The Latest: Trump slams GOP leaders over border wall money on WTOP| WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on efforts to avoid a government shutdown (all times local): 10:55 a.m. President Donald Trump is attacking Republican leaders in Congress, saying they haven’t kept promises that he would get money for…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on efforts to avoid a government shutdown (all times local):
6:42 p.m.
President Donald Trump will not travel to Florida on Friday for Christmas if the government is headed toward a partial shutdown.
That’s the word late Thursday from two of Trump’s senior advisers.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the White House that Trump “will not travel in a shutdown.”
Policy adviser Stephen Miller also says Trump will stay at the White House absent an agreement with Congress to keep parts of the government open.
Trump told House Republican leaders earlier Thursday that he will not sign Senate-passed legislation to keep parts of the government operating through early February because the measure does not include $5 billion he has demanded to pay for a wall he promised to build on the border with Mexico.
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6:10 p.m.
The Republican-led House has voted to add $5 billion for a border wall with Mexico to a bill preventing a partial federal shutdown this weekend.
Thursday’s House vote was a party line 221-179.
The next vote will be on whether the House will approve the overall bill. That is expected to be close.
The Senate late Wednesday approved a bipartisan compromise keeping government agencies open until Feb. 8. That measure had no wall money.
President Donald Trump said Thursday he would veto that bill and demanded wall money.
Even if the House approves the measure with the wall funds, it faces certain rejection in the closely divided Senate, where Democrats solidly oppose the wall.
Scores of federal agencies will close after midnight Friday night unless Congress passes legislation preventing that.
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4 p.m.
President Donald Trump is defending his decision to risk a partial government shutdown as he demands money for his long-promised border wall with Mexico.
Trump says a “powerful physical barrier” is “essential to border security” and that “every nation has not only the right, but the absolute duty to protect its borders.”
The president commented during a farm bill signing ceremony.
Earlier Thursday, he told congressional Republicans he wouldn’t support a short-term spending measure passed by the Senate the night before. The government will partially shut down at midnight Friday unless there’s a deal.
Trump says he’s made his position “very clear” and that the package must include money for border security.
But he says he’s willing to accept a steel slat barrier instead of the continuous concrete wall that was the central promise of his 2016 campaign.
