WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump plans to sign a compromise border security measure in conjunction with declaring a national emergency to secure funding for a border wall, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
MORE: Press sec. Sarah Sanders: “President Trump will sign the government funding bill...He will also take other executive action - including a national emergency - to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border." https://t.co/RtDFa4wWqt pic.twitter.com/LxQSKqTopq
— ABC News (@ABC) February 14, 2019
Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, McConnell sought to reassure lawmakers unsure of the President's position before taking a vote on the plan, which falls short of providing the $5 billion in border wall funding the President had demanded.
"He has indicated he is prepared to sign the bill. He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time," McConnell said. "I've indicated to him that I'm going to support the national emergency declaration. So for all of my colleagues, the President will sign the bill, we will be voting on it shortly."
It provided reassurance amid questions about the President's support for the deal, which was struck by a bipartisan panel of negotiators. Aides had said earlier Thursday they were concerned Trump would reject the spending compromise -- a major shift from earlier this week when officials indicated privately that he would.
Advisers said Trump had grown increasingly concerned about what is contained in the 1,100-page legislation that was released late Wednesday evening.
As more details about the package emerged, conservative figures in Trump's orbit voiced new displeasure at the bill. That included Fox host Laura Ingraham, who tweeted earlier Thursday that Trump should not sign it. The White House had attempted earlier this week to bolster support among Trump's media allies.
White House officials have been digesting the text since early morning and have briefed the President as they go along. The President tweeted midday he was "reviewing the funding bill with my team."
"1,000 pages filed in the in middle of the night take a little time to go through," one White House official told CNN's Jim Acosta.
Prayers?
Lawmakers were set to begin voting on Thursday afternoon. Many expressed hope -- even prayers -- the President would ultimately approve it.
"I pray" Trump signs the bill, said Sen. Richard Shelby, the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He said he spoke with Trump Wednesday night and the President was in "good spirits."
Other Republicans said they were hoping for assurances Trump will sign the bill if it gets to his desk, possibly later on Thursday.
"We'd like to know it's a bill the President is going to sign. Hopefully they will let us know," said Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking GOP leader as he left a Republican conference lunch where the issue was discussed at length.
Others Republicans said they were still parsing the legislative text before committing to supporting the plan.
Earlier this week, Trump had signaled to advisers and allies he was inclined to sign the bipartisan deal to avoid another government shutdown, and would use executive action to attempt securing additional border wall dollars.
"I think the President's evaluating what's in the bill. He's also evaluating the authority he has and I know he'll be making a decision before the deadline," Vice President Mike Pence, who is traveling in Warsaw, told reporters Thursday.
Private griping
In conversations with allies over the past days, Trump has griped that Republican negotiators were outplayed by their Democratic counterparts, securing a border funding number far smaller than Trump has spent the last two months demanding.
Privately, Trump has cast GOP's dealmaking efforts as inadequate and wondered why he, an experienced dealmaker, wasn't consulted at more regular intervals as the two sides haggled over an agreement. The White House acted largely on the sidelines while congressional negotiators struck a deal.
That was intentional, according to people familiar with the process, who noted Trump's attempts at brokering an agreement between lawmakers proved futile during the record-length government shutdown that ushered in the new year.
To appease the President, aides and some Republican lawmakers have cast the smaller figure, around $1.375 billion, as a down payment that will eventually lead to new wall construction.
Initially, Trump was distressed when he watched Sean Hannity and other Fox News hosts deride the plan, including as he watched recorded versions of prime-time programming during a late-night flight home on Monday from Texas, where he'd held a campaign rally.
After phone calls from the White House, some of Trump's allies took a softer approach, saying the deal was palatable as long as Trump went ahead with unilateral action to secure some funding for the border wall.
On Thursday, however, some of those voices returned to their initial skepticism.
"So the president has his hand forced to sign a 1,159 page bill that we KNOW is filled with amnesty, PORK and wiggle room? Total SCAM! @realDonaldTrump wasn't elected for this," Laura Ingraham wrote on Twitter. "This bill must NOT be signed by @realDonaldTrump."
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Congress rolled toward resolving its border security brawl with President Donald Trump in uncommonly bipartisan fashion Thursday, preparing to approve a compromise averting a new government shutdown this weekend but providing a mere sliver of the billions Trump has demanded for a wall with Mexico.
