Trump says government shutdown could last ‘months’

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders and President Donald Trump appeared no closer to a deal to reopen the government Friday following a White House meeting that Democrats said ended with a presidential threat to keep federal offices shuttered for “months or even years.”

Trump, though, characterized the meeting as “productive” and said negotiations would continue over the weekend to reach consensus on his demand for $5 billion in border wall funding that has been the focus of the impasse that forced the 14-day-old partial shutdown.

“We’re talking about national security,” Trump claimed during a Rose Garden news conference, where he mentioned terrorism as well as domestic issues issues like crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, as well as gangs, illegal drugs and human trafficking.

Trump also suggested that a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border could be constructed with steel, which he said would likely cost more but add a U.S. economic benefit to building a barrier.

The president’s positive portrayal of the meeting was in stark contrast to that of Democrats leaving the White House, who said the president refused to budge on his wall funding demand and threatened to keep the government shuttered for a long time to come.

“We told the president we needed the government open. He resisted. In fact, he said he’d keep the government closed for a very long period of time. Months or even years,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., immediately following the meeting.

Trump admitted to reporters later, “I absolutely said that.”

House Democrats rammed through legislation late Thursday on a mostly party-line vote, with several Republicans joining, that would fund remaining federal departments for the end of the 2019 fiscal year.

One bill passed would give negotiators until Feb. 8 to agree on the budget for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes border security.

No money for a border wall

But the bills do not include funds for a border wall, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-N.Y., called immoral and cost-ineffective.

“We’re not doing a wall,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday before the votes.

The shutdown has forced roughly 800,000 federal workers to stay home or work without pay, including several thousand in Nevada.

The first paycheck those federal workers will miss will be on Jan. 11, forcing some to tell various news outlets of hardship in paying mortgages, rent or family expenses.

Members of Nevada’s congressional delegation all voiced empathy with the plight of federal workers, but they aligned with party leaders on moving forward with legislation addressing border security to reopen the government.

Rep. Mark Amodei, the lone Republican in the delegation, voted against the House bills to reopen the government, calling them “messaging tactics” by the Democrats.

“There are problems, and they need to be resolved,” Amodei said, “not ‘won’ in the political arena.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he will not bring to the floor any legislation that the House and Senate will not pass and the president will not sign, making the House-passed bills this week dead on arrival.

But the shutdown places more pressure on the Senate to act, and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., urged McConnell to bring up the bills passed by the House, which were previously passed once before in the Senate, and reopen federal departments not involved in the border wall skirmish.

Cortez Masto, who also leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said McConnell must “stop allowing President Trump to take our government hostage.”

Unease among some Republicans

After two weeks of shutdown, Republican senators up for re-election in 2020 showed unease with the continuing closure of federal departments and agencies.

Two Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, have said they favor opening the government while border wall negotiations continue.

Vice President Mike Pence was appointed by Trump to continue negotiations with congressional leaders over the weekend. But with the Senate and House out until Monday, there is no likelihood of a quick resolution.

Meanwhile, several Nevada lawmakers have said they would not take a paycheck while the government remains in a partial shutdown. Cortez Masto, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., are forgoing pay until the government reopens.

Rosen said she was donating her pay to victims of domestic violence while the shutdown is ongoing.

“It’s affecting families all across Nevada,” Rosen said of the shutdown.

Lee said it’s wrong that thousands of federal workers in Nevada and her Henderson-based congressional district “don’t know when their next paycheck will come.”

“So, as this shutdown continues, I will not take a paycheck, and will continue to refuse my pay until the hardworking men and women across the country get theirs,” Lee said.

Trump and congressional leaders began last year with a shutdown forced by Democrats on behalf of immigrant children after the president ended the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program that began under the Obama administration and protected DREAMers from deportation.

The short shutdown ended with an agreement for additional talks. The program has been left intact as a challenge to Trump’s decision to end it wends its way through federal court.

While lawmakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a presidential ally and supporter of DACA legislation, suggest the president would entertain a border deal with legislation to protect DREAMers, other Republicans and Democrats alike say it’s not in the cards.

Cortez Masto said recently that the president reneged once on promises to lawmakers about DACA, and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., the House assistant Democratic leader, said the DREAMers were not part of a solution on border wall funding.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.