President Trump will travel to the U.S.–Mexico border on Thursday to meet with Customs and Border Patrol agents as the government shutdown prompted by his demand for border-wall funding continues.
“President @realDonaldTrump will travel to the Southern border on Thursday to meet with those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis. More details will be announced soon,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted Monday morning.
The partial government shutdown, which began December 22 due to the seemingly intractable partisan divide over border-wall funding, will qualify as the longest in the country’s history if Congress fails to advance spending legislation that Trump is willing to sign by Saturday.
In an appeal to political optics, the newly minted Democratic majority in the House advanced legislation last week to fund the government through early February. The package, which provided just $1.3 billion in border-wall funding, was not taken up by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said repeatedly that the upper chamber won’t vote on any spending bill that doesn’t meet Trump’s demands.
Trump, who said Friday that he would extend the shutdown for months or even years if Democrats continue to refuse his demands, agreed over the weekend to the construction of a “steel slat barrier” rather than the solid concrete wall he originally envisioned.
“They don’t like concrete, so we’ll give them steel,” Trump told reporters over the weekend.
Congressional Democrats — with the exception of Senator Chris Coons (D., Del.) who said Trump’s reframing represented “progress” — appear unmoved by the nominal concession.