President Donald Trump entered the White House briefing room Thursday to introduce U.S. Border Patrol agents who emphasized the necessity of a wall along the U.S. southern border.
Trump introduced the agents, including National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd and two of his vice presidents. Each border patrol agent declared emphatically that a wall is necessary along the U.S.-Mexico border. The president revealed that he was meeting with the border patrol council representatives in the Oval Office and thought to bring them before the press as the 13th day of a partial government shutdown comes to a close.
Trump is currently engaged in a high-stakes fight with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer over funding for his proposed wall along the U.S. southern border. The president’s introduction of the agents came just a day after he held a meeting with congressional leaders, which was supposed to be a briefing on border security.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a surprise visit to the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House with representatives of National Border Patrol Council on day 13 of a partial government shutdown January 3, 2018 in Washington, DC. President Trump show up at the press briefing room to discuss border security. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
A White House official, however, told The Daily Caller after the meeting that Democratic representatives refused to listen to the briefing and refused to budge on wall funding. Pelosi and Schumer have both declared they will not appropriate anymore than $1.3 billion in border security funding, and that none of it could be used for building a wall.
Both sides emerged from the meeting without any consensus, with Democrats declaring that they will refuse to appropriate a single extra dollar to border wall funding. The end result of the meeting was simply an agreement to reconvene on Friday, when Pelosi is officially House speaker. (RELATED: Trump Refuses To Budge in Shutdown Demand: ‘As Long As It Takes’)