Donald Trump sparred with Democrats on Capitol Hill over ways to end the US government shutdown, as the US president invited congressional leaders to the White House on Wednesday for their first meeting since the budgetary stand-off began almost two weeks ago.
After congressional Democrats said they were preparing to “take action to lead our country out of this mess” with a pair of bills this week to allow funding for the country’s federal agencies, Mr Trump lamented that they had not “allocated” any money for a wall on the Mexican border. “So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security,” he said.
US media later reported that Mr Trump was asking congressional leaders to come to the White House on Wednesday for a meeting to resolve the stand-off, though it was unclear whether Democrats would accept.
The US government has been partially closed since December 22, over the border funding issue, leading thousands of federal workers to stay home or work without pay, and shuttering museums and national parks.
The Democratic legislation — shepherded by Nancy Pelosi, the likely speaker of the House of Representatives after lawmakers are sworn in on Thursday — would reopen all federal agencies until the end of September, except for the Department of Homeland Security. That department, responsible for border security, would be funded only to February 8 — without any new money for a wall — offering a five-week window for compromise on the issue.
Mr Trump’s invitation of congressional leaders suggests the US president may be starting to feel some pressure to reach an agreement, though he said it was his political opponents that were feeling the heat.
“Border Security and the Wall ‘thing’ and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?”, he tweeted later on Tuesday.
Ms Pelosi quickly retorted that the US president had given Democrats a “great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly” — and this stand-off was the “first sign of things to come” with the new Democratic majority in the lower chamber of Congress.
The government shutdown prompted Mr Trump to cancel his plans for a two-week stay at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida over the holiday period, and heralds a new period of gridlock and confrontation between the president and Congress this year following the Democratic takeover of the House in the midterm elections. Despite some misgivings among congressional Republicans about Mr Trump and his policies over the past two years, the US president had until now benefited from a benign environment on Capitol Hill.
The shutdown has added to a new phase of turmoil in Washington, amid volatility in financial markets, uncertainty over the fate of looming trade talks with China and drama in US security policy following the resignation of Jim Mattis as defence secretary.
Although the macroeconomic impact of government shutdowns tend to be small, they can begin to bite if they endure as federal employees and government contractors experience delayed payments and consumer and business confidence begins to wane.
Mr Trump’s calculation in refusing to back down on the border wall is that he cannot afford to concede defeat on one of his signature policies just as he begins preparing for his 2020 re-election campaign, in which he will need a strong turnout from his conservative base.
In addition, he may be hoping that the government shutdown could dominate the congressional agenda at a time when Democrats might otherwise prefer to focus on launching their investigation into wrongdoing inside his administration.
But Democrats still believe they have the upper hand in the fight over the shutdown, and their quick moves to tackle the issue are designed to corner Mr Trump, as well as Republican lawmakers in the Senate who are allies of the president.
Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer said that if Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell, the majority leader in the upper chamber, refused to support their legislation, they would be “complicit with President Trump in continuing the Trump shutdown and in holding the health and safety of the American people and workers’ pay cheques hostage over the wall”.
