Trump shutdown announcement: Democrats reject president's Daca compromise on border security and immigration
Donald Trump's attempt to strike a deal with Democrats and reopen the federal government appears to have failed, after the terms of his offer were firmly rejected.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer both dismissed the president's compromise, which was unveiled during a live television address.
In a relatively diplomatic address the president offered extensions to protections for certain undocumented immigrants in exchange for $5.7bn (£4.4bn) to go towards his proposed border wall along the US-Mexico border. "Rank and file" Democrats had contributed to the plan, he said, adding that it was aimed at alleviating a "humanitarian crisis".
Mr Trump has been in a standoff with Democrats in Congress for the past 29 days after he refused to sign a government funding bill without the money. The federal government has been partially shut down throughout this period.
Ms Pelosi lambasted the president's offer in a statement released before Mr Trump spoke. "Initial reports make clear that is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives," she said.
"It is unlikely that any of these provisions alone would pass the House and taken together, they are a non-starter."
In the latest instance of political brinkmanship over the shutdown, Ms Pelosi cancelled her plans to travel by commercial plane to visit US troops in Afghanistan, saying the president had caused a security risk by talking about the trip.
Mr Schumer also rejected Mr Trump's proposal.
"It was the president who single-handedly took away DACA and TPS protections in the first place—offering some protections back in exchange for the wall is not a compromise but more hostage taking," he said.
Around 800,000 federal employees are on leave or working without pay since the shutdown began and nine of the 15 cabinet-level departments have not been funded in almost a month.
The long shutdown may be hitting home for the president. Just 21 of the roughly 80 people who tend to his needs at the White House – from butlers to electricians to chefs – are reporting to work. The rest have been placed on leave.
Hello and welcome to our coverage of the US government shutdown as it enters its 29th day – and fifth week – on Saturday. It’s almost a full month since the president refused to sign a government funding bill without $5.7 billion for his border wall. An estimated 460,000 employees are still working without pay, and another 340,000 workers have been placed on leave.
Could the end now be in sight? Trump has promised us a “major announcement” on the dispute today. There are reports he is ready to offer Democrats a deal, but he has previously threatened to declare a national emergency to resolve the standoff.
The White House has denied the bombshell report claiming Trump ordered his former lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Russia. And since Robert Mueller issued a rare statement late on Friday disputing the basis of the BuzzFeed News story, the president has been furiously tweeting and re-tweeting various claims about “fake news”. Clearly encouraged by Mueller’s statement, Trump said: “Fake News is truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”
As well as promising an announcement at 3pm today, Trump released a video statement on Friday night claiming there was a “national security crisis” happening on the southern border. “Take the politics out of it – let’s get to work and let’s make a deal.” he said. “A lot of the Democrats they agree with me, they told me so, but they’re afraid to say it.”
Airport officials are concerned the shutdown could have a big impact on travel plans for this year’s Super Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia on 3 February. The city’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has been plagued with long security lines since many unpaid screening employees have been calling in sick.
So what might the president have to say on Saturday afternoon? According to various media reports, Trump is not getting ready to declare a national emergency today, having previously threatened to do so.
A senior administration told CNN the president has a plan to offer Democrats a fresh proposal to end the shutdown. CBS News is also reporting that the announcement will be about a proposed deal to get the government back up and running, rather than a decision to use emergency powers.
A former White House advisor has suggested Trump “doesn’t care” about losing support over the shutdown because he doesn’t really want to spend another four years in the Oval Office. Pippa Malmgren, George W Bush’s special assistant for economic policy, thinks the chance of him running for re-election in 2020 is “diminishing every day”. Here’s Chris Baynes with more:
Shutdown announcement aside, Trump is heading to the Dover Air Force Base today to pay tribute to four Americans killed in a suicide bomb attack in Syria this week. The Delaware trip hadn’t been on the president’s public schedule for Saturday, but he tweeted the news before he left the White House.
The Democrats have come up with new proposals for border security to end the shutdown, according to a report in The New York Times. A House aide said the party leadership is now proposing hundreds of millions of dollars for new immigration judges and improvements to the infrastructure at ports of entry from Mexico. But there's no indication Democrats are willing to budge on the wall - or any other physical barrier.
So much has craziness has occurred since Trump took office, it’s easy to imagine his first term is beginning to wind down. But there’s still another two years to go. Two more years of high drama, grandstanding and hysterical tweeting by the President of the United States.
On Trump’s second anniversary in the Oval Office, here’s Andrew Buncombe on the wild ride ahead:
A typically bellicose Trump has suggested, while providing no evidence to support the claim, that impeaching him would precipitate a 'Stock Market Crash' (his capitalisation)
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has weighed in on Trump’s recent hamburger feast for Clemson University football stars. Jackson, who grew up near Clemson in South Carolina, says “the national champions deserved better” and that the food offered to them was “beneath the status of their accomplishment”.
According to S&P Global Ratings analysts, the US is suffering badly as result of the shutdown. The country’s gross domestic product is losing around $1.2 billion each week – or about $1,984 every second. You can follow a live ticker of the losses on NBC News:
For the first time since it broke, Trump has directly addressed the BuzzFeed News report which claims he told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, calling the story “disgraceful”:
Trump certainly doesn’t sound like he’s in the mood to compromise on a border wall, if that’s what anyone is expecting from his announcement later this afternoon. His latest Twitter missive:
In the past 24 hours quite a few Trump supporters have decided Robert Mueller might not be so bad after all. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s current lawyer, “commended” the special prosecutor’s team for disparaging the BuzzFeed News story. Giuliani has more to say on the media now, accusing the president’s critics of suffering from a strange condition.
The Women’s March returns to Washington DC today. The original march in 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration, drew hundreds of thousands of people. Organisers have submitted a permit estimating up to 500,000 people could participate, but the actual turnout is expected to be far lower.
Somewhat ironically, the planned route had to be changed because the shutdown meant the National Park Service could no longer clear snow. The new route takes the protesters just a few blocks from the White House and down Pennsylvania Avenue past the Trump International Hotel.
Some analysts believe disruption at US airports could hasten the end of the government shutdown. Many security screening employees – who are not getting paid – have called in sick. Philip Glover of the American Federation of Government Employees has told CNN that going without a pay check “is not a joke”:
Interesting. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig thinks Mueller’s rejection of the BuzzFeed News Trump-Cohen story might have a “perverse” impact in helping confirm other claims about Trump and his associates.
“I think we will see people saying, ‘Well, Mueller objected to the BuzzFeed story, but he doesn’t object to this one’.”
