President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats on Thursday were closing in on a deal to avert a shutdown of most of the government Saturday, seeking to de-escalate a bitter fight over the Department of Homeland Security and ICE that reached a boiling point after the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
“Hopefully, we won’t have a shutdown. We’re working on that right now. I think we’re getting close. The Democrats, I don’t believe want to see it either,” Trump said during his first Cabinet meeting of the new year. “So we’ll work in a very bipartisan way, I believe, not to have a shutdown. We don’t want to shut down.
”The emerging deal reflects what senators in both parties had floated just a day earlier: passing a short-term funding bill for DHS, while the two parties negotiate changes to the department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which it oversees, along with bills to fund the rest of the government through Sept. 30.
The two sides are still negotiating how long the stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, would fund DHS, with Democrats preferring something very short.
On Thursday afternoon, the Senate rejected a sweeping $1.2 trillion funding package that the House passed last week; that legislation bundled all six funding bills together, including funding for DHS. The Senate vote was 45-55, with eight Republicans joining all Democrats in voting no — far short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster.
The Republicans who voted against the measure were Sens. Ted Budd, R-N.C.; Ron Johnson, R-Wis.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Ashley Moody, R-Fla.; Rick Scott, R-Fla.; and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. For procedural reasons, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., switched his vote to “no.”
The failed vote on the House package was expected, as Democrats had warned they would not support it without significant safeguards related to DHS and ICE operations. But the degree of GOP opposition to the existing package highlights the leverage Democrats have in securing an agreement.
“This is a moment of truth for the United States of America. What the nation witnessed on Saturday in the streets of Minneapolis was a moral abomination,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “What ICE is doing, outside the law, is state-sanctioned thuggery, and it must stop. ... And Congress has the authority and the moral obligation to act.”
Thune, meanwhile, is deferring to the White House to cut a deal, telling reporters: “My hope and expectation is that, yeah, as the White House and Senate Dems, they work this out, that they’ll be able to produce the votes that are necessary to get it passed.”
Funding for many critical agencies — including the departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Education and Homeland Security — runs out at 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday.
A shutdown of those agencies is expected to occur regardless of a bipartisan deal, since anything the Senate passes will also need to be passed by the House. But it could be short if they reach a deal quickly, and a brief funding lapse would have minimal practical impact.
The House is on recess this week and not expected to return to Washington until Monday. A weekend shutdown wouldn't affect most federal workers.
Speaking to reporters in the Capitol, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he has consulted with Schumer and also spoke Wednesday with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.A short-term DHS bill “cannot be endless, and it cannot be long,” Jeffries said, adding that House Democrats would “evaluate in its totality” any agreement reached in the Senate
-NBC News