“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” the president wrote in a post on Twitter.
I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security. At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!
The tweet came minutes after the president posted attacks on the Fed, Democrats, the top Republican lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the special envoy in charge of combatting ISIS, who announced over the weekend that he would be resigning at the end of the month after Trump decided to pull American troops from Syria.
Trump, who canceled a planned vacation to Florida as 800,000 federal employees remain without pay, spent the morning posting his grievances on Twitter.
The president’s posts come amid growing uncertainty in Washington. The shutdown continued without a resolution in sight. Meanwhile the administration itself remains in a state of flux after the surprise departure of Defense Secretary James Mattis, which Trump accelerated by two months over the weekend.
As stocks tumbled following the worst week for markets since the 2008 financial crisis, the president wrote on Twitter that the “only problem our economy has” is the Fed, accusing the central bank of not having “a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders.”
The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate to keep prices stable and achieve maximum employment. The Fed aims to accomplish those goals primarily by setting interest rates at a level that will prevent runaway inflation or deflation.
Last week, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate for the fourth time this year and signaled it would hike rates twice in 2019.
President Donald Trump tweeted this morning to decry “mostly FAKE” news about the shutdown and his decision to withdraw from Syria.
“I am in the White House, working hard,” the President tweeted. “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.”
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. On Syria, we were originally…
….going to be there for three months, and that was seven years ago – we never left. When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!
He also defended his Syria decision, though he said this time that ISIS is “largely defeated.”
Trump’s tweets were posted around the time news broke that the top U.S. envoy to the global coalition fighting ISIS submitted his resignation yesterday over his objections to the President’s Syria announcement.
On December 21, Donald Trump posted a tweet to his official Twitter account: “Some of the many Bills that I am signing in the Oval Office right now. 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!”
He accompanied the tweet with a picture of himself in the Oval Office, surrounded by a massive stack of black folders, signing his name to a piece of paper.
Some of the many Bills that I am signing in the Oval Office right now. 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! pic.twitter.com/ws6LYhKcKl
President Donald Trump spoke to reporters again this afternoon following his contentious public spat with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on the border wall and a possible government shutdown.
Trump directly said he would be “proud” to shut down the government in the name of fighting for border security.
During a bill signing this afternoon, Trump said the meeting was “very friendly” and stood by his comments. When asked about owning the idea of a shutdown, he said, “I don’t mind.”
He elaborated:
“I don’t mind having the issue of border security on my side. If we have to close down the country over border security, I actually like that in terms of an issue, but I don’t want it to be an issue, I want it to be something that the country needs… We need border security, and part of border security is a wall. So I don’t mind owning that issue.”
And if the fight is on border security, Trump added, “I think I win that every single time.”
President Donald Trump and Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi bickered at length on Tuesday in an explosive public meeting at the White House over the president’s promised border wall and threat to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t fund it.
“If we don’t get what we want one way or the other … I will shut down the government,” Trump said during a highly unusual fight that played out in front of the press before the official meeting began. “I am proud to shut down the government for border security. … I will take the mantle of shutting it down.”
If Trump and Congress can’t agree to a funding bill by Dec. 21, large parts of the federal government will run out of operating authority. The Defense Department, however, is funded through the end of next September.
Trump said it was unlikely that he would strike a deal Tuesday with Pelosi, a California Democrat who is expected to become House speaker next month, and Schumer, a New York Democrat who is the Senate minority leader.
“We may not have an agreement today,” he said. “We probably won’t.”
The House Freedom Caucus, a group of Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, demanded Monday night that $5 billion be included for the wall in any spending bill, while the Democratic leaders have been open to accepting less than $2 billion.
Earlier in the day, according to two sources who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity, Pelosi told House Democrats that she and Schumer would offer the president a deal to pass six appropriations bills and a yearlong extension of current funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Short of that, she said, they would agree to a basic extension of funding through Sept. 30, 2019, for all seven appropriations bills, including the one that funds Homeland Security.
