HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE PELOSI: -- you begin, you make your point, you state your case. That’s what the House Republicans could do, if they had the votes. But there are no votes in the House, a majority of votes, for a wall -- no matter where you start.
SENATE MINORITY LEADER SCHUMER: That is exactly right. You don’t have the votes in the House.
THE PRESIDENT: If I needed the votes for the wall in the House, I would have them -- in one session, it would be done.
HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE PELOSI: Well, then go do it. Go do it.
“House GOP considered putting legislation on floor w/$5-B for border wall as Trump demanded. But leaders eventually told the president that there were not enough votes to pass it”
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) December 18, 2018
in other words, Pelosi wasn’t bluffing. she knew where the votes were. https://t.co/PWQt0OjdSR
President Trump on Tuesday retreated from his demand for $5 billion to build a border wall, as congressional Republicans maneuvered to avoid a partial government shutdown before funding expires at the end of Friday.
But Democrats immediately rejected Republicans’ follow-up offer, leaving the two sides still at impasse as hundreds of thousands of federal workers await word on whether they will be sent home without pay just before Christmas.
The new border funding offer from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) calls on Congress to pass a $1.6 billion homeland security spending bill that was crafted earlier this year in a bipartisan Senate compromise.
Under the offer, Congress would also reprogram $1 billion in unspent funds that Trump could use on his immigration policies. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who oversees the panel in charge of homeland security funding, said the reprogrammed money would not be able to be used for a physical wall but could be spent on other border security measures.
Sen. Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told McConnell Tuesday that Democrats would not accept the deal, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) criticized the plan to reprogram the funds.
“Leader Schumer and I have said that we cannot support the offer they made of a billion-dollar slush fund for the president to implement his very wrong immigration policies,” Pelosi said. “So that won’t happen.”
President Donald Trump, clad in a golf shirt and golf hat under a warm South Florida sun, hitting a drive off the tee while Secret Service agents protecting him are forced to work without paychecks, possibly for weeks, because Congress wouldn’t pay for Trump’s “Great Wall.”
Such is the nightmare public relations scenario facing the White House less than a week before the Department of Homeland Security and other key government agencies run out of money at midnight Friday while Trump is scheduled to fly that day to his Mar-a-Lago resort for a 16-day vacation.