WASHINGTON: The White House chief of staff said on Sunday that the US federal government shutdown, now entering its third week, could “drag on a lot longer”. But Mick Mulvaney also raised the possibility of changing the construction materials used to build a barrier on the border with Mexico in order to reach a compromise between President Donald Trump and Democrats.
Mulvaney, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press”, said Trump was considering accepting funding to build a steel fence, despite his campaign promise that the wall be built of concrete.
“And if he has to give up a concrete wall, replace it with a steel fence in order to do that so that Democrats can say, “See? He’s not building a wall anymore,” that should help us move in the right direction,” Mulvaney, who is also the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said.
Mulvaney said negotiations between his staff and congressional Democrats were bogged down in technical requests after the two sides met on Saturday.
“I think this is going to drag on a lot longer. I think that’s, that’s by, by intention,” Mulvaney, who is serving as the top White House aide in an acting capacity, said.
Mulvaney dismissed claims from other Republicans that political motivations were preventing Trump for compromising. 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 resolving this issue,” Mulvaney said. “It’s why we’ve been meeting for two weeks. It’s why we met yesterday with the vice-president and the team for several hours. It’s why the president met with the leadership teams three days ago for several hours.”
‘WE HAVE TO BUILD THE WALL’
But Trump stood firm on Sunday on his demand for billions of dollars to fund a border wall with Mexico.
“We have to build the wall,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for the Camp David presidential retreat, while conceding that the barrier could be “steel instead of concrete.” “It’s about safety, it’s about security for our country,” he said. “We have no choice.” An impasse with lawmakers over funding for the border wall has partially shut down the federal government since December 22.
Talks aimed at ending the shutdown were to continue on Sunday, after discussions a day earlier between Vice-President Mike Pence and representatives of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the top two Democrats in Congress, made little headway.
Democrats, who now control the House of Representatives, seem in no mood to make concessions to the president on a border wall Pelosi has described as an “immorality.” “This shutdown could end tomorrow and it could also go on for a long time,” Trump said. “It really depends on the Democrats.” Both Democrats and Republicans have attempted to pin the blame for the shutdown on the other side.
Building a wall along the 3,200-kilometre US-Mexico border was a central plank in the 2016 election campaign of Trump, who has sought to equate immigrants with crime, drugs and gangs.
The president has described the situation at the border as a “national emergency,” and has said he is looking into ways to get a wall built without congressional approval. — Reuters
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