A Republican senator advising Donald Trump has said he is encouraging the president to reopen the government for several weeks to continue negotiating with Democrats over funding for a
By Associated Press Reporters
January 13 2019 9:01 PM
A Republican senator advising Donald Trump has said he is encouraging the president to reopen the government for several weeks to continue negotiating with Democrats over funding for a US-Mexico border wall.
But Lindsey Graham admitted Mr Trump still wants to reach a deal for the wall before agreeing to reopen closed government departments.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a leading Democratic negotiator, insists that Mr Trump reopen the government first.
The weeks-old stand-off over funding led to the partial government shutdown that hit day 23 on Sunday without an end in sight.
“Before he pulls the plug on the legislative option, and I think we’re almost there, I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug, see if we can get a deal,” said Mr Graham, a South Carolina Republican. “If we can’t at the end of three weeks, all bets are off.”
Mr Graham, who has publicly pushed Mr Trump to use his authority to declare a national emergency to build the wall, continued: “See if he can do it by himself through the emergency powers. That’s my recommendation.”
Such a step would allow Mr Trump to bypass Congress and tap various pots of unspent federal money, including for military construction and disaster relief and from assets seized by law enforcement, to pay for the wall.
Mr Trump has kept Washington on edge over whether he would resort to such a declaration, citing what he says is a “crisis” of drug smuggling and the trafficking of women and children at the border.
