As a potential government shutdown looms next month, Republicans and Democrats have yet to reach a compromise on a final number for border-wall funding.
Senator Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Congress should still cap funding for a wall on the southern border at the $1.6 billion Democrats agreed to for 2019.
“We believe Senate Democrats and Republicans should stick with their agreement and Trump should not interfere,” the Senate minority leader said.
How much funding will be allotted for the wall is the “central question” as lawmakers enter the lame-duck session of Congress, according to Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Richard Shelby (R., Ala.).
“We ought to try to resolve it. I’m going to try to meet with the president and the leader and we’ll see,” Shelby said.
President Trump has threatened to veto any spending bill that does not provide the $5 billion he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are seeking to construct the wall.
“We need the money to build the wall — the whole wall, not pieces of it all over,” the president said at his press conference after the midterms. “I speak to Democrats all the time. They agree that a wall is necessary.”