Meanwhile, the shutdown of about a quarter of the federal government, comprising nine agencies, dragged on toward its 19th day with no clear end in sight.
The longest government shutdown on record lasted 21 days.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has refused to allow a vote in his chamber on bills that he says the president will not sign, said in a statement that Trump’s proposal “suits the reality on the ground.”
“The past eighteen days have shown that Democrats’ refusal to negotiate is not due to any principled objection, but simply due to partisan spite for the president,” McConnell added in yet another indication that the shutdown would persist.
Trump had addressed his opponents in Congress directly in his speech.
“To those that refuse to compromise in the name of border security, I would ask, imagine if it was your child, your husband or your wife whose life was so cruelly shattered and totally broken,” Trump said.
The president is scheduled to visit the southern border in Texas on Thursday in an effort to escalate his messaging on the border wall.
Yet, according to The New York Times, Trump told news anchors at an off-the-record lunch Tuesday that he considered the planned border visit a mere photo op. He also said top communications advisors Bill Shine, Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders had talked him into doing it, the Times reported, citing a person in the room.
from Update News Zone http://bit.ly/2FkEmCN
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