After 35 long days, the US government shutdown is finally over. Many have commented that this is a loss for US President Donald Trump, but acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney disagrees.
Donald Trump and the Democrats were at an impasse over the funds that were to go to Trump’s ‘Border Wall’ with the President requesting $5 billion and the Democrats arguing that such an amount was too much for a wall that wouldn’t do much to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs coming into the country.
Now with the government once again open, so are negotiations between both parties with Trump reluctant to take any deal that doesn’t fund his wall.
Mulvaney believes that while dialogue with the legislative is the right way to go, it isn’t the only way and that the President is willing to look into other options.
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One of such would be to declare a national emergency and therefore get money for the wall.
“At the end of the day, the president’s commitment is to defend the nation and he’ll do it either with or without Congress,” Mulvaney said
As for the President’s negotiation tactics, the COS believes that the President simply did this to take the Dems at their word as they had claimed that there was no way to even provide the money for a wall if the Government is shutdown.
“The president saw a chance here to take the Democrats at their word,” he continued.
“Ultimately, he’ll be judged by what happens at the end of this process,
“No one wants a government shutdown. But when a president vetoes a bill that’s put in front of him on a spending package, sometimes that has the effect of shutting the government down. We don’t go into this trying to shut the government down.”