No real progress over the holiday, at least before New Year’s Eve, towards any deal to end the shutdown; but house democrats have submitted two bills which they say they’ll be ready to vote on when they are back in session Thursday.
President Trump continuing to feud with democrats over funding for a border wall. The two sides still at a stalemate on the sticking point that would end the shutdown.
The president telling Fox News, “I’m in Washington. I’m ready, willing and able, I’m in the White House, I’m ready to go. They can come over right now. We are not giving up. We have to have border security, and a wall is a big part of border security, the biggest part.”
So house democrats released a plan on Monday to fund and re-open the government preparing two bills. The first bill would include year-long funding for all government agencies currently closed except the Department of Homeland Security. The second would reopen and fund DHS, but only until February 8th.
Neither house bill includes funding for a border wall. The DHS bill keeping border security funding at it’s current $1.3 billion.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had indicated over the weekend the president might be open to negotiating.
“I think he is receptive to making a deal if it achieves his goals of securing our border, and I think we can get there if we start talking to each other,” Graham said.
But President Trump indicated he would not be likely to support the house bills, tweeting New Year’s Eve that “the democrats will probably submit a bill “being cute as always” that would give nothing to border security.”
The Democrats will probably submit a Bill, being cute as always, which gives everything away but gives NOTHING to Border Security, namely the Wall. You see, without the Wall there can be no Border Security – the Tech “stuff” is just, by comparison, meaningless bells & whistles…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s office also releasing a statement saying: “It’s simple. The Senate is not going to send something to the President that he won’t sign.”
Meanwhile federal workers are now suing the administration over the shutdown. One of the largest unions representing federal workers has hired a D.C. law firm to protest an estimated 420,000 government employees being required to work without pay.