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Trump Says He Will ‘Never Ever Back Down’ on Wall

With the government mired in shutdown week four, President Donald Trump rejected a short-term legislative fix and dug in for more combat, declaring he would "never ever back down."

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the government mired in shutdown week four, President Donald Trump rejected a short-term legislative fix and dug in for more combat, declaring he would "never ever back down."

FILE - In this June 21, 2006, file photo, members of the California National Guard work next to the U.S.-Mexico border fence Wednesday, June 21, 2006, near the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego. President Donald Trump said April 3, 2018, he wants to use the military to secure the U.S.-Mexico border until his promised border wall is built. The Department of Homeland Security and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. At the Pentagon, officials were struggling to answer questions about the plan, including rudimentary details on whether it would involve National Guard members, as similar programs in the past have done. But officials appeared to be considering a model similar to a 2006 operation in which former President George W. Bush deployed National Guard troops to the southern border in an effort to increase security and surveillance.(AP Photo/Denis Poroy, File)

Trump rejected a suggestion to reopen the government for several weeks to negotiate with Democrats over his demands for $5.7 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He also edged further away from the idea of declaring a national emergency to circumvent Congress.

"I'm not looking to call a national emergency," Trump said Monday. "This is so simple we shouldn't have to."

No cracks were apparent in the president's deadlock with Congress after a weekend with no negotiations at all. His rejection of the short-term option proposed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham removed one path forward, and little else was in sight. Congressional Republicans were watching Trump for a signal for how to move next, and Democrats have not budged from their refusal to fund the wall and their demand that he reopen government before border talks resume.

The White House has been considering reaching out to rank-and-file Democrats rather than dealing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to try to chip away at Democratic opposition to the wall. A White House official said plans were in the works to call freshman representatives, especially those who initially did not support Pelosi's bid for the speakership.

It was uncertain whether any Democrats would respond to the invitation.

Separately, about a dozen senators from both parties met Monday to discuss ways out of the shutdown gridlock. Participants included Graham and Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was aware of the group's effort but added: "I wouldn't go so far as to say he's blessed it." The odds of the group producing a solution without Trump's approval seemed slim. In the past, centrists of both parties banding together have seldom resolved major partisan disputes.

Lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill late Monday "discouraged," according to Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, as all signals pointed to a protracted fight.

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee, compared the shutdown saga to the play "Waiting for Godot."

"And Godot never shows up," Shelby said. "We could be protracted here for a long time. There's nobody on the horse coming to rescue us ... that I know about."

Meanwhile, the impact of the 24-day partial government closure was intensifying around the country. Some 800,000 federal workers missed paychecks Friday, deepening anxieties about mortgage payments and unpaid bills, and about half of them were off the job, cutting off some services. Travelers at the Atlanta airport, the nation's busiest, dealt with waits of more than an hour Monday as no-shows by security screeners soared.

Trump spent the weekend in the White House reaching out to aides and lawmakers and tweeting aggressively about Democratic foes as he tried to make the case that the wall was needed on security and humanitarian grounds. He stressed that argument repeatedly during a speech at a farming convention in New Orleans on Monday, insisting there was "no substitute" for a wall along the southern border.

Trump has continued to insist he has the power to sign an emergency declaration to deal with what he says is a crisis of drug smuggling and trafficking of women and children at the border, though illegal border crossing have declined consistently and tremendously since 2000, and the vast majority of illegal drugs are seized at border crossings, not in between ports of entry. But he now appears to be in no rush to make an emergency declaration.

Instead, he is focused on pushing Democrats to return to the negotiating table — though he walked out of the most recent talks last week — and seized on the fact that a group of House and Senate Democrats were on a retreat in Puerto Rico. Democrats, he said, were partying on a beach rather than negotiating — though Pelosi and Schumer were not on the trip.

White House officials cautioned that an emergency order remains on the table. Many inside and outside the White House hold that it may be the best option to end the budget standoff, reopening the government while allowing Trump to tell his base supporters he didn't cave on the wall.

However, some Republican lawmakers — as well as White House aides — have counseled against it, concerned that an emergency declaration would be challenged immediately in court. Others have raised concerns about rerouting money from other projects, including money Congress approved for disaster aid. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also warned that acting under an emergency order would set a troubling precedent for executive power.

For now, Trump apparently sees value in his extended fight to fulfill a key campaign pledge, knowing that his supporters — whom he'll need to turn out in 2020 to win re-election — don't want to see him back down.

Trump was taking a wide range of advice on both sides of the issue, including from his new chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, senior aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., as well as outside political advisers.

In the House, Democrats look to keep the pressure on Trump by holding votes this week on two bills: one that would reopen the government until Feb. 1, and a second that would reopen it until Feb. 28.

Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the bills offer "additional options" to end the shutdown and would give lawmakers time for negotiations on border security and immigration.

A key question is how long Trump is willing to hold out in hopes of extracting concessions from Democrats.

Recent polling finds a slight majority of Americans opposed to building a wall along the Mexican border — and few see the situation at the border as a crisis — but views are predictably divided by partisanship.

Polls also show that Americans are more likely to fault Trump for the shutdown. A large majority of Democrats put responsibility on Trump, while a slightly smaller majority of Republicans blame Democrats. A modest share of Republicans hold Trump responsible or say both sides are at fault.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll published Sunday found that 54 percent of Americans oppose a wall along the border, while 42 percent express support for it. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans favor the wall, compared with about as many Democrats (84 percent) who oppose it.

Categories / Government, Politics

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