Politico
By Kyle Cheney
December 29, 2017
Democratic and Republican congressional leaders will meet Wednesday with top White House officials as they attempt to hammer out a deal to avert a government shutdown and resolve an impasse on immigration.
The meeting, confirmed by two sources familiar with the planning, was initially expected to include President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, but a White House spokesman said legislative affairs director Marc Short and budget director Mick Mulvaney would represent the president. The meeting comes as President Donald Trump attempts to squeeze Democrats to force action on one of his most iconic, divisive policy proposals: a wall on the southern U.S. border.
Trump has signaled in recent days that he would support a measure to protect undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors in exchange for wall funding and other stiff border security measures that Democrats have ardently opposed.
“The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc,” Trump tweeted Friday morning. “We must protect our Country at all cost!”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer brushed off the president’s tweet.
“We’re not going to negotiate through the press and look forward to a serious negotiation at Wednesday’s meeting when we come back,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.
Pelosi and Schumer will join Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the meeting with Kelly on Wednesday afternoon.
Short and Mulvaney’s lead role in the negotiations is a break from similar meetings in recent months, when Democrats have walked away emboldened and claiming to have won concessions from Trump. After a September session at the White House, Trump joined Pelosi and Schumer to punt a series of fiscal negotiations until early December.
Democrats bailed on the most recent planned meeting of the four leaders in November, though, after Trump tweeted that an immigration deal was unlikely.
Trump told The New York Times on Thursday that he believes a bipartisan solution on DACA is within reach, though he said he wouldn’t back any plan “without a wall.”
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus, said Friday that he’s confident Trump won’t sign any deal that doesn’t include his immigration priorities — from the wall, to ending so-called chain migration and the visa lottery program.
“The president will veto something that doesn’t have those items in there,” Meadows told Breitbart Radio. “I firmly believe that.”
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