GOP doesn’t want emergency measure or another shutdown
“I’m for narrow or broader,” McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters when asked to describe the breadth of a bipartisan border security accord that he’d back. “I’m for whatever works that would prevent the level of dysfunction we’ve seen on full display here the last month and also doesn’t bring about a view on the president’s part that he needs to declare a national emergency.”
The remarks by McConnell, who seemed to include Trump in his intended audience, underscored the GOP’s eagerness to put the past month’s confrontations between Trump and Congress behind them without more jarring clashes. Reporters had not specifically asked McConnell about a shutdown or a possible emergency declaration, and it was noteworthy that the guarded lawmaker volunteered his opinions.
McConnell spoke three days after the end of a record 35-day partial federal shutdown, which Trump initiated after Democrats refused his demand for $5.7 billion to build segments of his long-sought Southwest border wall.
The president surrendered last Friday and agreed to reopen government for three weeks so negotiators can seek a border security deal, but with no commitments for wall funds. Polls show that people chiefly blame Trump and Republicans for the shutdown and the proposed border wall with Mexico is unpopular.
House-Senate bargainers from both parties plan their first negotiating session for Wednesday.
Some lawmakers have suggested broadening whatever package emerges, such as adding protections from deportation for young “Dreamer” immigrants in the U.S. illegally or making it harder for future shutdowns to occur.
McConnell was one of many Republicans signaling a desire to lower the intensity level of the conflict.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters Tuesday that any agreement does not need to include the word “wall.” The comment signaled the GOP’s latest rhetorical retreat from a battle cry — “Build the wall!” — that Trump made a keystone of his presidential campaign.
“It could be ‘barrier.’ It doesn’t have to be a wall,” McCarthy told reporters.
Trump has retreated increasingly from “wall” as it became apparent that he lacked the votes in Congress to win taxpayer financing for the project, which he initially said would be financed by Mexico.
Democrats have repeatedly said they would refuse to finance the wall, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called “immoral.” In recent weeks, they’ve expressed support for fencing or some physical barriers but have left ambiguous exactly what they would support. They’ve said they want to spend money on more border patrol agents and technology such as scanning devices and drones.
Members of both parties have opposed Trump declaring an emergency on the Mexican border. They say it would set a dangerous precedent for future presidents who might use the strategy to push their own agendas that stall in Congress. If he issued the declaration, it would trigger near-immediate lawsuits that might block the money anyway.
“There’s no appetite for government shutdowns and there’s not much appetite for an emergency declaration. For a lot of reasons, our members are very wary of that,” said No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota.
Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan said Tuesday that “several thousand” more American troops will be sent to the southern border to provide additional support to the Department of Homeland Security, as for the first time he provided new estimates for the next phase of the military aid.
He said the troops will mainly be used to install additional wire barriers and provide a large new system of mobile surveillance and monitoring of the border area. Plans call for about 150 more miles of concertina wire placed mainly in the gaps between ports of entry.
It’s still not clear how many of the roughly 2,400 active duty forces currently working the border mission will go home and not be replaced, but the Pentagon estimates that the total number of forces deployed there over the coming months will exceed 4,000.
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