They could have easily made a deal but chose to play Shutdown politics instead. “The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked”.
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“This will be called the “Trump shutdown, ‘” Schumer continued”.
Current Senate rules require a super-majority of three-fifths of the chamber, usually 60 out of 100, for legislation to clear procedural hurdles and pass. She added it would be up to Senate Republican and Democratic leaders “as to how to proceed”.
But Mr Trump said the “nuclear option” of a simple-majority vote was necessary.
As the USA government shutdown entered its second day, President Donald Trump took to Twitter Sunday morning to suggest that Republicans should use the “nuclear option”. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of NY said the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island would be open for visitors Monday, with the state picking up the tab for federal workers for the duration of the government shutdown.
In a single, baffling message, he suggested he wasn’t on board with his party’s plan to avert a government shutdown Friday night.
Why can the two sides not agree?
The episode was one of several that eroded trust and derailed negotiations between the White House and lawmakers from both parties in the final run-up to the government shutdown.
Republicans have a tenuous one-seat majority in the Senate, and on Friday needed to lure some Democrats to their side to get the 60 votes needed to bring the motion forward but were 10 short.
At the center of the debate is an impasse over immigration – specifically, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects some 700,000 immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. Send it to the president, who said he’d sign whatever was agreed to.
Administration officials piled on, calling it the “Schumer Shutdown”, saying Democrats found nothing in the stopgap bill itself to object to.
Republicans have dug in to pit DACA recipients against CHIP, even though they could, presumably, pass a CHIP extension as a standalone bill.
Vice President Mike Pence, on board Air Force Two on his way to the Middle East, issued this statement. Democrats, meanwhile, say they have to have an answer on extending protection to almost 700,000 people brought to the U.S. illegally as children who face deportation after early March.
There have been four government shutdowns since 1990.
The US budget must be approved by 1 October – the start of the federal financial year.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who leads the conservative House Freedom Caucus, praised Trump for being calm and delegating many key roles to his top advisers while staying in touch with lawmakers. Half of workers in the treasury, health, defence and transportation departments will also not be going to work.
Funding for federal agencies ran out at midnight with no agreement in Congress, meaning the second year of Trump’s presidency began without a fully functioning government.
“Republicans in Congress plunged headfirst into the trump shutdown”, said Senator Chuck Schumer from NY.
The apparent congressional paralysis risked overshadowing the first anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration and capped off a year defined at times by chaos and frustration from both the White House and congressional Republicans despite their unified control of Washington.
The impact of the shutdown would be felt acutely if it lasts into the coming work week.
Many federal employees were forced to take a leave of absence – officially known as being furloughed – during the 16 days of shutdown. The White House said his planned trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week was in flux because of the standoff.
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“What’s even more frustrating than President Trump’s intransigence is the way he seems amenable to these compromises before completely switching positions and backing off. Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O”, Schumer said Saturday.
