After Congress decided to move forward with a spending plan that doesn’t include cash for President Donald Trump’s border wall, the leader of the free world took his frustrations out the best way he knew how: on Twitter, of course.
Trump said the country needs “a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix this mess,” in his Tuesday tweet storm, which would presumably force a partisan standoff over federal spending.
The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
Historically, Senate rules have required a super majority for major legislative actions like spending and health care, but President Trump suggested it was time to do away with the 60 vote rule for passage in favor of a simple majority, similar to how Republicans moved to eliminate the need for a supermajority vote on Supreme Court confirmations, which allowed the Senate to move forward with Justice Neil Gorsuch’s approval with just 54 votes.
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Trump did offer an alternative to the nuclear options, however: “either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%,” he tweeted.
either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
The tweets come on the heels of a spending package that Congress is expected to pass this week. The plan fails to fund many of the things Trump promised while on the campaign trail last year — most notably, it omits funding for Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” that would divide the U.S. from Mexico. Cost estimates for the Trump border wall range from Trump’s estimate of $12 billion up to $70 billion, according to a report by Senate Democrats.
Trump has famously repeated Mexico would pay for the wall, but Mexican officials have flat-out refused the deal.
Trump initially asked Congress for a $1 billion down payment to build 62 miles of the border wall. He has stopped pressing Congress to fund the wall this go around, saying he would wait until September to ask Congress for a down payment.
