Dems to Trump: We won’t yield on wall funding

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Democrats would hold fast to their pledge to oppose border wall funding after President Trump threatened a government shutdown over the issue.

“President Trump’s multi-billion dollar border wall boondoggle is strongly opposed by Democrats and many Republicans,” she said. “Democrats will stand fast against the immoral, ineffective border wall and the rest of Republicans’ unacceptable poison pill riders.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a separate statement said Trump’s demands for wall funding in a government-funding bill would lead to a shutdown.

{mosads}“If the President pursues this path, against the wishes of both Republicans and Democrats, as well as the majority of the American people, he will be heading towards a government shutdown which nobody will like and which won’t accomplish anything,” Schumer said.

Congress must approve new funding for the government by the end of September to prevent a shutdown.

At a campaign style-rally in Arizona Tuesday, Trump doubled down on his vow to get Congress to fund a border wall, his signature campaign pledge.

“If we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall,” Trump said. “One way or the other, we’re going to get that wall.”

House Democrats successfully blocked border wall funding in a May omnibus package that funded the government through fiscal 2017.

That led Trump to vow that he would secure the funding later this year.

The House has approved a homeland security funding bill that includes $1.6 billion in wall funding. In the Senate, that legislation faces an uphill battle, as at least eight Democrats would need to back it.

Trump separately on Wednesday tweeted that Senate Republicans should do away with the filibuster, which requires most legislation in the upper chamber to win 60 votes for passage.

Some Republicans also oppose the wall. Most border district lawmakers from both sides of the aisle oppose a physical wall and instead favor high-tech border security solutions.