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December 11, 2018

Shit Show! Orangutan's love to throw shit....

Trump threatens to shut down the government as he argues with Pelosi and Schumer in front of cameras

By SARAH FERRIS, BURGESS EVERETT and CAITLIN OPRYSKO

Update: President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to shut down large parts of the federal government over funding for his proposed border wall, openly quarreling with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in an extraordinary exchange that unfolded before the press in the Oval Office.

Trump has railed against congressional Democrats for refusing to agree to his demand for $5 billion for a border wall, but on Tuesday he asserted that "one way or another it is going to be built" and that he would have "no other choice" but to shut down the government if he doesn't get enough funding for the wall.

"I am proud to shut down the government for border security," Trump said.

This story will be updated.

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Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill say they won’t budge on President Trump’s border wall funding just ahead of Tuesday's Oval Office meeting that could determine if the government shuts down.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told her caucus Tuesday morning that she and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer plan to pitch two funding options to Trump — neither of which would deliver a funding boost for the border wall, according to multiple people in Democratic Caucus meeting.

Both of their options would punt the border wall fight until fall 2019, long after House Democrats retake the majority, Pelosi told her caucus just ahead of the White House meeting.

Democrats will pitch Trump on a yearlong stopgap bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which would reup a current budget of $1.3 billion for border fencing, while approving the other six unfinished bills. That idea has already been rejected by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill. And Trump has maintained he wants $5 billion for the border wall.

They will also present a new backup option: Approve a massive yearlong stopgap bill, and punt all funding fights until fall 2019 to maximize Democratic leaders’ leverage in the House.

“Our message to him is, Mr. President... you have control of the Senate, you have control of the House, it’s up to you to keep the government open,” Pelosi told reporters just ahead of the meeting.

But GOP leaders said they didn’t think Trump would sign something that barely speaks to his border wall request.

“I don’t expect the president would go along with that [if] he’s not getting the border funding he wants,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Democrats are hardening their stance before the White House meeting, which is an attempt to end a stalemate over border wall funding that threatens to shut down large swaths of the government after Dec. 21.

Trump, meanwhile, pledged Tuesday that his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border “will get built,” threatening to use the military if need be, while claiming that much progress has already been made on the structure.

Trump hit Democrats for opposing his $5 billion request for border wall funding for “strictly political reasons and because they have been pulled so far left,” citing Pelosi’s ongoing battle to become the next House speaker for her refusal to budge.

Pelosi and Schumer dismissed the notion that Democrats are holding up any government funding deal, reminding him in a statement Monday that at least for now, the legislative and executive branches of government remain under Republican control.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Pelosi and Schumer to cut a deal with Trump on funding the border wall, raising the prospects of another government shutdown this year over immigration. Senate Democrats refused to fund the government for a couple days in January in an effort to force a debate on immigration reform.

McConnell said he would watch “eagerly” to see if Democrats could accept a $5 billion infusion of money for border security.

“There is no reason for my Democratic friends to end this year the way they began it. It would be truly bizarre for them to decide they’d prefer a partial government shutdown to reasonable funding for national security. It would signal that their party is more committed to political spite for the president than to the public interest,” McConnell said.

While Congress has provided funding for border security, the massive spending bill Trump signed this spring was mostly restricted to fencing and border protection as a whole rather than a Trump-style wall or even the construction of wall prototypes.

He appeared to mix up the two again Tuesday when he claimed that Democrats voted in 2006 for a “wall,” which seems to refer to 2006 legislation to construct fencing along the southern border, even though it garnered little Democratic support in the House.

“If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall,” Trump wrote. “They know how important it is!”

Trump also appeared to claim victory over asylum-seeking migrants who had traveled through Central America and Mexico, writing that “people have not been able to get through our newly built Walls, makeshift Walls & Fences, or Border Patrol Officers & Military.”

The migrants “are now staying in Mexico or going back to their original countries,” Trump claimed, adding that “our Southern Border is now Secure and will remain that way.”

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