President Trump will remain in Washington, D.C., over the New Year’s holiday as the White House attempts to negotiate an end to the partial shutdown of the federal government with Democrats in Congress.
White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says that the president has canceled his plans for New Year’s celebrations in order to continue working with lawmakers in Washington on a deal to reopen the government, which shut down last week after Trump rejected a bipartisan deal to fund the government that did not include money for his desired wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The president’s been here, by the way, all weekend, all Christmas,” Mulvaney said Friday on “Fox & Friends.”
“He’s staying in Washington, D.C., over New Year’s. He’s canceled his plans for Christmas. Now, he’s canceled his plans for New Year’s,” Mulvaney added, saying that Trump was “very heavily engaged on this on a minute-by-minute basis.”
The president has blamed Democrats for the shutdown, despite his own comments earlier this month that he would not do so and would instead take credit for a shutdown over the issue of funding for border security measures including a wall on the border. – READ MORE