White House indicates it wants to avoid partial government shutdown

White House

Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump is willing to find other ways to fund his border wall.

The White House on Tuesday appeared to make a major concession on President Donald Trump’s border wall demands, revealing a potential path to averting a partial government shutdown through Christmas.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders signaled that Trump would support a bipartisan spending deal with $1.6 billion for border security — which has already been endorsed by key senators — rather than forcing a shutdown on Friday.

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Trump has demanded a full $5 billion for his border wall, and Sanders claimed there were additional ways to get the money from other parts of the federal budget.

“We have other ways that we can get to that $5 billion that we’ll work with Congress if they will make sure that we get a bill passed that provides not just the funding for the wall, but there is a piece of legislation that has been pushed around … that provides roughly $26 billion in border security including $1.6 billion for the wall,” Sanders said in an interview with Fox News.

Sanders is apparently referring to the Senate’s Department of Homeland Security spending bill, which easily cleared a bipartisan Appropriations panel in June.

Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, initially pushed that bill last month to GOP leaders as their preferred way to avoid a shutdown this week.

Republican leaders immediately rejected that offer, citing Trump’s demands for a full $5 billion.

Since then, Democratic leaders have backed away from the $1.6 billion offer, and offered Trump a funding bill with no increase in border funding. They proposed providing $1.3 billion, the same amount that’s already been signed into law.

Sanders did not say where the additional border money would come from to reach Trump’s full $5 billion demand, but administration officials have hinted it could come from the military’s budget.

The White House press secretary’s comments were met with relief from some lawmakers.

“I don’t know anybody on the Hill that wants a shutdown and I think all the president’s advisers are telling him this would not be good. So now I think they are pivoting to this idea to use the military and existing funding to build the infrastructure they want to build. And that makes me more optimistic,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.)

“I’m starting to feel like a combination of Christmas being right upon us and people’s desire to go home makes it feel like it’s all coming together here,” he said.

However, Congress has strict rules on how it can transfer money between departments, and Democrats have been skeptical of any large-scale shift of cash for Trump’s wall.

“Existing laws and guidelines make it essentially impossible to fund significant wall construction with [military construction] funds,” a Democratic appropriations aide said Tuesday in response to the White House’s claims. “There are virtually no Defense funds that can be used or reprogrammed for these purposes.”

On his way to a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said lawmakers were still in discussions but expressed some optimism.

“I’m hopeful,” he said. “The clock‘s ticking.”