Donald Trump strikes bi-partisan deal with bitter enemies in Congress
President Donald Trump forged a surprising deal with Democrats in Congress to extend the US debt limit and provide government funding until December 15, embracing his political adversaries and blindsiding fellow Republicans in a rare bipartisan accord.
President Trump, living up to his reputation for unpredictability, met at the White House congressional leaders from both parties and overruled Republicans and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who wanted a longer-term debt-limit extension rather than the three-month Democratic proposal the president embraced.
“We could have done a one-year deal today,” Secretary Mnuchin told reporters aboard Air Force One later in the day en route back to Washington from an event in North Dakota where Trump spoke about taxes.
Mnuchin said President Trump chose a short-term deal to keep his options open on possibly raising military funding later this year, suggesting a longer-term government funding deal might have blocked that.
Trump is very focused on military spending, “particularly with what's going on in North Korea and other parts of the world today,” Secretary Mnuchin said. “The president wasn't willing to give up his need for additional military spending.”
If passed by the Republican-led Congress, the three-month agreement would avert an unprecedented default on government debt, keep the government funded at the outset of the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 and provide aid to victims of Hurricane Harvey.
“It was a really good moment of some bipartisanship and getting things done,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said.
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Less than an hour before the meeting, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan had called the Democratic proposal that President Trump later embraced a “ridiculous and disgraceful” idea that would “play politics with the debt ceiling.”
The president wasn't willing to give up his need for additional military spending
Even with the three-month extension of the debt limit, a Senate Republican aide told reporters that nothing in the tentative deal would stop the Treasury Department from using its powers to extend the deadline, depending on revenue flow. In the past, the debt limit deadline has been extended for several months under those powers.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, overridden by President Trump during the meeting, said he would bring the deal to the Senate floor for a vote.
“The president can speak for himself, but his feeling was that we needed to come together, to not create a picture of divisiveness at a time of genuine national crisis,” Senator McConnell told reporters.
The agreement was an uncommon instance of bipartisan compromise since Trump took office in January. Washington has suffered through bitter partisanship that has at times left the capital dysfunctional under Trump and his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump had tangled repeatedly with Senator Schumer and top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
“We had a very good meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” President Trump, a wealthy businessman who as a candidate touted his deal-making skills, told reporters aboard Air Force One, without mentioning Senator McConnell or Speaker Ryan, with whom he has had fraught relations.