Trump, Dems dig in over shutdown

President Trump is digging in ahead of the deadline for a partial government shutdown that looks more likely with each passing day.

No signs of a possible compromise emerged from the White House Monday as Trump attacked Democrats for being weak on border security.

Republican lawmakers are in a dismal mood, believing their party will get blamed for the shutdown. But Trump showed little sign of being worried.

{mosads}“Anytime you hear a Democrat saying that you can have good Border Security without a Wall, write them off as just another politician following the party line. Time for us to save billions of dollars a year and have, at the same time, far greater safety and control!” he tweeted Monday morning. 

The comments followed a television appearance by senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, who said on Sunday that Trump is “absolutely” willing to allow parts of the government to shut down unless Democrats agree to $5 billion in funding for his proposed border wall.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) on Monday afternoon said that he and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) have yet to hear a response from Trump on their offer to freeze funding for border fencing at $1.3 billion, the amount Congress appropriated for fiscal 2018. 

“Unfortunately since our meeting last Tuesday, Leader Pelosi and I have still not heard from the White House whether they will accept either of these options,” Schumer said from the Senate floor. “Nor have we even heard from our Republican colleagues in the Senate or House about what they might support to avoid a shutdown. Not a peep. They’re nowhere to be found.”

“What’s the Republicans’ plan? They don’t have one, they don’t know what to do,” Schumer added. “In the scuttlebutt, where we talk to one another, Senate Republican leadership has no idea what President Trump wants. Neither does House Republican leadership.”

The lack of a clear path forward is adding to uncertainty in financial markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 500 points Monday, setting a new low for the year. 

Senate GOP leaders emerged from a meeting in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office Monday evening and said they are still waiting on Trump for a plan on how to move forward. 

“I think it will all work out but I don’t know of any specific plan yet,” Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas) told reporters.

Last week, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) floated the idea of a short-term stopgap funding measure to keep government agencies operating until either after Christmas or after New Year’s Day. He also floated the idea of a short-term funding bill lasting until the end of January. 

But GOP leaders don’t know if Trump will sign such an emergency measure. 

“I don’t know if the president would accept that and he would have to sign it or it would have to be passed over his veto,” Cornyn added. 

Senate Republicans say they do not plan on moving a stopgap funding bill before the House takes action — at least not yet. 

Spending bills traditionally begin in the House and the GOP-controlled lower chamber is not scheduled to be back in session until Wednesday evening. 

House Republican leaders aren’t sure they have the votes to pass a funding bill that would provide $5 billion for border fencing and barriers. Their vote-counting also faces the additional challenge of absent members. It’s unclear how many House Republicans will be showing up in Washington this week. House Republicans who lost their races last month also lost their office space on Capitol Hill.

A Senate Republican who attended Monday’s meeting in McConnell’s office predicted that Trump will string out the border standoff until the end of the week. 

“I think he’s playing this game until the end because he thinks that will give him a better hand. He’ll build pressure tomorrow, the next day, Thursday, then at some point there’s going to be a decision,” the source said. 

The GOP lawmaker predicted that if a breakthrough fails to happen by week’s end, Congress could pass an emergency continuing resolution, also known as a CR, to keep the federal agencies operating. 

Senate Republicans are hoping that Trump and Schumer can agree to a number between the $5 billion requested by the president and the $1.3 billion offered by Democrats. 

“We may be at such loggerheads really between Pelosi and the president … that we may have to end up with a CR. And that CR would have funding between now and the end of the [fiscal] year for some border security — more than what they want but less than what the president is asking for — and then he might figure out a way through executive order to supplement some of that,” the source added.  

Democrats feel confident that Trump will own the shutdown after he proclaimed at a White House meeting last week that he would take the “mantle.”

“Going along with the Trump shutdown is a futile act. When Democrats take control of the House on Jan. 3, they will pass one of our two options to fund the government. Then Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans will be left holding the bag for a Trump shutdown,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

“The onus for reopening the government will wind up on their lap,” Schumer said of his Senate GOP colleagues. “I don’t think they do want it but they are just so fearful of departing from President Trump.”

Jordain Carney contributed.