President Donald Trump has invited congressional leaders from both parties to the White House, according to two congressional sources, setting the stage for the first meeting between top Democratic and Republican leaders and the President since the partial government shutdown began 11 days ago.
While details on the meeting are still being worked out, it likely will occur Wednesday afternoon and would include a briefing on border security from Homeland Security Department officials, the sources said.
The meeting would come as negotiations to re-open about a quarter of the federal government have been frozen for nearly two weeks, and just one day before Democrats take over as the majority party in the House. Compromise proposals, to the extent they existed in the first place, have not been traded or even discussed in recent days as both sides settled into their respective positions.
Nancy Pelosi, the presumptive incoming House speaker, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have laid out their proposals to end the shutdown, which the House is expected to pass just hours after the new Congress is sworn in. The plan includes packaging six bipartisan full Senate appropriations bills together and then separately moving a stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 8 — the bill at the core of the border wall fight. The short-term proposal would maintain the current border security funding level of $1.3 billion, which can be used for fencing and border barrier repairs.
That proposal has already been rejected by Trump, who tweeted Tuesday: “The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security – and our Country must finally have a Strong and Secure Southern Border!”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear that he will not move forward on any measure that doesn’t have the President’s sign-off, leaving a pathway out of the shutdown — short of one side suddenly moving off its current position — elusive.
