President Donald Trump is more interested in obtaining money for his border wall than passing a bipartisan prison and sentencing reform bill, senators on both sides of the table are saying, and as a result has not been pushing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for putting it on a back burner.
"We can certainly use his help in the Republican Senate caucus," Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told Politico, which reported that a Republican senator, who it did not name, complained that there isn't "any evidence" that Trump is pushing for the bill.
However, other advocates insist Trump is fully committed to the bill, but still hope he'll do more to bring the criminal justice bill home. However, he has only rarely mentioned the bill in his Twitter feed and does not bring it up often in interviews or remarks with reporters, and has not become aggressive with McConnell over it.
“This is not an either-or proposition,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, commented. “He and his White House have endorsed the First Step Act and continue to advocate for better security along our southern border. I’m working to get both of them across the finish line.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, agreed, though, that he does not think the president is "overly invested in the bill," but he would "like it to pass because it would be another achievement for his administration."
Trump has also privately raised concerns about the bill, reports Politico, and is caught between people in the White House, with Chief of Staff John Kelly and White House advisers Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller reluctant on it and his children, and Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Kushner pushing for the legislation.
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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