Thread: Live Updates – Schumer Amnesty Shutdown: Washington on Edge as Cliff Approaches

UPDATE 1:01 P.M.

Everything is on the line right now as Trump moves forward on this meeting with Schumer.

Am told that the meeting with the president is supposed to be just @realDonaldTrump and @SenSchumer — a one-on-one between the two of them.
— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) January 19, 2018

If that holds, such a meeting is likely to cause conservatives to pull their hair out, worrying about what @realDonaldTrump might agree to at this very high-stakes moment for both parties.
— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) January 19, 2018

Pictures show that @SenSchumer is already in the Oval Office with @realDonaldTrump. (with Marc Short, the president's legislative director, there too.) The balance of this day will be shaped by what happens in the next hour or so.
— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) January 19, 2018

One big question: Will @realDonaldTrump have Stephen Miller, his hard-line immigration / domestic policy adviser, and his chief of staff, John Kelly, in the Oval with @SenSchumer? They usually bolster POTUS's hard-line tendencies.
— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) January 19, 2018

Also — with there be more "tough" language in the Oval today? If so, that could derail any deal that might otherwise emerge.
— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) January 19, 2018

UPDATE 12:57 P.M.

President Trump is risking a lot with this Schumer meeting, and House Republicans are very worried they will “get hosed” per a report from Politico’s Jake Sherman.

There is very serious concern rippling through the House Republican Conference that they are about to get hosed by the president and Chuck Schumer.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 19, 2018

UPDATE 12:54 P.M.

CNN’s John King reports that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, is not invited to Schumer’s White House meeting with President Trump that is about to begin.

UPDATE 12:53 P.M.

Back in 2013, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) called senators who voted to shut down the government “dysfunctional deadbeats.”

Now, she faces a choice as the Senate prepares voting for cloture on the House-passed spending bill, whether she wants to vote for what she considers is a “dysfunctional deadbeat” position as she faces reelection this year.


UPDATE 12:49 P.M.

Schumer has arrived at the White House. It remains to be seen what deal is being discussed if any or if congressional Republicans will join Schumer and Trump in these negotiations.

JUST IN: Schumer has arrived at the White House for talks with President Trump.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) January 19, 2018

UPDATE 12:43 P.M.

Schumer is on his way to the White House, per media reports:

the Schumer/Trump confab is imminent. meaning, it will happen like now
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 19, 2018

BREAKING: Chuck Schumer headed to White House to talk shutdown, @kasie reports
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) January 19, 2018

News – Trump reached out to Schumer and invited him to WH to try to figure out a deal on spending to avert shutdown, per source briefed
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 19, 2018

BREAKING: AP source: Trump phones Senate Dem leader Schumer, invites him to White House to try to reach deal to avert shutdown.
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 19, 2018

UPDATE 12:42 P.M.

An update from House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office, as the Speaker appeared on Fox News to discuss the Schumer Shutdown that looms.

A key quote as highlighted by the Speaker’s office is as follows:

“This is absolutely needless, completely unnecessary, and wholly because of Senate Democrats trying to shut down the government, holding the entire government hostage for a completely unrelated issue that doesn’t have a deadline right now. . . . If we have a government shutdown, that the Democrats insist on, troops don’t get paid, they’re holding our military hostage. Children’s health insurance dries up, seven states run out of money for their children’s health insurance. The Medical Device Tax kicks in so anybody getting a medical procedure that involves a device will pay a whole lot more for that procedure. Those are things that will happen if the Senate Democrats continue to insist on shutting down the government. . . .Senator Schumer said this very tactic, this very strategy a few years ago, was governmental chaos. Nancy Pelosi called it legislative arson. This is exactly what they’re doing and it is completely unnecessary to hold the government hostage for something unrelated. And by way, those DACA negotiations are underway right now. There are good faith bipartisan negotiations underway on DACA right now that have been occurring for some time and that deadline is not until March. So what they’re simply trying to do is hold all of government hostage, our troops, kids’ health insurance, for a completely unrelated issue. I think it’s shameful.”

UPDATE 12:35 P.M.

More from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) interview on MSNBC. He takes the radical leftist worldview, far outside the mainstream and more in line with the Democratic Party, that Stephen Miller is somehow to blame for the Democrats’ intransigence on DACA.
It’s worth noting that President Trump and House GOP leaders, as well as several GOP senators including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), support the position that in exchange for a legislative amnesty for DACA recipients there must be an end to chain migration altogether, an end to the visa lottery, and funding for the border wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. That principle is encapsulated in legislation offered by House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX). That bill is supported by House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who intend to hold a House vote on the bill and whip support for it. So, in other words, Graham’s extremist position on immigration is so more in line with the Democrats pushing for a government shutdown if they don’t get their way on amnesty for illegal aliens, even though there is absolutely nothing in the House-passed bipartisan spending bill–which 6 Democrats and 224 Republicans backed–that Democrats oppose.


UPDATE 12:29 P.M.

The Department of Homeland Security said that if a government shutdown happens thanks to Schumer’s and his Senate Democrats’ intransigence, the government is prepared to protect the homeland.
Most of DHS personnel–about 90 percent–are considered “essential staff” in the event of a shutdown.


UPDATE 12:25 P.M.

Chuck Schumer is facing serious criticism for previously, back in 2013, saying that it would be “governmental chaos” for doing exactly what he is doing now.

Schumer, in a 2013 interview with George Stephanopoulos, said this:

Speaker [John] Boehner comes in and he says basically… it’s sort of like this: Someone goes into your house, takes your wife and children hostage and then says ‘Let’s negotiate over the price of your house.’

You know we could do the same thing on immigration. We believe strongly in immigration reform. We could say ‘We’re shutting down the government. We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling until you pass immigration reform.’ It would be governmental chaos.

But, as our own John Binder notes in a piece just published on Breitbart News, that is exactly what Schumer is doing right now:

The plan to shut down the federal government unless illegal aliens are given amnesty, though, is now being championed by Schumer and Democrats, who say they want to see the nearly 800,000 illegal aliens shielded from deportation by the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program given amnesty to remain permanently in the U.S. in exchange for their support on a government funding bill.
In an expansive amnesty plan that the Republican establishment and Democrats want to see passed, some 3.5 million illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for DACA would be granted amnesty, as well as their parents who brought them to the U.S. illegally.

Read the whole piece from Binder here.