Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, warned Monday that negotiators could finish a budget bill by Friday, but only if U.S. President Donald Trump no longer insists on funding to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a joint conference call with reporters Monday, Schumer said Trump’s request for border wall funding “threw a monkey wrench” into budget negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. \u2014 saying that “if the president stepped out of it, we could get a budget done by Friday.”\u00a0
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“Before, parties were negotiating quite well\u00a0\u2014 Leader Pelosi, myself, Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell \u2014 until Donald Trump and the White House threw a monkey wrench into this, with the wall, which is not only unpopular with Democrats but with many Republicans who we’ve heard yesterday,” Schumer said.\u00a0
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With the April 28 deadline to fund the federal government just days away, Pelosi upped the ante, warning that Democrats will not agree to a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open unless a deal is in hand. <\/div>
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“The only justification for any extension, which I would hope we wouldn’t need, would be just to take it to the floor,” Pelosi said.\u00a0
Administration officials were talking tough, as well.\u00a0Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday that Democrats will be to blame if the government shuts down at the end of the week.
<\/div>“It will be the Democrats who shut this government down to block the funding of the wall. That’s what the question is. Are they going to shut the government down?” he said on the television show “Fox & Friends.” <\/div>
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On Sunday, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney refused to rule out a veto if Congress fails to pass Trump’s request, from March, for $1.5 billion to fund the wall. <\/div>
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“We are asking for our priorities,” Mulvaney said on the Fox News show. “[W]hat I would say is that they’re holding hostage national security. Again, something they’ve supported in the recent past when President [Barack] Obama was in the Senate. So we don’t understand why this is breaking down like this.” <\/div>
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Trump tweeted several times over the weekend on the issue, rapping Democrats for fighting the budget wall, “despite the fact that it will stop drugs and very bad MS 13 gang members.”\u00a0