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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Sam Levin in Oakland and Ben Jacobs in Washington

Trump walks out of shutdown meeting with top Democrats, calling it 'total waste of time' – as it happened

Donald Trump speaks to reporters in Washington DC on 9 January.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters in Washington DC on 9 January. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Summary

We’re ending our live coverage for the day, thanks for following along. A recap of the major developments:

  • There was no end to the shutdown in sight after Donald Trump abruptly ended a meeting with Democratic leaders, calling it a “total waste of time”.
  • Some Republicans have said they would support reopening the government without wall funding, but Trump urged Senate Republicans to “stick together”.
  • Trump also claimed he had the “absolute right” to declare an emergency, saying the “threshold” for the declaration is if he can’t broker a deal with Congress.
  • House Democrats are planning to start passing individual spending bills that would reopen closed departments in hopes of ratcheting up pressure on Republicans.
  • Democrats have also pushed legislation that would prohibit creditors and landlords from taking actions against federal workers hurt by the shutdown.
  • New details emerged about how the shutdown was affecting the EPA and the FDA.
  • News broke that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein is expected to step down.
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer announced he would not be running for president, but that he plans to spend at least $40m on impeachment efforts.
  • The New Hampshire Democratic party announced that Elizabeth Warren would be the keynote speaker at the party’s major fundraising dinner.

The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino is following Senator Kamala Harris this evening at a book event that has drawn a large crowd in Washington DC:

Some Democrats have also pushed a measure today that would prohibit creditors and landlords from taking actions against federal workers hurt by the shutdown:

Legislation could potentially protect employees from foreclosures, evictions and loan defaults:

Trump last week encouraged landlords to be “be nice and easy” to tenants hurt by the shutdown and struggling to pay rent.

The White House is reportedly discussing a scenario to reopen the government that would involve Trump declaring a national emergency, the courts intervening, and Congress and the president ending the shutdown while the case is going through litigation, according to the Wall Street Journal:

It’s unclear if the president is interested in this option:

The federal government has halted some routine food inspections due to the shutdown. The AP has some details on the impact on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA):

The US government isn’t doing routine food inspections because of the partial federal shutdown, but checks of the riskiest foods are expected to resume next week.

The Food and Drug Administration says it’s working to bring back about 150 employees to inspect riskier foods such as cheese, infant formula and produce. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the agency can’t make the case that “a routine inspection of a Nabisco cracker facility” is necessary during the shutdown, however.

The FDA conducts about 8,400 inspections a year, or an average of 160 a week. Gottlieb said riskier foods account for about a third of the food covered by the agency’s domestic inspections.

Some more information here:

The shutdown has had a severe impact on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with cuts that could put Americans’ health at risk moving forward. Guardian environment reporter Oliver Milman reports:

  • More than 13,000 employees at the EPA are not at work, with just 794 people deemed essential staff currently undertaking the agency’s duties.
  • Routine activities such as checks on regulated businesses, clean-ups of toxic superfund sites and the pursuit of criminal polluters have been paused since 28 December.
  • Disaster relief payments to people harmed by hurricanes Michael and Florence have been delayed.
  • Preparations to battle wildfires in Alaska have been hampered.
  • Testing to ensure toxic chemicals aren’t leaking into the lower Cape Fear river in North Carolina has been halted.
  • Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami have suspended work on predicting the next storm season, in the wake of a punishing series of hurricanes in 2018.

Read more here:

An estimated 35.3 million people watched Trump speak live on Tuesday night in his televised address that used falsehoods and misleading statistics to claim there was a crisis at the US-Mexico border.

Here are some stats on viewers from Nielsen, via the AP:

Fox News Channel with 8.044 million viewers and CBS with 8.043 million were in a virtual dead heat as the top destination. NBC was third with 7 million, followed by ABC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox broadcasting.

The total, which came from 11 separate networks that decided to air the speech live, was about 10m fewer viewers than Trump had for his 2018 State of the Union address.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is facing some backlash for a joke he made about the #MeToo movement while telling reporters to move back earlier today:

Trump has repeatedly mocked the #MeToo movement, and so have some Democrats:

Here’s what we know about the Situation Room meeting Trump called a “waste of time”.

There was candy. Butterfingers, Babe Ruth’s, M&Ms and possibly skittles. It resolved nothing.

The Democratic leaders tried to humanize the shutdown by talking about its impacts, according to a congressional aide.

