After President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence wrapped up
separate meetings on border security and the ongoing partial federal
government shutdown on Sunday, Trump offered his strongest endorsement
yet of a proposal to build a steel wall, rather than a concrete barrier,
at the southern border.
Meanwhile, a Democratic source told Fox
News that the Pence-led meeting with bipartisan congressional staff at
the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) near the White House had
accomplished little, and started nearly an hour late because Trump
administration officials were unprepared. Trump called the meeting
"productive" afterward, although he was not in attendance.
The
president framed his new pitch for a steel wall as a concession to
Democrats to move negotiations along, as the shutdown entered its 16th
day. Meanwhile, Democrats published the full text of several spending
bills to reopen the government on Sunday that the White House and Senate
Republicans have long said have no chance of becoming law because they
do not include any funding for a wall of any kind.
"They
don't like concrete, so we'll give them steel," Trump told
reporters after returning to the White House from a meeting with his
advisers at Camp David.
Trump also suggested he would rather wait
until the Supreme Court rules on the legality of his administration's
recission of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
program before negotiating with Democrats on the issue as part of the
talks to end the shutdown.
Several federal judges have held
that the Trump administration's reasons for terminating DACA were
legally insufficient under a federal administrative law statute, which
requires adequate notice and justification before the government
terminates a right it has previously granted.
"I would consider
DACA, but ... I'd rather have the Supreme Court rule, and then work with
the Democrats on DACA,' Trump said. "I want to help with DACA, but ...
you know, it's going to be before the Supreme Court very soon."
At
the sit-down at the EEOB, Pence -- along with Trump adviser and
son-in-law Jared Kushner and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen
Nielsen -- on Sunday discussed a variety of border-security measures
with congressional officials from both parties.
“Democrats were
given what they asked for, which was a detailed, breakdown list of the
administration’s proposals for border security that include the wall and
other border protection measures," a House GOP leadership aide told Fox
News. "Democrats were given the opportunity to ask questions of
Secretary Nielsen and hear DHS’ justification for the specific funding
requests. Their justifications made it abundantly clear why it is
necessary to have this level of funding to effectively secure our
border.”
A Democratic official familiar with the meeting, however,
said "no progress was made" at the Pence sit-down and charged that the
White House was unprepared.
Vice President Mike Pence, left, White House legislative affairs
aide Ja'Ron Smith, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, second
row left, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, and others, walk
down the steps of the Eisenhower Executive Office building, on the White
House complex, after a meeting with staff members of House and Senate
leadership, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex
Brandon)
“The meeting today at 1 p.m. started approximately 45
minutes late because the White House did not have the information
Democrats requested ready," the official told Fox News. "Yesterday,
Democrats asked for a full budget justification for the administration’s
position because the $5.7 billion wall request was not included in the
administration's fiscal year 2019 request and the administration has not
had a consistent position in various conversations with the Hill.
Democratic staff did not receive a full budget justification today.
The Democratic source continued: "Three and a half months into a new
fiscal year, the Administration did not present any commensurate cuts in
the DHS budget to accommodate the increases they are seeking. Given
the failure of the White House to present a full budget justification
today, the Democratic staff pleaded again for the White House to change
course and re-open government by supporting the [bill to fund DHS
through February 8] and the six bill package that the House has passed
and has received broad bipartisan support in the Senate. The Vice
President said the President would not do that."
No further
meetings between Pence and congressional staff are currently planned.
For his part, Pence tweeted only that he was "back at the White House"
Sunday afternoon.
While Pence noted that the president was
"committed to securing the border, building the wall, & working to
reopen our government," he did not characterize the meeting
"productive," as he did on Twitter after a similar get-together with
congressional staff on Saturday.
However, in his own tweet later Sunday afternoon, Trump called Pence's meeting as a step forward.
"V.P.
Mike Pence and group had a productive meeting with the Schumer/Pelosi
representatives today," Trump wrote. "Many details of Border Security
were discussed. We are now planning a Steel Barrier rather than
concrete. It is both stronger & less obtrusive. Good solution, and
made in the U.S.A."
Trump's steel wall proposal was the continuation of a White House strategy that has developed in the past several weeks. Trump first floated the idea of using "artistically designed steel slats" for the wall, rather than concrete, in December.
