations in the next few weeks,’ the aide said. ‘That’s just not helpful.’
He added that some conservatives may decided later, ‘when it’s crunch time,’ to loudly demand money for Trump’s pet project.
The president delivered a message to ‘obstructionist’ Democrats during a Tuesday night campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, saying that even ‘if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall’ between the U.S. and Mexico.
‘We’re going to have our wall. The American people voted for immigration control. We’re going to get that wall.’
Trump enjoys Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, but the Senate requires a 60-vote supermajority to move bills from debate to actual voting.
The president seemed hyper-aware of that obstacle on Wednesday morning, tweeting that ‘[i]f Republican Senate doesn’t get rid of the Filibuster Rule & go to a simple majority, which the Dems would do, they are just wasting time!’
The U.S. government’s operations are currently funded only through midnight on September 30, when a new fiscal year begins.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday morning that Trump had ‘threatened to cause chaos in the lives of millions of Americans if he doesn’t get his way’
The House included $1.6 billion for Trump’s wall construction in a July spending bill, but it’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will push for a similar measure in his chamber.
The White House’s relationship with McConnell has become unusually strained in recent weeks, judging from published reports of furious, expletive-laden conversations between the president and the Senate’s top dog.
Congressional Democrats have begun to pounce on Trump, seeming to sense that meddling from the Oval Office could disrupt their ordinary and insular budget process and throw the government into utter turmoil.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday morning that Trump had ‘threatened to cause chaos in the lives of millions of Americans if he doesn’t get his way.’
Pelosi claimed that the president had ‘said he will purposefully hurt American communities to force American taxpayers to fund an immoral, ineffective and expensive border wall.’
Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy piled on, saying that Trump’s threat was meant to promote ‘his foolish, costly and useless wall, wasting tens of billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars. A wall the President promised that Mexico would pay for, and a wall that would be nothing more than a bumper sticker boondoggle.’
Trump needs help from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in order to pass a spending bill that includes $1.6 billion in initial funding to start wall construction
Trump urged McConnell on Wednesday to get rid of longstanding ‘filibuster’ rules that require 60 votes for the Senate to end a legislative debate and move anything to a vote
Congress has faced one government shutdown crisis already this year, managing to fund the government with a spending resolution in early May through the end of September.
But that deal only materialized when the White House backed off from its demand for border wall funding, saying that it would focus its energy on seeing it included in this month’s budget.
Politico reported Wednesday that the White House itself is split on whether the wall is worth going to the mat over.
‘He is animated about the wall,’ one official said of Trump’s own level of enthusiasm. ‘He cares about that more than many other things. He knows his base cares and chants about it.’
But another aide cautioned: ‘You have barely anyone here saying, “Wall, wall, we have to get the wall at all costs”.’