President Donald Trump has come out against the Senate’s deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security, saying it “wasn’t appropriate.”
Trump’s comment, which came during an interview with Fox News, undercuts Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-SD) effort to end the partial government shutdown of DHS that has stretched for over 40 days.
“Well, it wasn’t good,” Trump said before mentioning his call for Senate Republicans to terminate the filibuster. “It wasn’t appropriate. You can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund — in my opinion, you can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund ICE. You can’t have a bill that’s not going to fund any form of law enforcement, of which ICE is a big form, and so is Border Patrol.”
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) told the Washington Examiner that GOP leadership has had two conversations with the president regarding the Senate bill, and after they informed him of the contents of the deal, he opposed it.
House Republicans have been in an uproar over the deal, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) telling reporters that the “gambit that was done last night is a joke.“
“I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill,” Johnson said.
Johnson didn’t go so far as to openly criticize Thune, saying he “wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer” of the deal, passed by voice vote at 2:30 a.m. Instead, he has argued Democrats have “forced this upon the Senate.”
The Senate left for a two-week recess on Friday after passing the legislation, designed to overcome a monthlong impasse with Democrats over immigration enforcement. Under the plan, ICE would continue to stay afloat with funds from Trump’s tax law and then receive another infusion later this year using a party-line budget process known as reconciliation.
The president also posted on Truth Social, around the time of his interview with Fox News, calling on Republicans once again to abolish the filibuster and vote on their own to reopen the agency with no concessions.
“Haven’t they had enough of this nonsense from the Radical Left Lunatics that are looking to destroy our Country?” Trump wrote. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
DHS: 100,000 EMPLOYEES UNPAID AMID SHUTDOWN
Trump signed an emergency order Friday to pay Transportation Security Administration employees, who have gone without pay since the start of the partial shutdown, writing in the executive action that “America’s air travel system has reached its breaking point.”
Trump pinned blame for the shutdown on Democrats, saying that TSA employees are going without pay because of “Democrats’ reckless decision to prioritize criminal illegal aliens over American citizens and shut down DHS until their demand to prohibit enforcement of Federal immigration law is met.”
