By Denny Gulino
CAPITOL HILL (MaceNews) – Amid the mostly empty hallways on Capitol Hill, a growing expectation Tuesday afternoon that the White House will soon signal the government shutdown threatened for Friday midnight won’t happen after all.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the White House in the regular afternoon news briefing that while waiting for the Senate to vote on budget appropriations, “In the meantime we’re looking at other areas where we can draw money from to make sure the president can actually protect our border, protect American citizens.”
Her comments stopped well short of acknowledging the wall funding won’t be forthcoming any time soon, if ever. Nor did they clarify her morning response to Fox News that had seemed to suggest the White House is ready to withdraw its threat to veto any measure than did not include $5 billion for the Mexico border wall.
Yet her morning comments leaned in the direction of not going through with the partial shutdown. “At the end of the day, we don’t want to shut down the government,” Sanders had said on Fox, “We want to shut down the border from illegal immigration.”
The House of Representatives returns to Washington Wednesday, ready to vote on whatever the Senate comes up with. However there is no sign that Senate leaders see a way out of the impasse in which there are not enough votes to give Trump the wall money he wants.
“We want to see what the Senate can pass. Sanders said in the afternoon White House briefing. “We’re disappointed in the process and their inability to put something forward. Once they make a decision and they put something on the table we’ll make a determination” whether to veto it.
Some congressional leaders, for their part, have indicated they are disappointed they are not getting more definitive – and realistic – guidance from the White House.
That Sanders has said the White House is looking for other sources of funding for the wall, however, at least raises the possibility that instead of a veto, the president would sign a continuing resolution that postpones the deadline on the 2019 budget. Democrats have signaled an increasing willingness to accept such a short-term solution.
Sanders repeated that the White House is holding “constant, regular conversations” with Hill leaders though there was scant evidence of that and Senate Majority Leader McConnell reportedly said Trump is now “flexible.”
McConnell and Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer had been in a morning meeting together, after which they immediately disagreed on some of what they talked about.
One of the underlying assumptions ever since Trump last week said he would be “proud” to veto any measure that would keep the government open has been that he would be extremely reluctant to delay his scheduled departure Friday for his Mar a Lago resort, the beginning of a 16-day Christmas-New Year holiday.
That would keep him out of Washington until January 6, three days after the new congressional session begins, this time with a Democratic House and then nearly nonexistent prospects for congressional authorized wall funding.
It remains to be seen exactly how Trump would be able to ultimately claim a face-saving victory on wall funding when Democrats are intent on not giving it to him and Republicans alone are unable to. One avenue could be agreement on a Department of Homeland Security appropriations measure that he could construe to include the $5 billion he wants for a Mexican border wall.
Sanders repeated the president’s assertion that Mexico, not U.S. taxpayers, will ultimately be paying for the wall “four times over” with revenues somehow generated by the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal that would replace NAFTA – if Congress approves.
At stake are the next paychecks for the government staff of the Homeland Security offices around the country, including those at the border, as well as for those at the Departments of State, Justice, Agriculture, Transportation and Interior – necessary to keep national parks open. Still, about three quarters of the government is already funded and would remain operating.
Despite not getting paid until Congress reimburses them sometime in the future, many of the government employees would be forced to keep working past midnight Friday. The government’s Office of Personnel Management is expected to soon issue a directive on how government offices should prepare for any shutdown.