Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday warned House Republicans and President Trump that they cannot win money for a border wall in a must-pass spending bill that has suddenly stalled.
In a floor speech Thursday, Schumer called an effort by the conservative House Freedom Caucus to include $5 billion for the border wall in the spending measures “futile,” because Democrats in the Senate will never agree to it and have the power to block it, and “self-defeating,” because the public does not support the wall.
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“The House needs to come to the same sensible conclusion that the Senate came to, that we should not hold millions of innocent Americans hostage to demand something they will never get,” Schumer said.
The Senate late Wednesday approved by voice vote a bill to fund a sliver of outstanding federal funding through Feb. 8. But the measures have hit a roadblock in the House, where conservatives are demanding it include money for the border wall President Trump has long promised and who the president said he believed Republicans would deliver.
Trump has said he won’t sign the bill without the border funding, after a meeting with House Republicans on Thursday.
But Schumer said the GOP has no path to win funding for the border wall.
“They have caught the Trump temper tantrum, but they have no plan,” Schumer said. “And so, their anger will result in a Trump shutdown but not a Trump wall. And frankly, their anger will result in further discrediting the president whom they support.”
Trump’s base and leading conservative media pundits are calling on Trump to veto the spending bill if the wall funding is excluded.
“Veto this thing and head down the Mar-a-Lago … and this will end up being resolved in your favor,” radio host Rush Limbaugh said Thursday afternoon.
