Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is encouraging President Donald Trump not to sign a short-term government funding bill unless it includes funding for the border wall.
The Senate passed a spending bill late Wednesday night in a last-minute attempt to avoid a government shutdown, but the bill does not include the president’s request for $5 billion in funding for the wall. The bill does contain $1.3 billion for border security.
In an interview with CNN, Sen. Graham said that Trump should not sign the bill.
“I think the idea of not giving the president more money for the wall and securing the border after the caravan is unreasonable by the Democrats,” Graham asserted. “So I encourage the president to dig in and force the Democrats and Republicans to help him better secure the border. If I were him, I would stand firm.”
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“Not sign it?” anchor Kate Bolduan asked.
“Not sign it,” Graham confirmed. “I can understand picking a fight on border security to get more money at a time that we need it.”
Trump insisted that he would be willing to shut the government down over wall funding, but White House press secretary Sarah Sanders seemed to back off of that position on Tuesday.
“There are certainly a number of different funding sources that we’ve identified that we can use — that we can couple with money that would be given through congressional appropriations — that would help us get to that $5 billion that the president needs in order to protect our border,” Sanders said.
The House Freedom Caucus announced its intention not to support the House version of the bill on Thursday.
“The bottom line is simple: it’s deeply irresponsible for this Congress to keep sending the president status quo funding bills, without any of his promises included, and essentially say ‘sign this, or shut down the government,'” Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows told The Daily Caller News Foundation.