Does President Trump want border-wall funding in this week's spending bill, or doesn't he? Just over the weekend, top administration officials were suggesting they might push for money to begin construction on a wall along the southern border with Mexico as Congress gets ready to deal with the current continuing budget resolution, which ends on Friday. And on Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that while negotiations were ongoing in both the House and the Senate, one of Trump's two priorities for any spending bill would be "for our homeland border security and the wall." (The other priority? Defense spending.)
Still, Spicer was unwilling to say whether funding the wall was a requirement to get Trump's signature. And in a White House meeting with a group of conservative journalists Monday night, the president reportedly suggested the funding fight over the wall could get pushed to the fall.
"On funding the border wall, Trump said he could get it this week or the administration could come back to it in September," tweeted One America News correspondent Trey Yingst, who was at the Monday meeting with Trump.
In backing off of a fight over the border wall this week, Trump is acknowledging the political reality: He has little room to operate if he and the Republicans on Capitol Hill want to avoid a shutdown, which will occur if no one can agree on a spending bill. And as much and as fervently as Trump campaigned on building a wall, the White House is in no mood for a government shutdown—especially as it closes out its first 100 days.
A Swift Push for a Big Business Tax Cut
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has requested a tax reform proposal from his aides to cut corporate taxes to 15 percent—and to have the plan ready to be unveiled on Wednesday. Here's the Journal:
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05.05.2024