President Trump’s new incoming chief of staff said Sunday that any money for the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has to come from the Treasury Department — not Mexico.
“Technically, you and I both know that it cannot work exactly like that,” Mick Mulvaney said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Trump has long promised that Mexico would pay for the border wall, which has become a flash point for the president and his administration in recent weeks.
At midnight Saturday, the federal government partially shut down after Congress failed to pass a spending bill. Trump torpedoed one that had already been negotiated when he said he wouldn’t sign any legislation that did not include $5 billion for the construction of a border wall.
Further, the shutdown is set to last until at least past Christmas after the Senate adjourned Saturday with no compromise. Its next regular session is scheduled for Dec. 27.
Mulvaney told ABC’s Jon Karl that the Trump administration is in a “good place” on getting the wall built and having Mexico “participate” in border security.
“But none of that is Mexico paying for the wall?” Karl said.
Mulvaney said that won’t actually be possible, saying: “I can’t spend any money at the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Homeland Security can’t actually spend money from Mexico. We have to get it from Treasury.”
Mulvaney said that the White House is waiting to hear back about an offer given to Democratic leaders late yesterday afternoon.
The White House has reportedly floated roughly $2.1 billion instead for border security, but that the number will likely be bumped down to $1.6 billion.
But Mulvaney said that things won’t move very quickly for the next several days in terms of a compromise, and that “it’s very possible this shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new Congress.”
“The ball is in their court,” Mulvaney said about Democrats, namely Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Speaking from the Senate floor Saturday, Schumer demanded Trump abandon the wall.
“It will never pass the Senate, not today, not next week, not next year. So President Trump, if you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall, plain and simple,” Schumer said.
Mulvaney, who is also the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said that Trump has made it very clear that he is willing to discuss a larger immigration solution.
“The wall doesn’t solve all of our problems. A border fence does not solve all of our problems,” he said.
