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Congress returns this week
Lawmakers will have to cope with how to fund the government
(CNN) —
To fund a wall, or not to fund a wall? That is the question President Donald Trump and White House officials can’t seem to answer clearly.
After Trump told a group of conservative reporters Monday evening that he wasn’t fixated on getting funding for his border wall in the current budget negotiations, White House officials insisted Tuesday that Trump was not backing down on securing funding for the border wall in the FY 2017 budget that must get through Congress on Friday to avoid a government shutdown.
“It’s not off the table,” White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said. “We’re not pushing anything to FY ‘18.”
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President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House.
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Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.
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Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.
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Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964.
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Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
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Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
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Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979.
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Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.
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Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
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The Trump family, circa 1986.
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Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.
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Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower.
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Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.
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Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."
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Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.
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Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.
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Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.
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An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."
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A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
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Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated.
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Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.
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Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.
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For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
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Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009.
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Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
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In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
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Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
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Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
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In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run.
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Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.
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The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.
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Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
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Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people."
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Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September.
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Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.
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Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York.
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Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20.
That came after a White House official on Monday night told CNN that Trump wouldn’t insist on funding for the border wall in order to keep the government running past Friday. Broader funding for “border security” could satisfy the President’s demands, the official said, with the expectation that wall funding would come in future spending bill negotiations.
“Politics is the art of compromise,” the official said.
The marching orders changed by Tuesday morning, with multiple White House officials scrambling to tell reporters the border wall was not off the table for the current budget negotiations – reviving the notion of a potential poison pill that could lead to a government shutdown. Democrats have been adamant about not funding Trump’s border wall in the current budget negotiations.
Those orders changed as Trump was upset by news reports suggesting he was backing off his campaign promise to build a border wall, a senior administration official said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted Monday night that it was “good for the US that @POTUS is taking the wall off the table in negotiations.”
Trump quickly sought to dispel that notion in a tweet Tuesday morning.
“Don’t let the fake media tell you that I have changed my position on the WALL. It will get built and help stop drugs, human trafficking etc.,” Trump tweeted.
Still, Trump’s tweet did not address the issue of funding for the border wall in the current budgeting process that, if unsuccessful, would trigger a government shutdown on Trump’s 100th day in office.
A senior administration official said Trump was unlikely to allow a government shutdown over funding for his border wall and said they believed Trump would ultimately accept money for border security in general for the coming budget.
The mixed signals from the White House just days before the critical government funding deadline did not just develop Tuesday morning after Trump’s comments to a group of conservative reporters the previous evening.
Trump himself muddied the waters in recent days by adding a return to health care reform to the legislative docket, and promised a “big announcement” on tax reform during the week leading up to the crucial budget deadline and, coincidentally, the 100-day marker of his presidency.
And top White House officials failed to send one clear and consistent message as they made the rounds of the Sunday news shows as to whether the budget bill needed funding for the border wall to earn Trump’s signature.
The result has been an uncertain strategy that is reflective of the political reality a White House with few legislative accomplishments faces as it nears the end of the first 100-day grading period to both make good on campaign promises and avoid a politically damaging government shutdown.
“They’re feeling their way forward,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is close to Trump and top White House aides, told CNN on Monday. “One of the lessons they learned out of the health bill is to be cautious and not try and run straight into a wall.”
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Trump expects his “priorities” – military and border security spending increases – to be included in the budget bill, but focused on the White House’s flexibility in arriving at a deal to keep the government open.
“As long as the President’s priorities are adequately reflected in the (continuing resolution) and it allows us to get moving with an increase in military spending and a rebuilding of our military as he promised in one of your bullet points, and there’s enough as far as flexibility for the border wall and border security, I think we’ll be OK with that,” Priebus said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
But other top aides the same day focused instead on funding for the border wall – not just on border security overall.
“I can’t imagine the Democrats would shut down the government over an objection to building a down payment on a wall that can end the lawlessness,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on ABC’s “This Week,” suggesting Democrats – not Trump and Republicans – should catch the blame for a government shutdown over border wall funding.
“It will help us complete the promise that the President has made to the American people. That’s what they want. The American people, they have a right to expect it,” Sessions added.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said he suspected Trump would be “insistent on the funding” for the border wall. The White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, echoed Trump’s comment from a Friday interview: “We don’t know yet.”
The mixed messaging continued on health care, where Priebus and Mulvaney continued to push for a vote to repeal and replace Obamacare, days after Trump told reporters “it doesn’t matter” if a vote comes to fruition this week. A day before that, Trump said he wanted “both” health care reform and a budget bill the same week.
Privately, senior administration officials over the weekend said the pressure to rush for a vote on health care had subsided and that the White House’s priorities were realigning with those on Capitol Hill: to pass a budget bill and keep the government open.
The White House also scrambled to temper expectations over the weekend after Trump on Friday promised a “big announcement” on tax reform this week, which aides said would simply outline the administration’s “broad principles and priorities” – broad strokes Trump already laid out during his campaign.
Both the health care push and tax reform announcement pose a risk to the White House’s efforts to work with Congress to pass a budget bill by the end of the week by fracturing the attention of members on Capitol Hill and adding unknown variables to an already messy equation.
As the West Wing embarks on the final sprint to the 100-day marker of Trump’s presidency, top aides were thrown into the familiar pattern of rushing to match action to the President’s words while publicly avoiding words that could box in a President who prides himself on remaining “flexible.”
But while negotiations over an Obamacare replacement have played out in public, Trump and his aides have been more cautious in drawing clear lines on its demands for a budget bill that could pass muster.
Pressed repeatedly on Monday about whether Trump would sign off on a budget that leaves out funding for the border wall, White House press secretary Sean Spicer demurred.
“I don’t want to get ahead of those negotiations. They are ongoing,” Spicer said.
CNN’s Jim Acosta contributed to this report.
