President Trump’s demand to Republican lawmakers to get $1.4 billion in the spending bill that will keep the government running past Friday is putting pressure on House GOP leaders who are forming a deal.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said on CNN on Monday that Trump’s request ultimately kills the potential for bipartisan support of a spending deal.
“Several weeks ago, this demand came to us. It’s now putting pressure on us to produce the results,” he said. “It would be a Republican-only bill.”
Sessions said it’s still not clear what Trump’s planned border wall will look like and what exactly lawmakers would be appropriating $1.4 billion to do.
“I have yet to see the plan from the White House or the secretary of homeland security that shows where and what that wall would look like,” Sessions said.
Sessions, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, said there are unanswered questions, including whether the wall would block Texans from the Rio Grande or if it would be set back from the border, that need to be answered for lawmakers to craft a proposal.
Trump wants funding for the wall to be included in any deal he signs. He was non-committal in an interview with the Associated Press when asked if he would sign a deal that didn’t include funding for the wall. Members of the administration, like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have already started to try and pin the blame for a potential partial shutdown on Democrats for opposing the wall.
The Texas Republican, who has previously opposed a border wall, said Trump’s election and early months in office have already slowed the pace of illegal immigration and taken some of the impetus out of the perceived need for a wall.
“We have taken the huge pressure off our border circumstances but, long term, we have to protect that border,” Sessions said.
