White House signals agreement and government shutdown may come to an end.
White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney raised on Sunday (6) the possibility of changing the construction materials used to build a wall on the border with Mexico, in order to reach a compromise between President Donald Trump and the Democrats and end the partial shutdown of the US government.
247, with Reuters - White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney raised on Sunday (6) the possibility of changing the construction materials used to build a wall on the border with Mexico, in order to reach a compromise between President Donald Trump and the Democrats.
In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," he stated that Trump is considering accepting funding to build a steel fence, despite his campaign promise that the wall would be built of concrete.
“And if he has to give up on a concrete wall, replace it with a steel fence to do it so that Democrats can say, ‘See? He’s not building a wall anymore,’ that should help us move in the right direction,” said Mulvaney, who is also the head of the Office of Management and Budget.
Mulvaney also stated that negotiations between his team and congressional Democrats were flooded with technical requests following a meeting between the two sides on Saturday morning.
Much of the federal government was paralyzed on December 22 after lawmakers and the president reached an impasse over Trump's demands to build a wall.
The president wants any budget to keep the federal government running to also include $5,6 billion for the start of construction on the $23 billion wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Democrats who control the House of Representatives passed a law this week to resume government activities without providing additional funding for the wall, and insisted that the reopening of the federal government must depend on resources for its construction.
Mulvaney rejected claims by other Republicans that political motivations prevent Trump from committing. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said last week that Trump's political base would abandon the president if he did not build a wall.
“The president is interested in solving this problem,” Mulvaney said. “That’s why we’ve been meeting for two weeks. That’s why we met yesterday with the vice president and his team for several hours. That’s why the president met with the leadership teams three days ago for several hours.”