He
then suggested taking the concrete wall off the table at a Rose Garden
news conference on Friday, as a concession to Democrats. And, acting
White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in an interview on NBC
News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday that Trump "was willing to agree ... to
take a concrete wall off the table" in order to secure a deal to end
the ongoing shutdown.
"We've been in touch with a lot of people,
and I informed my folks to say that we'll build a steel barrier ---
steel -- that it will be made out of steel, that it will be less
obtrusive and it'll be stronger," Trump said. "And we're able to use our
great companies to make it, by using steel."
Some ex-White House officials have suggested Trump abandoned the idea of a concrete wall in the early days of his tenure. In an explosive interview
published shortly before his departure from the Trump administration at
the end of last year, former chief of staff John Kelly told the Los
Angeles Times that the White House had "left a solid concrete wall early
on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and
where they needed it.
People look on from the Mexican side, left, as U.S. Border Patrol
agents on the other side of the U.S. border wall in San Diego prepare
for the arrival of hundreds of pro-migration protestors, seen from
Tijuana, Mexico, Monday, Dec. 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Earlier Sunday, speaking to reporters before he
headed out to Camp David to discuss border security with top advisers,
Trump had predicted that the Pence-run meeting would not lead to any
major developments.
TRUMP POINTS TO OBAMA, HILLARY'S PAST REMARKS TO BOLSTER PUSH FOR BORDER WALL
"I don't expect to have anything to happen at that meeting," Trump said.
Previous
meetings between Democrats and White House officials have been heated:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Nielsen, the DHS secretary, reportedly
got into a tense confrontation on Wednesday in the Situation Room, with
the California Democrat interrupting Nielsen’s presentation on border
security and illegal immigration, telling her, “I reject your facts.”
The
president additionally said he was "totally involved" in shutdown
negotiations and claimed to have "tremendous support within the
Republican Party."
The longest federal government shutdown in U.S.
history lasted 21 days, and Trump has said repeatedly that current one
may last more than a year if Democrats are not willing to fund some of
the wall.
."They don't like concrete, so we'll give them steel."
— President Trump
The
president also reaffirmed that he "may declare a national emergency
dependent on what's going to happen over the next few days" to construct
a border wall, and declared that Republicans and Democrats were "going
to have some very serious talks" beginning on Monday.
However, speaking on "Fox News Sunday,"
Democratic Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline suggested Trump did not
have the authority to declare an emergency to build the border wall.
"I
don’t think the president has that authority -- he would have to meet a
very high standard," Cicilline said. "Article I establishes the
Congress of the United States and gives us the responsibility of
appropriating money, so I don’t think the president has the authority to
do that, and I hope he will try to work with Congress to resolve this
disagreement but open the government first."
The Democrat-led
House last week approved one amalgamated spending bill, addressing six
areas of spending and one measure to fund the Department of Homeland
Security through Feb. 8. The House approved both bills on a bipartisan
basis, but Senate Republicans and the White House have said they were
non-starters without wall money.
A migrant from Honduras pass a child to her father after he jumped
the border fence to get into the U.S. side to San Diego, Calif., from
Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. Discouraged by the long wait to
apply for asylum through official ports of entry, many migrants from
recent caravans are choosing to cross the U.S. border wall and hand
themselves in to border patrol agents. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)
This week, the House is set to start approving
these measures on an individual basis. On Sunday, Democrats posted the
full text of the bills, in keeping with their recent rules change
requiring 72 hours of advanced notice to the public before members vote
on most new legislation.
Fox News has learned the House Rules Committee will meet late Tuesday
afternoon to tee up some of these measures for the floor. The Rules
Committee is the gateway for most legislation to reach the House floor.
The
House is expected to consider the Financial Services and General
Government appropriations bill Wednesday. This measure deals with the
Treasury Department and funds the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
By the end of next week, the House likely will have passed different
versions of all funding bills to re-open the government -- twice.
In
an interview Sunday, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham
warned the shutdown could not end as long as the "radical left" insisted
on calling Republicans racist for supporting immigration officials.
"We’re
negotiating with people who will accuse all of us who support a wall as
part of border security as racists," Graham said on CBS News' "Face the
Nation" on Sunday. "As long as the radical left is in charge, we’re not
going to get anywhere."