The government will not likely shut down next week, as President Donald Trump will probably get the $5 billion he wants for border wall construction, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said Wednesday.
"I don't think the government is going to be shut down," Lankford told CNN's "New Day." "We have had 75 percent of the government funded through the previous work we have done with appropriation bills."
Military, healthcare, and education have been funded, Lankford said, and there are still a few areas left.
"The big drama is the border wall funding," he said. "Five billion, it's not an excessive amount of what could be done reasonably in a year. Congress pushed back on the $25 billion, and we said we will fund what can be done reasonably in a reasonable time period that we can have oversight on. We will see what works out in the next couple of days because we have to have this agreement done by this weekend to get everything written and ready for next week."
He pointed out Trump had started out wanting $25 billion for the wall, but $5 billion is "what we can manage and oversee, and it's not an excessive amount."
Trump, in an interview with Politico on Tuesday, said he would "totally be willing" to shut down the government if the $5 billion is not approved. Democratic lawmakers, though, have said they would only approve $1.6 billion.
In all, Congress must approve seven appropriations bills by next Friday, at the risk of interruptions at several federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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