They emphasized that Democrats do want borders security – but that a wall wouldn’t stop the flow of drugs or illegal border crossings.

Trump, according to the aide, talked about “thousands” storming the border and claimed without evidence that large numbers of women being trafficked over the border “with tape over their mouths”.

At one point during the discussion, the Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said: “You are using people as leverage. Why won’t you open the government and stop hurting people?

According to the aide, Trump replied: “Because then you won’t give me what I want.”

Trump then asked Pelosi if he “quickly” re-opened the government would she support a wall in 30 days. The speaker said she would not.

“What’s the point?” Trump responded. In a disputed account, he slammed his hands on table. But all agreed that it ended with him saying: “Bye bye”

US Coast Guard employees impacted by the government shutdown were given tips on how to make up for lost wages: consider babysitting, dog-walking or holding a garage sale, according to a new report in the Washington Post.

Those suggestions apparently came in a five-page tip sheet that also said: “Bankruptcy is a last option.”

The Coast Guard gets funding from homeland security and currently has roughly 6,400 employees on indefinite furlough, along with 2,100 working without pay, the paper reported.

A spokesperson told the Post that the suggestions in the tip sheet did not “reflect the Coast Guard’s current efforts to support our workforce during this lapse in appropriations”, and that the “guidance” had now been removed from its website.

Updated

Summary

Sam Levin here, taking over our live coverage of the government shutdown as negotiations have once again failed. A quick summary of key highlights from the day:

  • Donald Trump abruptly ended a meeting with Democratic leaders, calling it a “total waste of time”.
  • The president met with Senate Republicans in a closed-door meeting earlier, urging them to “stick together”.
  • Some Republicans have said they would support reopening the government without wall funding, but Trump has claimed the GOP is “unified”.
  • Trump also claimed he has the “absolute right” to declare an emergency, saying the “threshold” for the declaration is if he can’t broker a deal with Congress.
  • House Democrats are planning to start passing individual spending bills that would reopen closed departments in hopes of ratcheting up pressure on Republicans.
  • Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the the president was using federal workers as “hostages through a temper tantrum”.
  • News broke that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein is expected to step down.
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer announced he would not be running for president, but that he plans to spend at least $40m on impeachment efforts.

Updated

The House just voted to pass the individual Financial Services appropriations bill as part of effort by Democrats to pass government funding bills for each aspect of government in hopes of forcing a Senate vote. Only 8 Republicans joined with all Democrats in voting to fund this aspect of the government.

There is a new report that Rod Rosenstein will not leave the administration until special counsel Robert Mueller has finished his work rather than after Bill Barr is confirmed to be attorney general.

In a new interview with Buzzfeed, John Kasich, the outgoing Republican governor of Ohio, declined to say if he still considered himself a Republican.

Well I’m certainly a conservative. A creative conservative, on the order of a guy like Jack Kemp, or my newest big fad is Teddy Roosevelt” the progressive Republican president who later left his party and waged an unsuccessful third-party campaign.

Kasich was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2016.

The Guardian can confirm as well that Tom Steyer will not run for the presidency.

Tom Steyer will not run for president

The New York Times reports that the progressive billionaire will announce that he will not run for the White House but will step up his efforts to promote Trump’s impeachment instead.

Mr Steyer began informing aides early this week that he would not be a candidate after all, after concluding that he could have a greater political impact through his impeachment activism, several advisers to Mr Steyer said. Mr Steyer intends to spend at least $40m on impeachment efforts in the coming year – money that might otherwise have been directed toward a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Most people come to Iowa around this time to announce a campaign for president,” Mr Steyer said in prepared remarks, which were obtained by the New York Times. “But I am proud to be here to announce that I will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to remove a president.”

Updated

Mike Pence says Trump “made clear today there will be no deal without a wall”.

Updated

Mike Pence now attacks Democrats who “demanded that before any negotiations could begin we would have to reopen the government”.

Updated

Trump backs up Schumer’s account, saying: “I said bye-bye” after saying the meeting was “a total waste of time”.

Updated

Trump walks out of meeting with congressional leaders

Chuck Schumer told reporters that Trump slammed the table and walked out of the meeting at the White House this afternoon

Donald Trump implored Republicans to “stick together” as they come under pressure from Democrats, federal workers and the American public to reopen the government.

