President Donald Trump said Thursday that the White House and Senate Democrats are "getting close" to a deal before Friday's midnight deadline to prevent a partial government shutdown.
"Hopefully, we won't have a shutdown and we're working on that right now," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting that aired live on Newsmax and the free Newsmax2 streaming platform. "I think we're getting close. The Democrats I don't believe want to see it either. So, we'll work in a very bipartisan way, I believe, not to have a shutdown. We don't want to shut down."
The sides have discussed passing five of the six spending bills that have cleared the House, which would fund most of the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year, The Wall Street Journal reported. They would then pass a short-term measure for the Department of Homeland Security, setting up negotiations over proposed restrictions by Democrats on immigration enforcement.
Any changes by the Senate would need approval by the House, which is in recess and isn't scheduled to return until Monday. Members could be asked to return over the weekend.
A vote to advance the six-bill measure failed Thursday afternoon in the Senate, as some lawmakers voted no ahead of further talks. Talks were fluid and a resolution remained uncertain Thursday, according to the Journal. A sticking point involved how long lawmakers would temporarily extend DHS funding — with proposals ranging from several weeks to more than a month.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters he had been in touch with the White House about the administration's talks with Democrats, according to the Journal.
"We're trending in the right direction but we're not quite there yet," he said.
Senate Democrats on Wednesday renewed demands for an overhaul of immigration enforcement, including a mandate for body cameras, tighter warrant rules, and ending roving patrols. They want Republicans to agree to rework the DHS spending bill to add the restrictions into law, and have said they won't settle for administrative changes or pledges of executive action.
"We're not going to ask for a complete rewrite," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has been leading the Democratic caucus on changes to DHS, according to the Journal. "We're not going to ask for things that are impossible to get done in the next few days."
GOP leaders and the White House have signaled they would accept changes to how immigration officials operate but haven't publicly backed rewriting the funding measures, according to the Journal.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Democrats were waiting for Thune to decide the next steps, but that her party hoped he would separate the DHS measure and fund it temporarily on a short-term basis, according to the Journal.
Thune and Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, have said they would prefer to bring all six bills for a vote together, according to the Journal. At Thune's weekly news conference Wednesday, he didn't rule out passing the five other bills alongside a stopgap bill to fund DHS while negotiations continued.
Even if a deal is reached in the Senate, the politics are trickier in the House. Conservatives there reluctantly voted for the DHS portion of the package because it tightens oversight of the administration's immigration-enforcement activities, according to the Journal. The bill also includes $20 million for body cameras. Meanwhile, some progressive Democrats have insisted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be eliminated altogether.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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