No One Is Listening.
Congress tunes out Trump’s border wall threats!
Several House GOP negotiators next week plan to visit the border in Texas as hopes for a deal fade.
President Donald Trump is doing all he can to blow up border security spending talks. But few people on Capitol Hill are listening.
Lawmakers and aides from both parties are plowing ahead with negotiations this weekend, ignoring Trump’s growing public disgust for a closed-door process that is increasingly unlikely to deliver a border wall.
The group can reach a deal to stave off another shutdown, several lawmakers and aides said, if only the president would butt out.
“With all due respect to the president, I really have stopped now listening to what he says,” Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, one of the Democratic members of the conference committee, said in an interview Friday. “The things that the president says [are] not helpful to the process. It’s not respectful to our efforts.”
In the past two days, Trump has repeatedly trashed the bipartisan committee tasked with reaching a border security deal and hinted he’s likely to circumvent Congress and build his border wall, anyway.
Trump called the talks a “waste of time” on Friday, repeating his dismissive assessment of the committee he made in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday. The president has also insisted he may not even bother to read what lawmakers come up with “if they don’t have a wall.”
At the same time, Trump has become more direct about his plans to declare a national emergency that he argues will allow him to build a wall unilaterally. “I think there's a good chance we will have to do that,” the president told reporters Friday.
Publicly, some Republicans on the conference committee are siding with the president, accusing Democrats of already sinking the talks by ruling out any border wall funding, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi did on Thursday.
Rep. Tom Graves, a Georgia Republican who is close with leadership and sits on the conference committee, said he was more pessimistic about reaching a deal by Feb. 15, the next government shutdown deadline.
“I understand the president’s cynicism,” Graves said in an interview Friday, arguing that Democrats’ formal proposal this week seemed designed to taunt Republicans by not providing additional dollars for physical barriers.
“Whatever product — if there is a product, and I’m hopeful there will be — needs to be one that the House GOP conference can embrace, and that the president can sign. Otherwise, it’s a futile effort,” Graves said.
In an attempt to bridge the gap, several House GOP negotiators have planned their own trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas next week, according to multiple aides. Cuellar, whose district will be part of the visit, has agreed to meet the group for a tour along the border, though Democrats are largely dismissing the trip as a photo op.
Lawmakers on both sides concede the timeline they’re working under is extremely tight. In order to have a bill to the president to keep the government open by the current deadline, the committee would likely have to finalize an agreement by next Friday, Feb. 8, giving it enough time to move through both the House and the Senate.
Democratic negotiators, however, insist that White House interference isn’t yet darkening the mood of the group tasked with formulating a spending plan. They argue most lawmakers and aides couldn't care less what Trump tweeted.
The 17 Republicans and Democrats on the committee are clear that they agree on the majority of issues, from beefing up scanning technology at ports of entry to hiring more agents to stem the flow of illegal drugs.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/01/con...ks-1143866
Congress tunes out Trump’s border wall threats!
Several House GOP negotiators next week plan to visit the border in Texas as hopes for a deal fade.
President Donald Trump is doing all he can to blow up border security spending talks. But few people on Capitol Hill are listening.
Lawmakers and aides from both parties are plowing ahead with negotiations this weekend, ignoring Trump’s growing public disgust for a closed-door process that is increasingly unlikely to deliver a border wall.
The group can reach a deal to stave off another shutdown, several lawmakers and aides said, if only the president would butt out.
“With all due respect to the president, I really have stopped now listening to what he says,” Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, one of the Democratic members of the conference committee, said in an interview Friday. “The things that the president says [are] not helpful to the process. It’s not respectful to our efforts.”
In the past two days, Trump has repeatedly trashed the bipartisan committee tasked with reaching a border security deal and hinted he’s likely to circumvent Congress and build his border wall, anyway.
Trump called the talks a “waste of time” on Friday, repeating his dismissive assessment of the committee he made in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday. The president has also insisted he may not even bother to read what lawmakers come up with “if they don’t have a wall.”
At the same time, Trump has become more direct about his plans to declare a national emergency that he argues will allow him to build a wall unilaterally. “I think there's a good chance we will have to do that,” the president told reporters Friday.
Publicly, some Republicans on the conference committee are siding with the president, accusing Democrats of already sinking the talks by ruling out any border wall funding, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi did on Thursday.
Rep. Tom Graves, a Georgia Republican who is close with leadership and sits on the conference committee, said he was more pessimistic about reaching a deal by Feb. 15, the next government shutdown deadline.
“I understand the president’s cynicism,” Graves said in an interview Friday, arguing that Democrats’ formal proposal this week seemed designed to taunt Republicans by not providing additional dollars for physical barriers.
“Whatever product — if there is a product, and I’m hopeful there will be — needs to be one that the House GOP conference can embrace, and that the president can sign. Otherwise, it’s a futile effort,” Graves said.
In an attempt to bridge the gap, several House GOP negotiators have planned their own trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas next week, according to multiple aides. Cuellar, whose district will be part of the visit, has agreed to meet the group for a tour along the border, though Democrats are largely dismissing the trip as a photo op.
Lawmakers on both sides concede the timeline they’re working under is extremely tight. In order to have a bill to the president to keep the government open by the current deadline, the committee would likely have to finalize an agreement by next Friday, Feb. 8, giving it enough time to move through both the House and the Senate.
Democratic negotiators, however, insist that White House interference isn’t yet darkening the mood of the group tasked with formulating a spending plan. They argue most lawmakers and aides couldn't care less what Trump tweeted.
The 17 Republicans and Democrats on the committee are clear that they agree on the majority of issues, from beefing up scanning technology at ports of entry to hiring more agents to stem the flow of illegal drugs.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/01/con...ks-1143866
