Important Meeting of Trump with Democrats at the White House

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On Wednesday, the U.S Congressional leaders will head to the White House to meet with the U.S President Donald Trump. They will discuss hashing out a spending deal to end the partial government shutdown. The governmental shutdown is now in its 12^th day. The presumptive incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill said that two Republicans and Democrats from both the House and Senate will attend the meeting. It includes Pelosi, House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and incoming House members Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, as well as Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate GOP Conference Chair John Thune.

The White House said that the meeting will start at 3 p.m. in the Situation Room and will be closed to the press. On Tuesday, Pelosi forwarded a letter to her Democratic colleagues. She said in her letter that the House will vote to fully fund the government agencies closed through the fiscal year ending September 30, with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS will only be funded through February 8 without providing additional money for the supposed wall. The GOP-controlled Senate passed the same spending measure prior to the shutdown and prior to Trump’s demand of $5 billion for wall funding.

Pelosi also said, “Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the president’s third shutdown of his term”. Sanders also called the proposal a “nonstarter” as it “puts the needs of other countries above the needs of our own citizens”. Sander said in a statement that “Speaker-Designate Nancy Pelosi released a plan that will not re-open the government because it fails to secure the border and puts the needs of other countries above the needs of our own citizens”.