Senate Dems: Trump making negotiations 'impossible'
Senate Dems: Trump making negotiations 'impossible'
53 min ago
01/20/18 04:49 PM EST
http://thehill.com/sites/default/fil...?itok=agnZJXdI
Senate Democrats knocked President Trump a day into the government shutdown, saying his penchant for changing his mind is undercutting the ability to get a deal.
"Let's face it. This president at this point is impossible to negotiate with. It's impossible," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said.
He added that the Senate couldn't "wait for an approval stamp" from the president.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) also questioned why Democrats should trust the president when he could change his mind on a myriad of outstanding issues that Congress needs resolved.
"If we can't take the word of the president when we know he is only one tweet away from changing his mind, why should we trust him when he says he will take care of our veterans or get serious about the opioid epidemic?" he asked.
He added that the Senate is "spinning our wheels in the Trump shutdown."
Senate Democrats, joined by four Republican senators, blocked a House-passed bill to fund the government through mid-February. Democrats separately said that Trump walked away from a deal with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said he has "obviously considerable sympathy" for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for dealing "with a president who takes opposite positions within hours. How do you negotiate with that?"
But Whitehouse also knocked McConnell, saying he was turning the Senate into a "dead zone" where only GOP proposals or uncontroversial measures were moved through the chamber.
"Dictating terms to the Senate minority as if this was the Soviet Duma is not justifiable and it is destroying the Senate," he said.
Several Democratic senators, including Schumer, spoke from the Senate floor on Saturday next to a sign that featured Trump's face and his comments that the U.S. "needs a good 'shutdown.' "
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3...ons-impossible