Trump, Democrats cut deal; bill to raise debt lid, add disaster aid

President Donald Trump confers with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer during a meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday in the White House Oval Office.
President Donald Trump confers with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer during a meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday in the White House Oval Office.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump overruled congressional Republicans and his own treasury secretary Wednesday to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government operating and raise America's debt limit for three months, all part of an agreement to speed money to Hurricane Harvey disaster relief.

The House then voted 419-3 to send a $7.9 billion aid package -- likely the first of many -- to the Senate, where the bill likely will be amended to reflect Trump's three-month preference before being sent back to the House.

The goal is to send a final bill to Trump before dwindling federal disaster reserves run out at the end of the week.

Dealing a blow to Republican leadership, Trump sided with the Democratic leaders -- "Chuck and Nancy," as he referred later to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- as they pushed for the deal, brushing aside the urgings of GOP leaders and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for a much longer extension to the debt limit.

Republicans want that longer allowance to avoid having to take another vote on the politically toxic issue before the 2018 congressional elections. Democrats believe that pushing the debt-limit debate into December will increase their leverage on several issues, including the protection of young illegal aliens and securing funds to help stabilize health care markets.

Wednesday's Oval Office meeting, described by several people briefed on the proceedings, illustrated the discord with the president in the highest ranks of the Republican Party. After an August in which Trump lobbed attacks at fellow Republicans, specifically at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for the failure of health care legislation, the president wasted little time once Congress returned this week in demonstrating his disdain for the GOP House and Senate leaders who are in charge of shepherding his agenda into law.

At first, in the Wednesday session, the Republicans lobbied for an 18-month debt ceiling extension, then 12 months and then six, but Trump waved them off. As Mnuchin continued to press an economic argument in favor of a longer term, Trump tired of it and cut him off midsentence, according to several people briefed on the proceedings, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly. Trump was "in deal-cutting mode," one of the people said.

After the meeting, Trump boarded Air Force One for a trip to North Dakota, where he sought to build bipartisan support for tax legislation that Republican leaders are crafting on Capitol Hill.

Trump began his North Dakota speech by recounting his "great bipartisan meeting" at the White House.

"I'm committed to working with both parties to deliver for our wonderful, wonderful citizens," Trump said, citing Schumer and Pelosi by name before mentioning the Republicans who were in attendance.

"Everybody was happy," Trump said of the meeting. "Not too happy, because you can never be too happy, but they were happy enough."

During the North Dakota event, he praised another Democrat, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, calling her to the stage and deeming her a "good woman." She will be running for re-election against a Republican in November 2018.

GOP REACTS TO DEAL

The president's agreement with the Democrats came barely an hour after House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., slammed the idea of a short-term debt deal, accusing Democrats of "playing politics" with the disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey victims.

"I think that's ridiculous and disgraceful that they want to play politics with the debt ceiling at this moment when we have fellow citizens in need," Ryan told reporters.

He issued no public statement about the short-term deal.

McConnell did not sugarcoat what happened when he addressed reporters later.

"The president agreed with Sen. Schumer and Congresswoman Pelosi to do a three-month [funding extension] and a debt ceiling into December, and that's what I will be offering, based on the president's decision, to the bill," McConnell told reporters.

Asked whether he was surprised to see the president side with Democrats against his own party leadership, McConnell responded, "Look, the president can speak for himself, but his feeling was we needed to come together, not create a picture of divisiveness at a time of genuine national crisis, and that was the rationale."

Yet party divisions appeared to remain.

"The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad," Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., wrote on Twitter.

"Hopefully we'll realize that negotiating with Democrats doesn't normally produce outstanding results," said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.

Late Wednesday, with criticism pouring in from Republicans, Mnuchin made a rare appearance in the Air Force One press cabin, as the president traveled back to Washington from North Dakota, to defend the deal.

"Our No. 1 priority was getting money for Harvey. Let me very clear: That's the president's number one agenda and we accomplished that," Mnuchin said.

The outcome came a day after Trump announced that he would phase out protections for younger illegal aliens, a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. He gave Congress six months to come up with a solution. That announcement infuriated Democrats.

Trump on Wednesday threw tacit support behind the Democrats' push for a bill that would effectively formalize the Obama-era program. He suggested that if Congress passed such a bill he might sign it.

"Chuck and Nancy want to see something happen -- and so do I," Trump said.

At least one Democrat was upset that the deal made Wednesday did not include protections for the estimated 800,000 participants of the deferred-action program.

"So Trump attacks our Dreamers and the next day the Democrats walk in there and say, 'Oh, let's just have a nice timeout,' while they're all suffering? That is what is wrong with Democrats. They don't stand up," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

"Dreamers" refers to the program's participants. The term is based on the never-passed Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act that would have provided similar protections.

Schumer insisted that he was not finished advocating for the young aliens.

"This is not a trade-off for us," he said. "This is a very important issue that we're going to fight hard for until we get it done."

AID FOR HARVEY VICTIMS

The first installment in the Hurricane Harvey aid is to handle the immediate emergency needs and replenish Federal Emergency Management Agency reserves in advance of Hurricane Irma, which is barreling through the Caribbean on a track toward Florida.

"Help is on the way," said Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, whose Houston district was affected by Harvey. "The scale of the tragedy is unimaginable. But in the midst of all this, and all the suffering, it really reflects the American character, how people from all over the country stepped up to help Houstonians recover from this."

Far more money will be needed once more complete estimates are in this fall, and Harvey could end up exceeding the $110 billion government cost of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.

"My friends' and neighbors' homes were completely flattened by Hurricane Harvey's winds. Businesses were destroyed," said Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas. "FEMA will be out of money in just two or three days if we don't pass this."

If the disaster aid is attached to the debt-limit increase and government-funding bill as planned, about $7 billion in additional FEMA funds will become available from the 2018 budget.

Some Democrats from the New York delegation reminded Texas Republicans that they opposed a larger aid bill for people harmed by Superstorm Sandy in the Northeast five years ago.

"What you did to us during Superstorm Sandy should not stand, should not be done to any other people, anyplace in the country," said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. "We're one country, we're Americans. We need to help those who need help."

Information for this article was contributed by Erica Werner, Andrew Taylor and Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press; by Mike DeBonis, Kelsey Snell, Philip Rucker, Elise Viebeck, Damian Paletta, Abby Phillip, Paul Kane and Jenna Johnson of The Washington Post; and by Noah Bierman, Brian Bennett and Lisa Mascaro of the Tribune News Service.




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