Saturday afternoon, President Donald J. Trump sat down with border security hardliners amidst a government shutdown after Democrats refused to fund a $5 billion border wall.
“Will be having lunch in White House residence with large group concerning Border Security,” Trump Tweeted Saturday morning.
Representing the legislature were Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) along with Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), according to The Hill. All ave expressed support for Trump and his campaign promise of building a a wall at the southern border to deter illegal aliens from crossing with impunity.
Also present at the meeting were Vice President Michael R. Pence, chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, advisor Jared Kushner and aide Shahira Wright.
The meeting comes on the heels of a wild week in Washington, during which Trump nearly caved and signed a continuing resolution that did not provide his requested $5 billion for a border wall. Later in the week, after pushback from his base and from conservative influencers like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, Trump changed his mind and put the screws to the Democrats. The party of open borders and lawlessness refused to give in and fund the wall, resulting in the current shutdown.
Meadows is the chairman of the Freedom Caucus that rallied Wednesday night on the House floor in support of building the wall.
Big League Politics reported:
The Freedom Caucus took the House floor Wednesday night to demand $5 billion in congressional funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall.
“The time to fight is now” declared Jim Jordan of Ohio, who joined with North Carolina’s Mark Meadows in the late-night effort.
The Freedom Caucus sent a clear signal to the commander in chief President Donald Trump: if you veto the “stopgap” bill that kicks the can down the road a few pointless months, then we will have a Christmas season government shutdown. And isn’t time we start saying Merry Christmas again in this Country?
“Mr. President, we’re going to back you up if you veto this — back you up. If you veto this bill, we’ll be there, more importantly, the American people will be there. They’ll be there to support you. Let’s build the wall and make sure we do our job in Congress,” said Freedom Caucus heavyweight Meadows.
“The president, many, many months ago said he would not sign another funding bill unless we gave him wall funding. What did this House do? It passed the bill to fund the Department of Defense and passed a short-term C.R. And said we are going to have that fight after the mid-terms,” said Meadows, who called out loser outgoing speaker Paul Ryan directly.
The time to fight for the wall actually began on Trump’s inauguration day, but the last minute rally by the Caucus may have helped steer him away from a decision that could have been a huge letdown to his base, which elected him specifically to secure our borders with a big, beautiful wall.
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