Senate Republican leaders missed a Rose Garden press conference with President Trump on the government shutdown because they didn’t know it was happening, a Senate GOP aide said Friday.
Trump and House Republican leaders met with the press following a closed-door meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders about the shutdown, which is the result of disagreement over whether to fund Trump’s proposed border wall.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Conference Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., were absent because they weren’t aware of it, and weren’t asked to attend.
According to McConnell aide David Popp, Thune and McConnell left the White House ground when the meeting ended. McConnell “was unaware” of the press conference “but of course would have gone if asked,” Popp said.
When Trump was asked why McConnell wasn’t there, Trump said it’s “because he’s running the Senate,” and praised his support for a border wall. “He’s been right at the top of what we are doing he’s been really great,” Trump said.
McConnell has sided with the president on the border wall and said he would not take up a House-passed spending bill authored by Democrats that excludes border wall funding. But he has largely been sidelined as Trump and Democrats struggle to negotiate a deal.
Earlier Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized McConnell for not playing a more active role in the negotiations.
Senate Republicans have largely backed Trump but at least one vulnerable GOP lawmaker, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who is up for re-election in 2020, backs a temporary spending bill to re-open the government while the two sides negotiate wall funding.