Before Trump took ownership of a possible shutdown, Pelosi took an early dig at him in her opening remarks and noted that his party still controls both the House and Senate until January.
“We must keep the government open,” she said. “We cannot have a Trump shutdown.”
“A what?” he snapped at her.
“You have the White House, you have the Senate, you have the House of Representatives,” Pelosi responded.
But, she noted, not all Republicans are on board with his plans to build a physical barrier.
“There are no votes in the House, a majority of votes, for a wall,” Pelosi said.
“If I needed the votes for the wall in the House, I would have them in one session,” Trump countered. “It would be done.”
But for two years, he has been unable to muster those votes for his core campaign promise during the 2016 election — a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump vowed Mexico would pay for.
Vice President Mike Pence watched Tuesday’s spectacle unfold in silence as Trump and the Democrats also fought over the results of last month’s midterm elections and their meaning.
Outgoing White House chief of staff John Kelly and presidential advisers Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller were also in the room for the meeting.
Pelosi urged the president to stop bickering in front of the media.
“This is spiraling downward,” she said.
The private portion of the discussion was brief, as Pelosi and Schumer emerged quickly to talk to reporters outside the White House.
Schumer said Trump threw a “temper tantrum.”
Later, back at the Capitol, he said the meeting was “productive” in that “the president showed what he wanted: shutdown.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, cheered the president on from the sidelines of Twitter.
“Great job sticking to your guns on border security, Mr. President!” he wrote. “You are right to want more border security funding including Wall money. They are WRONG to say no.”
Graham also advocated for Trump to add into the mix a provision protecting certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children from deportation to put pressure on Democrats to approve money for the wall.
Likewise, some Democrats took to social media to back their leaders.
“Remember when Mexico was going to pay for the President’s wall?” Rep. Val Demings of Florida tweeted. “Shutting down the government over this foolish idea would be wildly irresponsible. A shutdown would cripple the economy and degrade transportation security during the holidays.”
Donald Trump lied multiple times and threw a very public temper tantrum during a photo op at the White House with Senator Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi over the southern border wall funding and averting a government shutdown, which Trump said he would take full credit for.
Trump, who promised his supporters Mexico would pay for a wall, instead demanded the American taxpayers pay for his wall.
President Trump on Saturday kept the door open to a potential government shutdown if an upcoming deal to fund parts of the government does not include funding for a border wall.
“We’re talking about border wall, we’re talking about quite a big sum of money, about $5 billion,” the president told reporters Saturday before leaving the White House for a trip to California.
“This would be a very good time to do a shutdown. I don’t think it’s going to be necessary, because I think the Democrats will come to their senses, and if they don’t come to their senses, we will continue to win elections,” he added.
Trump has previously flirted with shutting down the government over funding for his proposed border wall, but Republicans convinced him not to do so before the midterms, saying it would hurt them at the polls.
The president’s latest comments come as he is negotiating with the Senate on a deal to partially fund the government.
Congress has until Dec. 7 to fund the rest of the government after lawmakers failed to approve seven of the 12 individual funding bills before the end of the fiscal year deadline.
“I would always tell anybody, including the president, it’s not a good idea to shut down the government, period,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said earlier this week.
“I can’t tell you,” he added when asked if $5 billion is “doable.”
President Trump warned on Sunday that he would be willing to “shut down” the government over border security.
“I would be willing to ‘shut down’ government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT!” he said in a morning tweet.
“We need great people coming into our Country!” he added.
I would be willing to “shut down” government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security, which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country!
The president in an earlier tweet on Sunday morning said “many” border crossers are using children for “sinister purposes.” He also blasted existing U.S. immigration laws and urged followers to vote for Republicans.
“Please understand, there are consequences when people cross our Border illegally, whether they have children or not – and many are just using children for their own sinister purposes. Congress must act on fixing the DUMBEST & WORST immigration laws anywhere in the world! Vote ‘R,’ ” he said.
