PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP doesn’t think Congress will reach a deal that he could accept to open the government long-term, telling The Wall Street Journal that another shutdown is “certainly an option.”
Thousands of furloughed federal workers were set to return to work on Monday after Trump agreed to end the 35-day partial government shutdown for three weeks while congressional negotiators debate border security and funding for the president’s promised border wall. But the odds a bipartisan committee reaches that deal, the president mused, aren’t high.
“I personally think it’s less than 50-50, but you have a lot of very good people on that board,” Trump told the Journal in an interview Sunday.
The temporary spending bill signed by Trump on Friday sent some 800,000 government workers who were furloughed or working without pay back to work, providing temporary relief for some individuals and families who said they were already living paycheck to paycheck. The agreement, though, only funds shuttered agencies until Feb. 15.
Trump said he doubted if he would accept less than his requested $5.7 billion in funding for the wall in the next round of negotiations, telling the Journal: “I have to do it right.” The president also told the paper he was skeptical about any agreement that would trade wall money for a broader immigration policy change.
Asked if he would agree to citizenship for immigrants who were illegally brought into the U.S. as children, Trump again said: “I doubt it.”
The president pledged in the interview to build a barrier at the border despite whether lawmakers could reach a deal and said he’d use his executive powers to declare a national emergency if needed, according to the Journal. Trump has threatened to declare the border a “national emergency” and use federal funds to build a wall without congressional approval. That decision would likely lead to lengthy legal challenges.
On Sunday, Trump doubled down on his demand for a wall, tweeting: “BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!”