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Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday he would “love to see a shutdown” if immigration reform was not part of an impending spending bill.Ninety minutes later, the White House press secretary said immigration will not be part of the spending bill and the administration is “not advocating for a shutdown.”Trump’s comments came during a meeting with a law enforcement panel that covered the MS-13 gang.On stricter immigration, the president said: “I’d love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this stuff taken care of.”
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In the White House briefing room soon after, Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed Trump's statement, saying he was just “encouraging people to do their jobs.”The president has accused Congressional Democrats of holding up a long-term deal that would include a solution to the immigration impasse that led to last month’s partial three-day shutdown.However, Trump’s comments threaten to destabilize current negotiations that had looked positive.While Trump was baiting his opponents, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in separate news conferences, made clear a deal was close.The House passed a temporary spending bill Tuesday to extend most agency funding until March 23, the fifth such stopgap in the last four months.The Senate will debate the bill Wednesday, but changes are expected as Democrats are likely to balk at an increase in Pentagon funding while excluding increases to any non-defense funding.
The bill will then go back to the House before a Thursday deadline for Trump to sign the bill to avert another shutdown.Schumer later told ABC that the president’s call for another shutdown “speaks for itself. We had one Trump shutdown. Nobody wants another, maybe except him.”Cover image: Donald Trump hosts a law enforcement roundtable on MS-13 at the White House on February 6, 2018, in Washington. (Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)