President Donald Trump said even though he was not thrilled with the tentative agreement between Democrats and Republicans in Congress to prevent another partial government shutdown, he was happy since "we're building a lot of wall," according to The Washington Post.
Trump told reporters he was "thrilled" about the direction of his long-promised border wall and claimed he would be able to alter the deal by“supplementing things and moving things around" to take funding from "far less important areas."
Trump has been demanding more than $5.7 billion in funding to erect a barrier between the U.S.-Mexico border, but both Trump and the GOP are trying to avoid another costly government shutdown.
The most recent shutdown was the longest in U.S. history after more than 800,000 federal government workers were left without paychecks for 35 days, which sent Trump's approval ratings down.
A committee currently negotiating the new border security measures agreed on Monday to spend $1.4 billion to Trump's border wall in the funding measure which would keep several federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, open through Sept. 30.
White House Spokesman Hogan Gidley said it's difficult to say what will end up being considered acceptable in the funding measure that still has to be approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate in order to receive Trump's signature.
Trump said he doesn't believe there will be another government shutdown but said: “I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled,” but “the wall’s getting built.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed the negotiations were a victory for Republicans after Democrats made some concessions about funding the border and a fight over the number of beds allocated for ICE's campaign to arrest and detain immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
But analysts said the deal was the same Trump could have gotten in December, before the disastrous shutdown.
Details of the plan may not be released until Wednesday, but the panel was working to try and push the measure through before the deadline on Friday.
“With the government being shut down, the specter of another shutdown this close, what brought us back together I thought tonight was we didn’t want that to happen," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL).
When asked if Trump would support the deal, Shelby replied: “We believe from our dealings with them and the latitude they’ve given us, they will support it. We certainly hope so.”
Trump aides have still been discussing using executive action in order to access more money to build the wall without Congressional approval, even if Trump does support the compromise.
“We’ll take as much money as you can give us, and then we will go off and find the money someplace else - legally - in order to secure that southern barrier,” acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told Fox News last Friday.
Trump's supporters have been calling for him to use his executive powers to provide funding for the wall construction.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / Ross D. Franklin