With Trump's halfhearted signature widely expected but not yet guaranteed, the Democratic-controlled House was poised to pass the sweeping measure Thursday evening, and the Republican-led Senate was expected to approve as well. Bargainers formally completed the accord moments before midnight Wednesday night.
Passage was virtually certain, with sizable numbers of both parties' members set to vote "yes." The only residue of suspense was whether Trump, despite clear signals he would go along, might reject the package and inject a fresh blast of chaos into the issue
"Let's all pray that the president will have wisdom to sign the bill so the government doesn't shut down," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chiming in after a guest chaplain opened Thursday's session.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who's been close to Trump, seemed to have more faith than that. He told reporters Trump is "certainly inclined to sign it" and "march toward filling in gaps" by using executive action to divert other budget funds into wall-building.
Trump's assent would end a raucous legislative saga that commenced before Christmas and was ending, almost fittingly, on Valentine's Day. The low point was the historically long 35-day partial federal shutdown, which Trump sparked and was in full force when Democrats took control of the House, compelling him to share power for the first time.
Trump yielded on the shutdown Jan. 25 after public opinion turned against him and congressional Republicans. He'd won not a nickel of the $5.7 billion he'd demanded for his wall but had caused missed paychecks for legions of federal workers and contractors and lost government services for countless others. It was a political fiasco for Trump and an early triumph for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The fight left both parties dead set against another shutdown. That sentiment weakened Trump's hand and fueled the bipartisan deal, a pact that contrasts with the parties' still-raging differences over health care, taxes and investigations of the president.
The product of nearly three weeks of talks, the agreement provides almost $1.4 billion for new barriers along the boundary. That's less than the $1.6 billion for border security in a bipartisan Senate bill that Trump spurned months ago, and enough for building just 55 miles of barricades, not the 200-plus miles he'd sought.
Notably, the word "wall" — which fueled many a chant at Trump campaign events and then his rallies as president — does not appear once in the 1,768 pages of legislation and explanatory materials. "Barriers" and "fencing" are the nouns of choice.
The compromise would also squeeze funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in an attempt to pressure the agency to gradually detain fewer immigrants. To the dismay of Democrats, it would still leave an agency many of them consider abusive holding thousands more immigrants than it did last year.
The measure contains money for improved surveillance equipment, more customs agents and humanitarian aid for detained immigrants. The overall bill also provides $330 billion to finance dozens of federal programs for the rest of the year, one-fourth of federal agency budgets.
Trump has talked for weeks about augmenting the agreement by taking executive action to divert money from other programs for wall construction, without congressional sign-off. He might declare a national emergency, which has drawn opposition from both parties, or invoke other authorities to tap funds targeted for military construction, disaster relief and counterdrug efforts.
Those moves could prompt congressional resistance or lawsuits, but would help assuage supporters dismayed that the president is yielding.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who leads the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, told reporters "it would be political suicide" if Trump signs the agreement and did nothing else to find added money.
The measure was expected to be carried by pragmatists from both parties. Many of Congress' most liberal members were expected to oppose it, unwilling to yield an inch to Trump's anti-immigrant policies, while staunch conservatives preferred a bill that would go further.
"I made a promise to my community that I wouldn't fund ICE," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a freshman who's become a face of her party's left wing and a leading proponent of eliminating the agency.
Though Trump lost the highest-profile issue at stake, he all but declared victory Wednesday.
At the White House, he contended that a wall "is being built as we speak." Work on a small stretch of barriers is due to start this month in Texas' Rio Grande Valley under legislation Congress approved last year.
Swallowing the deal would mark a major concession by Trump, who has spent months calling the situation at the southern border a national security crisis. In private conversations, Trump has called the congressional bargainers poor negotiators, said a person familiar with the conversations who wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Trump has repeatedly vowed Mexico would pay for the wall, a suggestion that country has spurned. His descriptions of the wall's size have fluctuated, at times saying it would cover 1,000 of the 2,000-mile boundary. Previous administrations constructed over 650 miles of barriers.
Facing opposition from Trump, Democrats lost their bid to include language giving federal contractors back pay for wages lost during the last shutdown. Government workers have been paid for time they were furloughed or worked without paychecks.
Also omitted was an extension of the Violence Against Women Act. Democrats say this will give them a chance later this year to add protections for transgender people to that law.
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Associated Press reporters Catherine Lucey and Padmananda Rama contributed.
