House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday said the Senate and congressional Democrats are the chief reason why Congress is rushing to pass a giant, $1.3 trillion spending bill this week that doesn’t go as far as Republicans want on the border wall.
Speaking on Fox News, Ryan said Republicans tried to get more border wall funding in the bill, and were offering to extend protections for illegal immigrants under the rescinded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But he said Democrats refused.
“The president, and I and other leaders in the House and Senate, offered that to the Democrats, and they said no,” Ryan said. “We said ‘let’s do multi-year funding for the wall for multi-year relief for the DACA kids’ and they walked away from that, they wouldn’t take that.”
That said, Ryan argued that the bill does include substantial border security funding, and delivers on the $1.6 billion President Trump wanted over the next six months.
Some conservatives were rejecting the bill, which would fund the government through end of the current fiscal year, for not allow the government to start building a concrete wall, a key campaign promise Trump made. But Ryan said a significant start can be made.
“This has the exact same funding for the border in this bill that we funded back in September with all Republican votes,” he said. “So it’s kind of interesting, people are sort of saying different things now.”
“The administration asked for 74 miles of … border wall funding, we did 100 in this bill, so we actually exceeded what the administration asked us for,” Ryan added.
As to the rushed process, Ryan agreed that he is also unhappy with how quickly the bill is being taken up on the floor. It was introduced late Wednesday, and the House is asking members to vote on it with less than 24 hours’ notice.
But he said the inability of the Senate to move important legislation on time is a key factor.
“Here’s the problem with this process, which I hate as well,” Ryan said. “The Senate has a filibuster, and the reason we’re coming up against the deadline … is because of the Senate filibuster.”
