What if the Government Shuts Down Again on Febryary 15
In a Divided Washington, Congress Averted a Shutdown — just at a Cost
WASHINGTON — Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, went to bed Midweek nighttime cautiously optimistic that a shutdown crisis that had stretched dorsum to December had finally ended.
Then President Trump awoke in a rage Thursday, feeling cornered into accepting a bipartisan funding bargain struck earlier in the week that would deprive him one time again of money for his long-promised wall along the southwestern edge. Bourgeois commentators who had been cajoled into accepting the deal Midweek were breaking their silence on Thursday.
Past midmorning, later on a particularly unpleasant coming together with the secretarial assistant of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, the president was threatening to torpedo the deal, according to 2 people briefed on the substitution. Several hours and several phone calls later, Mr. McConnell had persuaded Mr. Trump to once over again agree to sign the bill to avert another authorities shutdown looming at midnight Friday.
Only persuasion came at a price: The president would declare a national emergency to try to secure wall funding without congressional approval, he told the majority leader — and Mr. McConnell would have to dorsum him.
"I indicated I'm going to back up the national emergency annunciation," Mr. McConnell said Th afternoon from the Senate floor, mumbling and visibly weary afterwards his conversation with the president.
"You are rude!" barked Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who had not finished a floor speech when his leader interrupted him.
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It was a fitting moment for a surreal, discordant day.
Mr. McConnell'southward concession, on the heels of the president's bigger capitulation over wall funding, capped a wrenching calendar month of political realignment, as Mr. Trump's ability has waned in the face of a divided Congress and his understanding of the Constitution'south separation of powers has been challenged. A 35-day regime shutdown, the largest in the nation's history, had depleted his party's political reserves and made some other impasse unthinkable.
"Shutdowns are a total misery march," said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia. "Time makes it worse. And that'due south what happened here."
Limiting deliberations to the appropriations committee, and sidelining administration officials, gave Democrats a decisive edge from the beginning. Appropriators knew how to accomplish a deal — and were willing to practise it without the White Business firm in the room.
"I think the president has finally learned that shutdowns don't piece of work — at least I hope he has learned that — because you never know," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Commission.
After the last shutdown, the majority leader appeared ready for some normalcy on Capitol Hill. The decision past Mr. McConnell, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Autonomous leader, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to engage a 17-member conference committee to produce a bill that would fund the authorities through the terminate of the current fiscal twelvemonth effectively sidelined the White Firm from the talks, according to congressional aides from both parties.
Largely absent was Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-police force, who bragged that he was instrumental in securing a bipartisan criminal justice beak last year but who aggravated Republicans and Democrats alike in December by advising the president to embrace the shutdown.
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Mr. Kushner was present in the Oval Office for a few meetings betwixt Mr. Trump and Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, according to a congressional adjutant. But Mr. Kushner, who has fashioned himself every bit the Trump White Firm's main deal maker, said he was stepping back to focus on a far more aggressive project, Eye E peace, according to 2 senior assistants officials.
Absent-minded, too, was Vice President Mike Pence, whom the president consistently undercut in December during the first round of shutdown talks when he offered compromise solutions. Republican senators repeatedly questioned the vice president on whether he was speaking for himself or the president when he weighed in on topics related to the negotiations.
So, as negotiators closed in on a deal, Mr. Pence flew abroad — for a trip to Europe.
Left to their own devices, congressional negotiators began their work in earnest on Jan. 29, when Representative Nita G. Lowey, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Commission, convened a meeting of party lawmakers in the ornate function of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, to settle on a unified strategy.
They agreed to tabular array some of the most circuitous immigration issues, including the fate of young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, to focus on keeping the mileage and funding for whatever edge barrier as stingy as possible, according to Autonomous aides.
Ms. Lowey and Mr. Shelby had piffling difficulty arriving at a general range for barrier funding. Both sides agreed to qualify $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion for fencing, not a hard call considering both chambers of Congress had already passed legislation terminal year authorizing like expenditures — only to be rejected by Mr. Trump. They ended upward approving $one.375 billion for 55 miles of steel-post fencing, 10 miles less than the deal that they had reached over the summertime — and that the president had rejected.