During a closed-door lunch with Senate Republicans, the president remained resolute in his negotiating position and made clear that he was not prepared to back away from his demand for a border wall, according to several members who attended the meeting.

“He gave no indication of any willingness to budge an inch,” said John Kennedy, a Republican of Louisiana. “The president– and I happen to agree with him –believes that his only sin is that for the first time in 15 or 20 years he is actually enforcing America’s immigration laws.”

In a sign of how far off a resolution was, Kennedy outlined four possible outcomes – none of which included a compromise. In his view, either Trump blinks, Pelosi blinks, Trump declares a national emergency or the government remains partially closed.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, one of a handful of Senate Republicans who is uneasy with the prolonged shutdown, said she reminded the president that “when the government is shut down there are consequences and people are starting to feel those consequences”.

In response, she said, Trump urged the party to stay unified.

Murkowski has indicated support for the Democrats’ plan to pass a stopgap spending bill that funds border security at current levels while the debate continues and a separate package that would fully fund the rest of the government until the end of the fiscal year.

Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, wouldn’t guess how many more days – or possibly weeks – the shut down would last but he isn’t counting on a swift conclusion. “I think we’re going to be here for a little while,” he said.

Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is firmly behind the president, said Trump told members that declaring a national emergency “remained an option” but that he “wasn’t going to do it right away”.

Updated

Congressional leaders have arrived at the White House again for yet another meeting about resolving the partial shutdown.

Donald Trump spoke briefly to reporters on Capitol Hill this afternoon about the shutdown.

He insisted that Republicans were “very very united” and continued to leave open the possibility of declaring a national emergency, “I may do that”.

Updated

Trump spoke at the Senate Republican lunch today. However, those leaving the lunch are not optimistic about the partial shutdown being resolved anytime soon.

Doug LaMalfa, the Republican congressman who represents Paradise, California, which was almost completely destroyed by wildfires last year has responded to Trump’s tweet about withdrawing Fema funds from California this morning in a statement.

He describes Trump’s threat as “not helpful”.

Updated

A continued shutdown poses risks to the US’s credit rating according to a report from CNN.

Updated

Federal employees are not getting paid during the shutdown. However, as the Atlantic reports, they can’t go on strike in response either.

Since the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, federal employees have been legally prohibited from striking. That law was intended to prevent public-sector workers from leveraging a work stoppage that could cripple the U.S. government or major industries in negotiations for better pay, working conditions, and benefits. But it likely did not envision a scenario where the government would require its employees to work without paying them, as is the case now.

The Washington Post reports that the shutdown has led to a significant reduction in food inspections.

[The Food and Drug Administration] which oversees 80 percent of the food supply, has suspended all routine inspections of domestic food-processing facilities, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview. He said he’s working on a plan to bring back inspectors as early as next week to resume inspections of high-risk facilities, which handle foods such as soft cheese or seafood, or have a history of problems.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas says that he is getting some very strong praise for his new beard.

Trump weighs in on potential national emergency declaration

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he has the “absolute right” to declare an emergency. The “threshold” for declaring one is if he can’t make a deal with Congress.

The Democratic leaders on Wednesday joined affected federal workers at a press conference on Capitol Hill to urge Donald Trump to end the partial government shutdown.

Echoing language they used in their rebuttal to Trump’s Tuesday night address, they accused the president of misrepresenting their negotiating position and called it a “dark time” for American workers.

“To use them as hostages through a temper tantrum by the president is just so wrong, so unfair, so mean-spirited,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, pointing the workers standing behind him. “It ought to end and it ought to end now.”

House Democrats are planning to start passing individual spending bills that would reopen closed departments in hopes of ratcheting up pressure on Republicans. But the Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to bring legislation to the floor that Trump has not explicitly said he would support.

“Last night the president spouted more malice and misinformation, appealing to fear instead of facts,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “The reality is the president could end the Trump shutdown and reopen the government today - and he should.”

Jeffery David Cox, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, stressed the economic toll the shutdown – which he called a “lockout” – was having on workers, noting that his members’ average take-home pay is $500 a week.

“They need their jobs. They need their paydays. They want to service the American people and it’s time for this lockout to end,” Cox said.

Clifton Buchanan, a cook supervisor with the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Houston, is among the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been furloughed since 21 December, when parts of the government shut down.

Buchanan, who participated in the conference in Washington, turned 50 years old on Friday but instead of celebrating the milestone, he sat around the kitchen table with his wife discussing which bills they could afford to pay without his income.