President Donald Trump told supporters at a speech on Saturday that if Congress did not meet his funding demands for border security, he may support a government shutdown this fall.
Trump was speaking in Washington Township, Michigan, at the same time that the White House correspondents’ dinner was taking place back in Washington, DC, with some lawmakers and current and former members of his administration in attendance. During his remarks, he alluded to the appropriations deadline at the end of September.
“We have to have borders, and we have to have them fast,” he said. “And we need security. We need the wall. We’re going to have it all. And again, that wall has started. We got 1.6 billion. We come up again on September 28th, and if we don’t get border security, we’ll have no choice. We’ll close down the country because we need border security.”
Despite his campaign pledge to make Mexico pay for his proposed wall on the US-Mexico border, Trump has demanded that Congress fund the project. Last month, he signed a bill that funds the government through September after expressing frustration with a spending package that included $1.6 billion for border security, but not the wall.
In his speech Saturday night, Trump railed against the Democratic Party on a range of issues, including immigration.
“A vote for a Democrat in November is a vote for open borders and crime,” Trump said.
He continued, “The open border policies of the Democratic Party are not just wrong, they’re dangerous, and they’re in fact deadly. They’re deadly.”
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he supports a government shutdown if Democrats won’t agree to tighten immigration laws, undercutting ongoing bipartisan negotiations on Capitol Hill.
The comment, which came during a White House meeting on the violent MS-13 gang, was not well received in the room. Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican who represents a district with thousands of federal workers, confronted Trump about the remark and urged him to avoid another government shutdown.
“If we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown,” Trump said of the nation’s immigration laws. “We’ll do a shutdown and it’s worth it for our country. I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of.”
He added: “If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety, and unrelated but still related, they don’t want to take care of our military, then shut it down. We’ll go with another shutdown.”
The government will run out of funding Thursday if negotiators can’t strike a deal.
Several Republican aides working on the budget deal have voiced concern to CNN that the President’s comments about a shutdown may cause things to fall apart.
“Holding my breath right now,” texted one senior Republican working on the deal.
The issue is whether House Democrats — who have for months been outright resistant to signing onto a budget agreement without a resolution on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — will now back away from the breakthrough deal negotiators are approaching.
The President’s remarks happened at the same time Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, in separate news conferences, touted the progress on the talks and made clear a deal was close. The talks also separate the issue from immigration altogether — long the GOP goal — making the President’s comments somewhat confusing.
“Things are in a good place, but also fragile,” another GOP aide said, noting all of the moving parts in the talks. “We could do without anything inflammatory for a couple of days.”
Speaking shortly after Trump during the White House meeting, Comstock said she would not back such a move and urged Trump to avoid it.
“We don’t need a government shutdown on this,” she said. “I think both sides have learned that a government shutdown is bad.”
At a later event, Comstock described her comments with Trump as “a very civil discussion” and that she doesn’t “support government shutdowns.
When asked to clarify his remarks at the end of the roundtable, Trump told reporters again that he would shut down the government over immigration.
“I would shut it down over this issue. I can’t speak for everybody at the table but I will tell you, I would shut it down over this issue,” he said, adding that if the US doesn’t straighten out its borders “we don’t have a country. Without borders we don’t have a country.”
Rep. Pete King, R-New York, who attended the White House meeting, told reporters afterward that he doesn’t think the government will shutdown over immigration policy, despite Trump’s comments.
“I don’t see that in the offing,” King said.
Schumer responded to Trump’s shutdown threat, saying it “speaks for itself.”
“We had one Trump shutdown, nobody wants another, maybe except him,” Schumer said.
Trump oversaw a multi-day government shutdown last month over immigration reform.
Though Trump opposed that government shutdown, he has previously said the United States could use a government work stoppage.
“Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess,” he tweeted in May.
