White House press secretary Sarah Sanders hinted Tuesday morning that President Trump is willing to avoid a government shutdown this weekend, saying there may be “other ways” to get the $5 billion border wall money that Trump is seeking.
“We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion that we’ll work with Congress if they will make sure that we get a bill passed that provides not just the funding for the wall, but there is a piece of legislation that has been pushed around that Democrats voted 26-5 out of committee that provides roughly $26 billion in border security, including $1.6 billion for the wall,” Sanders said on Fox News Tuesday morning.
“That’s something that we would be able to support as long as we can couple that with other funding resources to get to the $5 billion,” Sanders said.
Sanders’ comment indicated that Trump still wants the $5 billion for the border wall, but he is willing to find other sources of funding, although she wasn’t specific. Republicans in Congress, however, have been looking at whether they can capture unallocated money that has already been approved and use that to fund the wall.
“There is certainly a number of different funding sources that we’ve identified that we can use that we can couple with the money that would be given through congressional appropriations to help us get to the $5 billion the president needs in order to protect our border,” Sanders said.
Sanders said she does not believe the administration wants to shut down the government, but reiterated the president’s commitment to get border wall funding.
“At the end of the day we don’t want to shut down the government. We want to shut down the border from illegal immigration, from drugs coming into this country and make sure we know who is coming and why they’re coming,” Sanders said. “That’s what the president is focused on and he is not going to back down until he gets what he needs to make sure the people of this country are protected.”
The president is asking Congress to approve $5 billion in border wall funding before both chambers head home for Christmas. House and Senate Democrats are unwilling to give the president any more than $1.6 billion for the border wall, a disagreement that has raised fears of a possible partial government shutdown after Friday.
Trump convened a meeting early last week with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to work out a solution that would both fund the government and his border wall. That meeting did not go smoothly. It ended with the president claiming he would be happy to shut down the government, and take responsibility for it, if it meant he could secure funding for “border security.”
