Trump doubtful over border deal, says another shutdown ‘certainly an option’

President Trump during an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday said that he is doubtful Congress can come to a deal over border wall funding, claiming that another government shutdown is “certainly an option” once the three-week funding bill comes to an end.

Trump expressed skepticism that a group of 17 lawmakers assembled to agree on a deal could achieve a bipartisan resolution.

{mosads}“I personally think it’s less than 50-50, but you have a lot of very good people on that board,” Trump told the Journal.

Trump during the interview said that another shutdown is “certainly an option,” days after he signed a continuing resolution temporarily ending the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history on day 35. 

Trump said he is doubtful that he would accept a deal that does not include the $5.7 billion in border wall funding that he has demanded, which Democrats have refused.

“I doubt it,” Trump said when asked whether he would accept a deal without the more than $5 billion. “I have to do it right.”

Trump also said he doubts he would accept a deal that traded the border wall funding in exchange for citizenship for a group of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, known as Dreamers.

A group of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle has been tasked with hammering out a deal that addresses the polarizing issues of immigration and border security. The group of 17 lawmakers is led by House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and will meet for the first time this week. 

“I’m going to remain optimistic,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the group, said on Sunday, according to the Journal. “If you look at the impetus from both sides, the shutdown was a miserable experience for everybody.”

“There’s a lot that tells me we may not get there, but there’s more that’s telling me we have the urge to demonstrate we can reach a consensus or we’re signaling to the American people there’s going to be two years of this [fighting] all of the time,” Capito said.