“I’ve served this country for 29 years so it’s not like I’m against protecting our country” he said, referring to his service in the US army and his work for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

“But,” he said, directing his comments to Congress and the president, “open up the government and then do your political thing. Free the hostages.”

Right now I’m just trying to figure out how to pay my bills and feed my family. I’m not working. I’m not getting paid. I can’t pick and choose who to blame. I just know I have no income.”

The New Hampshire Democratic party has just announced that Elizabeth Warren will be the keynote speaker at the party’s major fundraising dinner in February. The speech marks Warren’s first announced trip to Granite State since forming an exploratory committee for a presidential bid on New Year’s Eve. Warren travelled to Iowa last weekend.

Updated

The retirement of longtime Kansas senator Pat Roberts has sparked one statewide elected official to throw his hat in the ring already.

Jake LaTurner, the 30-year-old Republican state treasurer of the Sunflower State, announced yesterday that he run for the seat being vacated by Roberts in 2020. Roberts narrowly won re-election in 2014 against Democratic backed independent Greg Orman.

Former HUD secretary Julian Castro, who is expected to announced a presidential bid this weekend, has committed to not taking support from political action committees and similar outside groups.

NBC News reports:

Castro also echoed a promise made by another fellow Democrat exploring a 2020 run, Senator Elizabeth Warren: not to take money from political action committees — and challenging other would-be candidates to do the same.

That promise was met with some consternation from one man in the crowd, afraid that Castro would be — as the candidate re-phrased it — “bringing a knife to a gun fight.”

“The people are more powerful than the PAC,” Castro rebutted, eliciting cheers.

Controversial Iowa Republican Steve King will face a primary challenge from Randy Feenstra, a state senator from the north-west corner of the state.

In a statement, Feenstra said: “Today, Iowa’s 4th District doesn’t have a voice in Washington, because our current representative’s caustic nature has left us without a seat at the table,” Senator Feenstra concluded. “We don’t need any more sideshows or distractions, we need to start winning for Iowa’s families.”

Feenstra though emphasizes his conservative credentials including support for President Trump and the second amendment and his opposition to abortion.

Updated

In an interview with Fox and Friends on Fox News Channel this morning, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders acknowledged that she was incorrect when she wrongly claimed that 4,000 terrorists had been stopped at the southern border of the United States. The correct number was six.

“I should have said 4,000 at all points of entry, not just at the southern border. But the bottom line is whether it’s one, whether it’s four, whether it’s fourteen or four thousand - one terrorists coming into our country in illegal fashion to do us harm is one too many and we have to take every step possible to prevent that from happening, including protecting our most vulnerable points of entry, and we know that to be the southern border. We have to do what is necessary to protect our border, to protect the people, and that’s exactly what President Trump has done, and that’s exactly what he laid out in his speech last night.”

Updated

Chuck Grassley, the outgoing chair of the Senate judiciary committee, met with Bill Barr, Trump’s attorney general nominee on Capitol Hill this morning.

Confirmation hearings on Barr’s nomination will be held next week.

Updated

The morning after his Oval Office address, Donald Trump has thoughts on forest management or “Forrest Management” in California and says he has directed FEMA to cut off aid to the state.

Updated

Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke is leaning towards a presidential bid reports Politico.

O’Rourke who lost a bid to represent Texas in the Senate in 2018 has been reportedly making positive noises about running for the White House and recently met with former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley who went on to endorse O’Rourke’s candidacy in an editorial in the Des Moines Register.

However, the Texas Democrat has still been playing coy with activists in early states.

Rosenstein expected to leave justice department soon

As first reported by ABC News, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein is expected to step down in the coming weeks provided Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, Bill Barr is confirmed by the Senate.

Rosenstein has overseen Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian collusion in the 2016 election for over a year and a half.

As ABC reports:

Rosenstein has communicated to President Donald Trump and White House officials his plan to depart the administration around the time William Barr, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, would take office following a Senate confirmation.

Sources told ABC News Rosenstein wants to ensure a smooth transition to his successor and would accommodate the needs of Barr, should he be confirmed.

Rosenstein apparently had long been thinking he would serve about two years, and there was no indication that he was being forced out at this moment by the president.

Updated

Good morning, it is the 19th day of the partial government shutdown, Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department soon and Donald Trump is appearing on Capitol Hill.

It is Wednesday in American politics.

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