On their first day in the majority, Democrats in the US House of Representatives passed a plan to reopen the US government without funding US President Donald Trump’s promised border wall.
The largely party-line votes on Thursday night came after Trump made a surprise appearance at the White House briefing room, pledging to keep up the fight for his signature campaign promise.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the president and the Republican-controlled US Senate should “take yes for an answer” and approve the border bill, which was virtually identical to a plan the Senate adopted on a voice vote last month.
Photo: AFP
“We’re not doing a wall. Does anyone have any doubt that we’re not doing a wall?” Pelosi told reporters at a news conference.
Pelosi, who was elected speaker earlier on Thursday, also took a shot a Trump, calling his proposal “a wall between reality and his constituents.”
Trump strode into the White House briefing room on Thursday — the 13th day of the partial government shutdown — and declared that “without a wall, you cannot have border security.”
He then left without taking questions from reporters.
The appearance came hours after the new US Congress convened, with Democrats taking majority control of the House and returning Pelosi to the speakership after eight years of Republican control.
The Democratic legislation to reopen the government without funding the wall is going nowhere in the Senate, where Republicans want Trump’s endorsement before voting on a funding package.
Trump is demanding billions of US dollars to build his wall along the border with Mexico, which the Democrats have refused.
Congressional leaders from both parties on Wednesday met with Trump at the White House, but failed to make progress during their first sit-down meeting in weeks.
The White House had invited the leaders back for another round of talks yesterday that officials suggested might be more successful now that Pelosi has been sworn in.
The Democratic package to end the shutdown included a bill to temporarily fund the department at current levels — with US$1.3 billion for border security, far less than Trump has said he wants — through Feb. 8 as bipartisan talks would continue. It was approved 239 to 192.
Democrats also approved a separate measure to fund the departments of agriculture, interior, housing and urban development, and others closed by the partial shutdown, at levels Senate Republicans had largely agreed to last year. The bill, which would provide money through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, was approved, 241-190, with several Republicans joining Democrats.
“Why not fully fund the Department of Homeland Security? Why doesn’t the Pelosi bill do that?” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to put the House Democratic package on the Senate floor and send it to the president, saying that it would show Trump “the sweet light of reason.”
McConnell has dismissed the idea as a “total non-starter” and a waste of time.
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