Top Republicans struggle to persuade Trump not to shut down the government

By Seung Min Kim, Erica Werner and Josh Dawsey December 17 at 7:28 PM

Congressional Republicans struggled Monday to find a way to persuade President Trump to back off a public threat to shut down the government over border wall money, staying largely in the dark over the impasse that could halt pay for hundreds of thousands of federal workers by the end of the week.

At the White House, Trump has remained disinclined to support even stopgap measures that would keep federal government operations running for a week or two, told by his closest advisers that he would have even less leverage when Democrats take control of the House next month. Trump is also bolstered by support of rank-and-file Border Patrol agents, whose union leader told the president in a recent Oval Office conversation that they would back a wall-induced shutdown if the dispute came to that point.

All that has left Republican lawmakers eager to avoid a shutdown unsure whether Trump would ultimately come around to at least one option that would end the impasse before Friday. Without a resolution that the president could sign before midnight Friday, roughly 800,000 federal workers will be furloughed or forced to work without pay in a partial shutdown that Trump has already — and proudly — claimed as his own.

“How are we going to get out of it? Well, I think that should factor into people’s calculations,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.), who has been publicly critical of Trump’s decision to embrace shutdown tactics. “Because it’s not going to get any better in January.”

Following a meeting of Senate Republican leaders Monday evening, Cornyn said that “if there is” a plan to avoid a shutdown, “I’m not aware of it.”

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