'They want a Shutdown!' Trump claims after Democrats' bad week they will close government so they will have a 'new subject'
- President Trump claimed Democrats are going to shutdown the government again because they want a 'new subject' in the wake of their bad week
- The president was laying groundwork to blame Democrats should there be a second government shutdown on Friday
- 'I actually believe they want a Shutdown. They want a new subject!,' he tweeted
- The president spent part of his Sunday morning tweeting new arguments for his border wall ahead of his trip to El Paso on Monday
- Friday is the deadline for a border security deal to keep a second government shutdown from happening
- Reports indicate talks are at an impasse
- 'The government shutdown is technically still on the table,' acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told 'Fox News Sunday'
President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed Democrats are going to shutdown the government again because they want a 'new subject' in the wake of their bad week.
'It was a very bad week for the Democrats, with the GREAT economic numbers, The Virginia disaster and the State of the Union address. Now, with the terrible offers being made by them to the Border Committee, I actually believe they want a Shutdown. They want a new subject!,' he tweeted.
Trump slammed Democrats over the political explosion they're facing in Virginia, which saw the party's top three leaders engulfed in career-ending scandals, as he touted his own State of the Union address and the strong U.S. economy.
President Donald Trump claimed Democrats are going to shutdown the government again because they want a 'new subject' in the wake of their bad week
The president was laying groundwork to blame Democrats should there be a second government shutdown on Friday
The president spent part of his Sunday morning tweeting new arguments for his border wall ahead of his trip to El Paso on Monday and laying the ground work to blame Democrats should there be a second government shutdown on Friday.
'I don't think the Dems on the Border Committee are being allowed by their leaders to make a deal. They are offering very little money for the desperately needed Border Wall & now, out of the blue, want a cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention!,' he wrote on Twitter Sunday morning.
His latest round of tweets comes amid reports talks have broken down to prevent a second government shutdown ahead of Friday's deadline.
'The government shutdown is technically still on the table,' acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told 'Fox News Sunday.'
A group of bipartisan lawmakers are in talks on a border security deal that would prevent a second shutdown from happen. They are said to be trying to find a number between $1.3 billion and $2 billion that would be acceptable to both sides - the full funding Trump wants versus the $1.3 billion Democrats were originally willing to spend.
Trump alleged Democrats want to make a deal but leadership won't let them and he blamed them for wanting a 'cap on convicted violent felons to be held in detention.'
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Democrats are trying to limit the number of detention beds that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would have access to as a way to limit aggressive detention activities by ICE.
'To enhance national security and encourage more efficient immigration enforcement, Democrats have proposed a cap on the number of ICE detention beds associated with interior enforcement. This cap will force the Trump administration to prioritize arresting and deporting serious criminals, not law-abiding immigrants,' a House Democratic aide said of the party's demand.
This demand to cap the number of beds led to the impasse in the talks, The Washington Post reported.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said the president will not sign legislation that caps the number of beds.
'I promise you this. Donald Trump is not going to sign any bill that reduces the number of bed spaces available to hold violent offenders who come across our border. He can't do that. He won't do that. And you can you can take that to the bank. I think,' he said on Fox News Channel's 'Sunday Morning Futures.'
Mulvaney blamed Democrats for the chaos surrounding the talks.
'It's all over the map, and I think it's all over the map because of the Democrats,' Mulvaney said on 'Meet the Press' of the talks.
'You absolutely cannot,' he said of ruling out a second government shutdown.
He also declined to say for certain whether Trump would sign the compromise legislation.
'There's going to be a lot of different moving pieces so I'm not in a position to say the president will absolutely sign or will not sign. Here's what we do know, the president has to sign a piece of legislation in order to keep the government open. He cannot sign anything that they put in - cannot sign everything they put in front of him. If there will be some things that simply we couldn't agree to,' he said on 'Fox News Sunday.'
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in appearances on 'Fox News Sunday' (left) and 'Meet the Press' (right), said Trump can find the rest of his border wall funding else where in the government coffers
But, he noted, the president will get his border wall one way or another.
In appearances on both 'Fox News Sunday' and 'Meet the Press,' Mulvaney said Trump can find the rest of his border wall funding else where in the government coffers
'The president is going to build the wall,' Mulvaney said on 'Fox News Sunday.' 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. But this is going to get built with or without Congress.'
He said that doesn't necessarily mean the president will declare a national emergency to get the full $5.7 billion.
'There are certain funds of money he can get to without declaring a national emergency, and other funds that he can only get to after declaring a national emergency,' Mulvaney noted.
'How much good to get without declaring?,' Fox News anchor Chris Wallace asked him.
'That remains to be seen. Let’s talk about the whole pot. The whole pot is well north of $5.7 billion,' he responded.
Mulvaney noted: 'There are other funds of money that are available to him through what we call reprogramming. There is money that he can get at and is legally allowed to spend. And I think it needs to be said again and again: all of this is going to be legal. There are statutes on the books as to how any president can do this.'
He noted on 'Meet the Press' that if Democrats met the president in the middle on the money, Trump would likely sign the legislation to keep the government open and get the rest of the funds elsewhere.
'You cannot take a shutdown off the table and you cannot take $5.7 [billion] off the table. But if you end up someplace in the middle, yeah, then what you'll probably see is the president say, "Yeah, okay. And then I'll go find the money someplace else,"' Mulvaney said.
There is growing concern the talks among lawmakers may not come up with a fruitful solution.
The 17 lawmakers on the bipartisan, bicameral border security negotiation team had given themselves an informal deadline of Monday to have a proposal completed, in order to give it time to work its way through the legislative process and to Trump's desk.
But an aide familiar with the talks told The New York Times the lawmakers have stopped talking.
The president spent part of his Sunday morning tweeting new arguments for his border wall ahead of his trip to El Paso on Monday
He's complained about Democratic negotiators working on a deal to keep the government open
'I think the talks are stalled right now,' Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, the lead Republican negotiator in the talks, told 'Fox News Sunday.'
'I’m not confident were going to get there. I’m hoping we will get there,' he said of Friday's deadline.
Also on Sunday, Trump tweeted a claim that Gallup found open borders would 'potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans' to tout the need for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
'Gallup Poll: 'Open Borders will potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans.' This would be a disaster for the U.S. We need the Wall now!,' he wrote on Twitter.
Gallup, in a post this past Friday, offered a detailed breakdown of its finding on a poll it conducted in Latin America.
Gallup asked the whole population of Latin America - roughly 450 million adults: 'Would you like to move to another country permanently if you could?'
And 27 percent told them 'yes.' Asked where they'd like to move, 35 percent of those named the United States.
So Gallup estimated that 42 million Latin Americans want to come to America.
'This suggests that open borders could potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans. A full 5 million who are planning to move in the next 12 months say they are moving to the U.S,' Chairman and CEO of Gallup Jim Clifton wrote in an opinion piece on the website.
'The government shutdown is technically still on the table,' acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told 'Fox News Sunday'
Trump is arguing for his wall ahead of Friday's deadline to prevent a shutdown
Trump used those numbers as part of his latest push for his $5.7 billion border wall as his acting chief of staff admitted a second shutdown could happen.
If negotiators don't come to a deal and if the president won't doesn't sign the legislation, the Homeland Security Department and other agencies will shut down on February 15.
The departments are operating off of a short-term spending bill Trump signed on January 25, when he ended the nation's longest ever government shutdown after 35 days.
President Trump is scheduled to travel to El Paso, Texas, for a rally Monday night where he is expected to double down on his argument for a wall, a stance that led to the first government shutdown.
Democrats have been firm in their refusal to fund it.
