Threat of U.S. govt shutdown ebbs as Trump relents on wall funding

By using it to threaten a government shutdown, Trump is heightening the wall between himself and his won congressional majority.

A vote on the short-term bill, which funds the government until 5 May, could come as early as Thursday.

Despite the hiccups, Ryan expressed optimism that Congress would reach an agreement and avoid a government shutdown before funding expires at midnight Friday.

The day before, Republicans unveiled an amendment to their failed healthcare replacement proposal.

Still, the overwhelming backing from Freedom Caucus conservatives means the future of the GOP’s efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act now rests with moderate House Republicans.

However, a deal remained far from certain. “We can get this deal done today”.

“We could explore – not necessarily a visa, that could impede a lot of people from coming to Mexico – but we could perhaps (have) a fee associated with entry”, Videgaray said. “It’s going to have a huge impact on human trafficking”, the President said, adding construction will start “soon”.

In the midst of the delicate negotiations, Trump took to Twitter to blast Democrats. “The reason this government funding bill is not ready is Democrats have been dragging their feet”, he said. While they will not be in the spending bill, the payments will be in place, which was the Democratic demand. Trump wrote in the first of a series of tweets.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said Republican negotiators were following the lead of Mr Trump, who signalled on Monday evening that he would not insist on $1 billion (£800 million) of wall funding now as an addition to the $1 trillion-plus spending bill.

That the government will continue to pay the cost-reduction subsidies is a small breath of fresh air for the 58 percent of Americans covered by Obamacare in 2017 who are qualified to receive them.

Currently, funding for the payments comes from the White House, and Trump has threatened to end them. However, it is not clear how long the payments will continue, according to Politico. Democrats have also pushed for relief for Puerto Rico as it restructures its debt to avoid bankruptcy.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi warned that the goal of the stopgap measure was to tie up loose ends of a deal to provide around $1 trillion in money for the fiscal year ending September 30 and not for “kicking the can down the road to have this same back-and-forth” over funding disputes.

Pelosi spoke with White House Chief-of-Staff Reince Priebus on the phone about the funding bill twice on Wednesday.

Additionally a Democratic aide told Business Insider later on Wednesday that Democrats “still hope to secure language in the omnibus to continue the payments” but was not able to predict the outcome of the debate.

The odds of a government shutdown ticked up on Tuesday night when Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney reportedly told House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that the Trump administration might not cover next month’s cost sharing payments for low-income people with Obamacare marketplace plans.

There’s also, of course, what we’re learning about the president’s willingness to follow through on his threats – or in Trump’s case, his ****unwillingness to follow through on his threats. “We welcome that cooperation”.