Democratic and Republican congressional leaders will gather at the White House Wednesday afternoon for a briefing on border security as a partial government shutdown continues, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said late Tuesday night.
From Daily Caller:
“The President has invited Republican and Democrat leaders in Congress to the White House for a border security briefing from senior Department of Homeland Security officials on Wednesday, and he remains committed to reaching an agreement that both reopens the government and keeps Americans safe,” Sanders said.
Attendees will include President Donald Trump, House-speaker designate Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader-to-be Kevin McCarthy, a source familiar with the meeting told The Daily Caller.
The meeting is ostensibly a briefing convened by the White House but is certain to entail negotiations over how to end a partial government shutdown.
The partial government shutdown centers on Trump’s demand for $5 billion in funding for his proposed border wall and Democratic resistance to it. Democrats instead say they will offer approximately $1.6 billion of funding for “border security” which would not be allowed to fund a concrete wall along the southern border.
The planned meeting is the first between Trump and Democratic leaders since an extraordinary Oval Office meeting in late December. Trump lambasted Schumer and Pelosi in the Oval Office and declared that he would be proud to shut down the government for border wall funding.
