Last Updated Jan 20, 2018 1:29 PM EST
Negotiations continued on Capitol Hill Saturday, as both the House and Senate returned to look towards an end to the shutdown after it went into effect at midnight.
Republicans are blaming Democrats for the shutdown, while Democrats are blaming Republicans. Mr. Trump canceled his scheduled departure to Mar-a-Lago, where he was supposed to celebrate his first year in office. “This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown,” the president tweeted early Saturday morning.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, blamed Mr. Trump in a Saturday afternoon press conference, saying the president kept shifting his positions on what he wanted out of a deal, and what he would agree to in the final hours before the shutdown.
“Negotiating with this White House is like negotiating with Jell-O. It’s impossible,” Schumer said.
Schumer said it’s, “next to impossible to strike a deal with the president because he can’t stick to the terms. I have found this out. Leader McConnell has found this out. Speaker Ryan has found this out.”
In the morning, President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke on the phone. The White House would support a three-week funding deal, shorter than the 30-day one it passed Thursday, but the impasse continues as Senate Democrats are opposed, CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett reports. White House legislative affairs director Marc Short emphasized the White House will not negotiate on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) during a shutdown.
“There is a deal out there to be made,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, told CBSN Saturday afternoon. “I’m willing to engage. the president is willing to engage. All we need to do is open this government back up and get to a solution in the coming weeks.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats held a post-caucus meeting press conference in the late morning, hours after the Senate failed to reach an agreement on government funding Friday night, triggering a partial shutdown.
“He promised infrastructure, he gave us a train wreck,” Pelosi said of President Trump, on the one-year anniversary of his inauguration.
Republicans are trying to convince the Democratic counterparts, CBS News’ Nancy Cordes reports, to agree to a three-week spending deal, instead of the previous 30-day proposal.
But Democrats fear a slightly shorter spending agreement would make no difference. Congress has been divided on spending matters since Mr. Trump in September announced he would be ending DACA. The deadline set for “Dreamer” protections to end is March 5.
A deal seemed possible last week, when Mr. Trump met with both Republicans and Democrats in congressional leadership at the White House. Mr. Trump said he would be open to a clean bill to fix DACA, then seemingly shifted his position shortly after, saying he wants border security funding and funding for the border wall to be a part of any immigration-related bill.
Fast forward to the shutdown.
Schumer said shortly after the shutdown began Saturday morning, and again Saturday afternoon, that he told the president he would even consider border wall funding on the table. A deal, Schumer said, seemed more possible. But then, according to Schumer, the president called him and said he heard Congress had reached a deal to fund the government for three weeks. It had not — the idea was merely that, an idea floated by a handful of Republicans. But then, Mr. Trump began adding more requirements for any such deal, Schumer said, making a spending deal less of a compromise and more of a capitulation to immigration hardliners.
As of early Saturday afternoon, there is no tangible alternative proposal to fund the government.
— CBS News’ Kathryn Watson contributed to this post
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