Government shutdown: Trump attacks

Democrats and calls for 'nuclear option'

• Trump ad: Democrats ‘complicit’ in murders by immigrants
• Senate vote on funding measure to 8 February due by 1am Monday
• Opinion: This is how democracies die
Oliver Laughland and Martin Pengelly in New York and Sabrina Siddiqui and Ben Jacobs in
Washington
21.41 GMT 13.17 GMT
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As the second day of the US government shutdown wore on, there appeared little sign of progress.
As both parties blamed each other, the White House went on the attack.
US government shutdown: anniversary of
Trump inauguration marred by chaos
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Donald Trump used Twitter to urge Senate Republicans to end the impasse by taking the “nuclear
option” if the “stalemate continues”.
Such a move would allow Republicans to pass legislation without Democratic support, lowering the
majority needed to pass a bill to 51 votes. It is however not favoured by the GOP Senate leader,
Mitch McConnell, who would in any case not have had enough votes to avert the shutdown on his
own.
The president also argued that Democrats were placing the nation’s borders under threat by
opposing a short-term budget fix. “The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation
unchecked,” he tweeted.
Quick guide

All you need to know about the US government shutdown

The remarks followed an aggressive Trump campaign ad released on Saturday, which said
Democrats opposing the president’s hardline immigration agenda were “complicit in every murder
committed by illegal immigrants”.
Marc Short, the White House director of legislative affairs, told NBC’s Meet the Press “that ad was
produced by an outside group and not those of us in the White House”.
The ad concludes with a picture of the president giving two thumbs up and his voice saying: “I’m
Donald Trump and I approve this message.”
The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders told CNN’s State of the Union the ad was “nonsense and
outrageous”.
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, supports efforts to tie government funding
to renewed protections for Dreamers, young undocumented migrants whose temporary legal status
was rescinded by Trump.
Republicans have argued that as Trump set a March deadline for a resolution to the Dreamers issue,
negotiations can continue after government funding is passed.
Although the president remained in Washington, missing a gala event at his Florida resort to
celebrate his first year in office, he faced criticism for failing to lead.
News shows repeated Fox & Friends footage from 2013, when Republicans in Congress drove the
last government shutdown, over healthcare reform.
“Well, if you say who gets fired it always has to be the top,” Trump said then. “I mean, problems
start from the top and they have to get solved from the top and the president’s the leader. And he’s
got to get everybody in a room and he’s got to lead.”
On Saturday the White House released a photograph of the president sitting alone in the Oval
Office, wearing a white Make America Great Again cap as he purportedly received “the latest
updates from Capitol Hill”.
The Senate needs to lead because no one else is and the White House staff is making
things very difficult
Lindsey Graham

It was later reported that Trump had not made contact with the Democratic Senate minority leader,
Chuck Schumer, since a lunch on Friday.
Schumer said on Saturday that working with Trump was like “negotiating with Jell-O”. In a speech
in the Senate on Sunday, the New Yorker said he had “essentially agreed to give the president
something he wants” – funding for a border wall – “for something we both want”, status for
Dreamers.
It was now up to the president, he said, to end what he repeatedly called “the Trump shutdown”.

1:44
Schumer calls Trump 'dysfunctional' as government shutdown enters day two – video
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Schumer’s “memory is hazy because his account of
Friday’s meeting is false”.

After initially ignoring questions about the president’s Sunday schedule, Sanders also said Trump
had spoken to Kevin McCarthy and John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republicans in the House and
Senate. Chief of staff John Kelly spoke to McConnell and Ryan and “updated the president on those
calls”, Sanders said.
McConnell aimed to schedule for the early hours of Monday another vote on short-term funding, to
reopen the government until 8 February.
Speaking to CBS’s Face the Nation, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, said the lower chamber would
accept the 8 February measure. The chairman of the hard right House Freedom Caucus signaled that
his members would also support it.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats were seeking a commitment that a bill to
reopen the government would establish parity between defense and domestic spending and would
be followed by debate on immigration.
In the Senate, a spokesman said Schumer had only spoken with McConnell for a matter of minutes.
Party moderates convened their own meeting, outside which the South Carolina Republican
Lindsey Graham predicted a “breakthrough”.
“The Senate needs to lead,” Graham said, “because no one else is and the White House staff is
making things very difficult.”
Graham said White House proposals for spending on border security were “just not credible” and
referred to a senior policy adviser to Trump and immigration hardliner when he said: “As long as
Stephen Miller’s in charge of negotiating on immigration we’re going nowhere. He’s been an outlier
for years.”

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Trump meets White House staffers on Saturday. Photograph: White House
The shutdown began at midnight on Friday, after Senate Democrats derailed a House-passed
funding measure that would have run through 16 February.

Failed deal over Dreamers at the heart of US

government shutdown
Read more
They did so by preventing Republicans reaching the 60-vote tally that means blocking mechanisms
cannot be used. Five red-state Democrats voted for the funding measure but a handful of
Republicans opposed it.
The Kentucky senator Rand Paul, a Republican who voted no, bemoaned to CNN on Sunday
“gamesmanship and partisanship” on both sides of the aisle.
Nonetheless the White House continued to lead the charge. Trump’s budget director, Mick
Mulvaney, supported the president’s call for Senate Republicans to exercise the “nuclear option” if
the standoff continued, and said Democrats were “dysfunctional”.
The public will not feel the full effect of the shutdown until the work week begins on Monday. Non-
essential federal workers are likely to be told to take unpaid leave.
National parks remained open although in New York City the Statue of Liberty was closed.
Governor Andrew Cuomo said he would seek funding to have it reopened.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/21/government-shutdown-trump-
democrats-republicans-senate-vote