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McConnell to Trump: I too like the wall

By BURGESS EVERETT

Mitch McConnell wants Donald Trump to know this: He’s got the president’s back on funding the border wall, even if it might have to wait until after the election.

As Trump said Tuesday that he doesn’t “care what the political ramifications are” of forcing a government shutdown over border wall funding, the Senate majority leader continued to try and impress upon Trump that Senate Republicans are willing to fight for the border wall. But he made clear that the Senate is going to continue its work on less controversial spending bills in the hopes of passing as many of the 12 annual funding bills as possible before the Sept. 30 deadline.

“I support what the president is trying to do on the wall. Most of my members do as well,” McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters. “We’re going to continue to discuss it with him and hope that this process can achieve what he would like to achieve on the wall and also get these appropriations bills signed into law which is quite different than what’s happened in the past.”

Trump, of course, loathed the massive omnibus spending bill passed earlier in the year that delivered just a small amount of border security funding. But though Congress is working to avoid a catch-all bill at the end of the year, McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are aiming to leave the border fight until after the November midterms.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is waging an uphill battle to take back the Senate majority, suggested that Republicans could be punished in the midterms by voters if they fail to fund the government and don’t overrule Trump's border wall push.

“Usually the person that loses the shutdown is the person who caused it. And Donald Trump is making no bones about it, that he might think of causing it,” said Schumer, whose own party forced a brief shutdown over immigration earlier this year. “I would hope my Republican colleagues have the strength to resist the president’s interference,”

Last week, Trump, Ryan and McConnell met privately and discussed the House and Senate’s approach. People briefed on the meeting said that Trump seemed to agree that putting off the border fight until next year makes sense.

But on Tuesday he lashed out at the idea that he’s willing to wait for the wall.

“I don’t care what the political ramifications are, our immigration laws and border security have been a complete and total disaster for decades, and there is no way that the Democrats will allow it to be fixed without a Government Shutdown,” Trump tweeted. “A Government Shutdown is a very small price to pay for a safe and Prosperous America!”

Asked directly about Trump’s tweet, McConnell demurred: “I’m hoping we’re going to be able to resolve this issue. We know it’s important to him.”

Under the current plan of congressional leaders, Republicans would work to fund the majority of the government through spending bill packages in September. Whatever is not completed by Sept. 30 would then be funded through the election via a stopgap spending bill.

Funding the Department of Homeland Security would likely not come to the Senate floor and instead be patched into late November or December due to intractable partisan differences over wall funding. The House is planning to provide $5 billion for Trump’s wall, but the Senate is angling to give Trump $1.6 billion. In the Senate, spending bills will require the support of at least nine Democrats this fall.