Trump baffles GOP with tweet scrambling shutdown talks
BY SCOTT WONG AND MELANIE ZANONA - 01/18/18 12:13 PM EST
President Trump undermined his own party’s plan to avert a looming government shutdown on Thursday after tweeting that a key Democratic bargaining chip shouldn’t be attached to the funding package.
The 17-word tweet threw Capitol Hill into a state of confusion ahead of what is already expected to be a tight vote in the House on Thursday night. Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were trying to decipher what exactly the president meant by declaring that a popular children’s health-care program should be part of a “long term solution” as opposed to a “30 Day, or short term, extension.”
The strategy Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his leadership team are pursuing would attach a six-year reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to a stopgap government funding measure as a way to sweeten the pot for wary Democrats in both the House and Senate. But Democrats have been cool to the proposal, arguing that Republicans have shut them out of talks and voicing frustration that the bill does not deal with young immigrants known as “Dreamers” who face deportation beginning as early as March because of Trump’s decision to end an Obama-era program sheltering them.
Trump’s early morning tweet — the second in as many weeks that appeared to contradict the GOP’s strategy ahead of a key House vote — comes as House GOP leaders are still scrambling to lock down last-minute votes for a one-month continuing resolution. Current government funding runs out Friday at midnight.
more
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369545-trump-baffles-gop-with-tweet-scrambling-shutdown-talks
= new reply since forum marked as read
