White House spokesman: Schumer 'never made a real offer' for Trump's border wall
White House spokesman: Schumer 'never made a real offer' for Trump's border wall
http://thehill.com/sites/default/fil...?itok=eRbeC4KZ
01/28/18
Deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley on Sunday rejected the notion that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer ever offered to fund President Trump's border wall, accusing the New York Democrat of using verbal gymnastics to give the impression of compromise.
"Chuck Schumer said that he rescinded his offer to fund the wall. That's like me saying I'm going to rescind my offer to give all your listeners a million dollars," Gidley told radio host John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York. "I never made a real offer. It never existed."
"What he offered the president was an authorization for wall funding. Not an appropriation. And to be honest, that's D.C. swamp speak for 'nothing's ever going to happen.' So the senator is being disingenuous about what he truly offered the president, just like he's being disingenuous in blaming someone else for the Schumer shutdown."
Schumer formally withdrew an offer last week to fund construction of Trump's long-promised wall between the U.S. and Mexico as lawmakers scramble to legislate protections for young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, commonly referred to as "Dreamers."
The Democratic leader said he had initially made the offer in a bid to strike a deal to enshrine the protections of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program into law as part of a stopgap government funding bill. But he said his offer for the wall didn't win over Trump.
Schumer's announcement that he would withdraw the offer came a day after lawmakers struck an agreement to end a three-day government shutdown that began amid a partisan dispute over including DACA protections in the short-term spending bill.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also denied last week that Schumer had actually offered to fund Trump's border wall in exchange for a solution for Dreamers.
The White House is set to roll out a framework for immigration on Monday. That proposal, which has already hit stiff opposition, is expected to include a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers in exchange for curbing some legal immigration and funding the border wall.
http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-t...fer-for-trumps
