TRS Staff

Christmas has come and gone in Washington, D.C., but the partial government shutdown that is affecting over 800,000 federal employees continues as Congress and the White House remain at a standstill on a deal to reopen the government. As the shutdown enters its sixth day tomorrow, Senators may be called back as soon as Thursday, but there have been no signs that progress has been made since federal funding ran out at midnight on December 21.

President Donald Trump skipped Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and was at the White House fielding questions from reporters about the border wall funding and when the government may eventually be reopened.

“I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open,” President Trump said in the Oval Office. “It’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they like to call it…I’ll call it whatever they want…but it’s all the same thing, it’s a barrier.”

Trump added that a barrier is needed to curb drug and human trafficking and illegal immigration. Nevertheless, he also spoke of construction on the infrastructure that is set to begin in early 2019.

The president said that about 115 miles of wall construction is about to happen in Texas, saying that he will travel there in January to observe. Trump said he will have “500-550 miles” of border wall along the 2,000-mile southern border with Mexico constructed as well, using natural barriers to add to security enhancement in areas where a wall may not be feasible.

“We’ve renovated massive amounts of very good [barrier], [barrier] that was good, but in bad shape,” Trump said as photographers snapped pictures in the Oval Office. Very importantly, we built a lot of wall…the new section is very, very exciting.”

“While we’re fighting over funding, we’re also building,” President Trump added.

Talking about the longevity of the partial shutdown, Trump said to reporters, “Many of those [federal] workers said to me and communicated ‘stay out until you get the funding for the wall.’ These federal workers want the wall, the only one that doesn’t want the wall are the Democrats, because they don’t mind open borders.”

Regardless, congressional Democrats have reiterated that the border wall Trump wants would be too costly, hard to maintain, and ineffective against illegal border crossings. Both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA-12) have reprimanded the commander in chief for the motives to get the wall by dubbing the days of closure in Washington as the “Trump Shutdown.”

With the House or Senate not scheduled to vote on a funding package to reopen the government, Democrats, at least for now, may play the next hand in the saga has they regain the majority on January 3. Even if Pelosi – the presumed speaker of the house – is able to cobble together votes for a bill that could pass a Republican Senate, President Trump may still refuse to sign it if it does not contain funding for the wall – which could be the last time he has to get it.

The pre-Christmas government shutdown is looking a bit more likely after Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (WI-1) announced around 1:00 p.m. that President Donald Trump “will not sign” the funding measure to keep the government open over the lack of dedicated funding to the border wall. This afternoon, Trump met with House GOP leaders at the White House to discuss funding measures as money will run out tomorrow at midnight, but said he will refuse to accept a stop-gap measure, which has already passed the Senate.

On Twitter hours ago, President Trump said that when he “begrudgingly signed the [$1.3 trillion] Omnibus Bill” in late March, he “was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership…It didn’t happen!”

The battle over the border wall was elevated during a raucous meeting in the Oval Office last week with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA-12). President Trump reiterated to the two congressional leaders his request for $5 billion in funding for national security interests, namely the construction of the long-awaited campaign promise of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

After waning on his position to shut down the federal government this week, Trump faced criticism from conservative lawmakers in Washington who warned of the potential backlash from the Republican voting base if he does not deliver on one of his most-touted agenda items.

Currently, some of the only evidence of parts of Trump’s barrier is what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) calls “120 miles of 30-foot-tall steel bollard fencing ‘in areas most needed by the Border Patrol,” which is reported to “be finished and under construction by the end of the current fiscal year,” according to a press release.

As the Democrats are set to regain the majority in the House in just over two weeks, it will be the last time Trump may have a chance to secure authorization for funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall. If not, President Trump must win a second term in the White House and the incoming GOP minority must reclaim the lower chamber of Congress.

Regardless, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has explained that the Trump Administration is looking into other departments to carry out the work and alternative funding options. The $1.6 billion on the table for border security cannot be used for new wall construction, only for border fence improvements.

Since Speaker Ryan relayed to the President that the votes “aren’t there” in the GOP-controlled House, Trump has alluded to having the U.S. military build the wall, which could face significant pushback from the public and Congress.