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Government Shutdown
Government shutdown
This timetable of the day leading to the government shutdown was provided to CBS News by a person familiar with the negotiations.
At about 10:45 a.m. Friday, President Trump called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and they had a good, positive conversation about preventing a government shutdown. Both at this point believed they were not far apart, and neither wanted to see a shutdown.
The two also wanted to work toward a big deal. Schumer suggested that Republican leaders would not move without the president’s backing, which Mr. Trump acknowledged.
They agreed to meet to talk about a deal. Schumer had lunch with the president at the White House, in the small dining room off the Oval Office. He said later that they had had a long and substantive discussion, a good meeting — one in which he had even put a border wall funding request on the table, which has been anathema to Democrats. This went beyond what was contained in the Durbin-Graham compromise. Schumer also agreed to the full Defense Authorization budget and expenditures, which was far above the White House request.
Schumer recommended a brief continuing resolution to fund the government for just a few days, and the president agreed that this was a good idea.
The president said he would talk to Republicans and they’d continue their discussions in the afternoon. Then, a few hours later, the president called Schumer and said that he heard that congressional Democrats and Republicans had agreed on a three-week continuing resolution.
Schumer told the president that it was the first he had heard of that timeframe, and he told the president it couldn’t be done. The president said he thought there was already an agreement, even though he had favored the brief continuing resolution he and Schumer had discussed at lunch. He then instructed Schumer to work it out with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Later, the president called Schumer again and reviewed the objections of his chief of staff, John Kelly, and Congressional Republicans to portions of their immigration discussion. They agreed to keep working.
In the afternoon, Schumer also spoke on the phone with McConnell, who told Schumer that he needed to work it out with the president.
After that, Kelly called Schumer later and complained that the outline that Schumer and President Trump had discussed was too liberal. Even discussion of the full border request would not be enough to keep the president negotiating with Democrats.
Though discussions on the Senate floor wore on through the night, the parties could not come to an agreement. There were, however, Democrats who sided with the Republicans in supporting the spending bill, and Republicans who sided with Democrats in opposing it. The bill required a 3/5 majority — 60 votes — and it failed 50-49.
In a statement after midnight, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders accused Schumer and Senate Democrats of putting politics “above national security, military families, vulnerable children and our country’s ability to serve all Americans.” She went on to say, “We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands. This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators.”
McConnell echoed the White House sentiment, referring to the shutdown as a “cynical decision by Senate Democrats to shove aside millions of Americans for the sake of irresponsible political games.”
AP