The biggest snag came as negotiators neared a bargain on Sunday: Liberals led past Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, Democrat of California, pushed a plan to cap the number of detention beds used for migrants. Mr. Shelby presented the proposal to Mr. Trump, who immediately rejected it, and Ms. Pelosi immediately withdrew her committee members from the talks.
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Just the motility, which Ms. Pelosi's role portrayed as a "breakdown" in negotiations, was actually intended to assuage critics on the left who said House Democrats were not doing enough to counter ambitious immigrant roundups in areas far from the border.
On Monday morning, every bit Ms. Pelosi drove to the airport in San Francisco for a flying back to Washington, she informed Ms. Lowey and Ms. Roybal-Allard that the proposal was "too hard to explicate publicly" and ordered them to restart the talks.
By Monday nighttime, the negotiators had reached an agreement.
That is when Mr. McConnell'southward troubles really began.
Mr. McConnell, burned by the last round of negotiations that led to the shutdown in December, ended that none of Mr. Trump'due south previous emissaries to Capitol Hill could be trusted to speak for a president prone to changing his position on a whim.
With Mr. Kushner and the vice president absent, Mick Mulvaney, the interim White Business firm chief of staff, was left to monitor the discussions. An avid supporter of government shutdowns when he was a Republican congressman from South Carolina, Mr. Mulvaney caused considerable tension.
Mr. McConnell and his staff were especially annoyed by Mr. Mulvaney's performance on Lord's day on the political talk shows, saying he seemed light-headed and enthusiastic most the possibility of another shutdown, according to three people familiar with the state of affairs.
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A McConnell spokesman disputed the account.
After Mr. Mulvaney on Lord's day refused to rule out a shutdown, an incensed Mr. Shelby referred to Mr. Mulvaney as "dangerous" in the negotiations during a cheque-in session with lawmakers, co-ordinate to a fellow member of the conference committee. He was infuriated all over again on Thursday, believing Mr. Mulvaney was behind Mr. Trump's change of center.
Mr. Shelby, asked about his views on Mr. Mulvaney, declined to comment.
The majority leader, sentimental as a scythe and not one for small talk, decided it was up to him. He began speaking with Mr. Trump three or four times a mean solar day, and urged others to do the same, co-ordinate to several people close to the negotiations.
"I want you lot all to start calling the president directly," Mr. McConnell told a group of senior Republicans last week after a conference lunch, co-ordinate to ii people in attendance. "He's piece of cake to get on the telephone."
Mr. McConnell viewed his function as equal parts cajoler and teacher. He patiently (and fruitlessly) argued against the emergency announcement, which he sees as usurping congressional authorization to splinter Senate Republicans. He likewise used the check-ins to collect intelligence nearly Mr. Trump's mind-gear up.
To sell the president on the deal, he argued that information technology was a "big down payment" on the wall and offered to support moves by the president to transfer some funding from other agencies to edge bulwark projects if he ditched the emergency declaration. Just the core of his case, people close to Mr. McConnell said, was the argument that the deal reached past negotiators was actually a "victory" over Ms. Pelosi, thanks to his success in fighting attempts to reduce the number of detention beds.
Mr. Trump never really bought it.
But Mr. McConnell is nothing if not adaptable. Early on Thursday, Mr. McConnell gave in to Mr. Trump's demand on the state of emergency, hoping that his willingness to compromise would keep the president from rejecting the bill. Information technology worked.
During his final call with Mr. Trump, he looped in the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who expressed misgivings about the emergency proclamation, telling an bellyaching Mr. Trump that it would prompt several serious lawsuits.
Mr. McConnell, chop-chop shifting from opposing the announcement to managing its rollout, snapped back, "Who cares? This is America — everybody sues everybody else," according to a person the leader spoke to late Thursday.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/border-wall-deal.html
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