WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump invited the top congressional leaders from both parties to a White House briefing on border security and suggested that he wants to "make a deal" to end the government shutdown.
It's the first sign of an opening for negotiations to break the stalemate that's had parts of the government shut down for 11 days. A congressional aide said the invitation was extended to the eight top leaders from both parties in the new House and Senate.
The meeting is to happen today at 2 p.m. Central time, the day before the Democrats take control of the House, but the exact agenda wasn't immediately clear, according to a person with knowledge of the briefing but who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Republican leaders will be attending. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as the top incoming House Republicans, Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, are planning to be at the briefing, according to aides. Retiring Speaker Paul Ryan will not.
Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who is expected to take over as House speaker, and top Senate Democrat Charles Schumer of New York will also be in attendance. Pelosi said Democrats would take action to "end the Trump shutdown" by passing legislation Thursday to reopen government.
"We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer," Pelosi wrote in a letter to colleagues late Tuesday. "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."
Trump in a tweet Tuesday suggested that he was offering an olive branch to Pelosi.
"Border Security and the Wall "thing" and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" the president said on Twitter. That followed tweets earlier in the day in which he accused Democrats of not caring about "Open Borders and all of the crime and drugs that Open Borders bring!"
Pelosi responded to Trump's "let's make a deal" invitation by tweeting that the president had "given Democrats a great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly & quickly pass our plan to end the irresponsible #TrumpShutdown - just the first sign of things to come in our new Democratic Majority committed to working #ForThePeople."
Trump refers to the partial government closure as the "Schumer shutdown."
DEMOCRATS' PLAN
The White House invitation comes after House Democrats released their plan to reopen the government without approving money for a border wall -- unveiling two bills to fund shuttered government agencies and put hundreds of thousands of federal workers back on the job. They planned to pass them as soon as the new Congress convenes Thursday.
House Democrats plan to pass two separate bills, one reopening eight departments -- which have been closed since Dec. 22 -- through September 2019 and another temporarily reopening the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8. That would allow negotiations over Trump's request for border wall money to continue while the rest of the government would reopen.
Democrats have rejected Trump's request for $5 billion to start constructing a wall or barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a deal on spending that would reopen parts of the government.
Trump had campaigned on a pledge to build the wall at Mexico's expense, a proposition Mexican officials called ludicrous.
On Tuesday morning, after tweeting an all-caps New Year's message to "Everyone including the haters and the fake news media," Trump tweeted: "The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security."
Whether the Republican-led Senate, under McConnell, would consider the Democratic bills -- or if Trump would sign either into law -- was unclear. McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart said Senate Republicans would not take action without Trump's backing.
"It's simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the president that he won't sign," Stewart said.
Even if only symbolic, the passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse.
Trump believes he has public opinion on his side and, at the very least, his base of supporters behind him, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the House proposal. Republican senators left for the holidays refusing to vote on any bills until all sides, including Trump, were in agreement. The lawmakers were frustrated that Trump had dismissed their earlier legislation.
The president has not said he would veto the Democratic legislation, if the bills were to land on his desk. But a prolonged crisis could hobble House Democrats' ability to proceed with their agenda, which includes investigations of the president and oversight of his administration, including Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The partial government shutdown began Dec. 22 after Trump bowed to conservative demands that he fight to make good on his vow and secure funding for the wall before Republicans lose control of the House today. Democrats have remained committed to blocking any funding for the wall.
UNION FILES SUIT
Earlier, a federal employees union filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging the shutdown is illegally forcing more than 400,000 federal employees to work without pay.
Since it began, many federal departments temporarily closed and delayed worker compensation indefinitely. Even so, employees deemed "essential" or "excepted" have been expected to go to work. The suit filed Monday asked for the named plaintiffs and others with the same classification be paid owed wages.
"It's outrageous the government expects them to work without knowing when they'll get their next paycheck," lead attorney Heidi Burakiewicz said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Burakiewicz's law firm and American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, initiated Monday's complaint, the first legal action targeting effects of the closure.
The two named plaintiffs, Justin Tarovisky and Grayson Sharp, are corrections officers with the federal Bureau of Prisons. Both are also deemed essential.
"They're working a dangerous job, they're critically understaffed, and now, they don't know when they'll next get paid," she said, adding that "essential" employees will continue incurring the costs of commuting to work, like gas and child care. Without knowing how long the shutdown will last, many workers may be forced to make challenging choices.
"They may be paycheck to paycheck, have cellphone bills, mortgages. ... It's unacceptable for any employer, but especially for the U.S. government," Burakiewicz contended.
Her firm sued the government during a 16-day shutdown in 2013, arguing that failure to pay federal workers on their regularly scheduled payday was a violation of the Fair Standards and Labor Act. The court agreed, holding that employees needed to know when they would receive their paycheck and ordering the government to pay double the amount owed them. There are 25,000 employees still waiting to receive those damages.
Federal employees are paid biweekly. Because of the late-December shutdown timing, only employees with unpaid overtime wages can presently file suit. The next pay cycle ends at midnight Saturday, with the scheduled payday soon thereafter. If the government is still shut down and no "essential" employee receives a salary, legal claims will become available to them all.
Information for this article was contributed by Erik Wasson of Bloomberg News; by Zeke Miller, Lisa Mascaro and Kevin Freking of The Associated Press; and by Anne Gearan, Erica Werner, Deanna Paul, Philip Rucker and Lenny Bernstein of The Washington Post.
A Section on 01/02/2019