WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats played the blame game Saturday morning as members of the House and Senate returned to work with no clear path forward amid a partial government shutdown.
The Senate is in session to debate a shorter spending bill that would last just three weeks, until February 8, while the House convened Saturday morning in case the Senate passed a short-term government funding bill that would require a new vote in the chamber.
The three-week option floated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell late Friday night is the latest offer on the table, but many Democrats think a three or four week spending bill is just a stalling tactic to avoid negotiating on the myriad of issues, including DACA, disaster aid and government spending levels, both parties have yet to agree upon.
President Donald Trump used his early-morning tweets to claim that Democrats are harming the military in favor of protecting Dreamers.
And House Speaker Paul Ryan said on the House floor that Senate Democrats are “deliberately holding our government hostage.”
“They oppose a bill they don’t even oppose,” Ryan said.
But House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi pointed a finger at the president, whose tweets and pronouncements in the days leading up to the shutdown caused confusion even among members of his own party about what the White House wanted.
“Last night, on the eve of the first anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration, President Trump earned an ‘F’ for leadership,” Pelosi said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was one of four Republicans to vote against the funding bill Friday, is attempting to persuade his colleagues to consider the short-term continuing resolution McConnell proposed.
“After my discussions with numerous senators on both sides of the last night it is clear to me a commitment to move to immigration after February 8th is the key to ending the government shutdown and finding resolution on all the outstanding issues,” Graham said on Twitter, part of a string of tweets outlining his support for the offer.
But most Democrats say they want more than McConnell’s word that he’s “willing” to move forward on such issues. They say they want tangible progress.
Trump, for his part, has postponed a planned trip to his private resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where he had been set to attend a pricey, one-year anniversary party for his presidency.
According to a source familiar with the planning of the event, the fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago will still go on as planned and the president’s elder sons — Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — will attend.
The White House says the president will not travel to Florida until some kind of deal is reached to reopen the government.