White House officials believe there’s little chance of a government shutdown over Christmas but say there’s a small possibility President Trump would change course amid a review of the 2,300-page spending deal that must be signed Friday.
Trump is expected to sign the $1.4 trillion package, according to senior aides and other White House officials, two of whom said there’s, at most, a 5% chance that Trump would decide to play hardball over some detail in the deal.
“I don’t see any indication that there’s going to be a shutdown,” White House budget director Russ Vought told Washington Examiner editors and reporters in an interview Wednesday, noting that overall spending levels were agreed to in July.
“We were very involved with the writing of these bills. We are going through them now to identify anything that might be of late-breaking concern,” Vought said. “This was a deal that was cut in July. I don’t expect anything to change at this point, but we’re always looking at the fine print to see anything that we’re not aware of.”
Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, told reporters Tuesday that Trump is satisfied with the deal. “The president is poised to sign it and to keep the government open,” she said.
But doubts linger, in part because of Trump’s unexpected decision on Dec. 20, 2018, to force a shutdown that lasted 35 days. At the time, Trump was expected to sign a spending bill that did not include funds for a wall at the Mexican border. He abruptly changed course after conservative accusations that he abandoned a campaign pledge.
“The president said he will not sign this bill,” then-House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told initially confused reporters at the White House last year.
Trump begrudgingly signed a smaller $1.3 trillion spending package in March 2018 and vowed, “I will never sign another bill like this again.”
The president is not necessarily in a cooperative mood. He has been raging against House Democrats moving to impeach him, with a vote expected late Wednesday. On Tuesday, Trump wrote an indignant letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, that objected to her claim to pray for him and argued, “More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.”
If Trump rejected the deal, it’s unclear what reason he would give. The package provides $1.4 billion for a border wall. Though that is flat from last year, it also lifts rules that could prevent him from moving money around to build a barrier.
