Trump’s endorsement could prove key to moving any plan forward, given the obstacles to overcoming a presidential veto. And the GOP-dominated upper chamber is unlikely to vote on any bill the president hasn’t approved.
“It’s simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the President that he won’t sign,” David Popp, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told CNBC on Monday.
To overcome a presidential veto, at least 55 Republicans would have to vote with every Democrat in the House. Overcoming a veto would also require the votes of 67 senators. Republicans will control 53 senate seats in the next Congress.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus and is considered a close ally of Trump’s, said a proposal without funding money for a border wall is a “non-starter.”
Meadows tweet
The partial government shutdown entered its 10th day on New Year’s Eve with little signs of progress. In a series of posts on Twitter, the president re-upped his demands for border wall funding.
“I campaigned on Border Security, which you cannot have without a strong and powerful Wall,” the president wrote in one post.
“I’m in the Oval Office,” he wrote in another. “Democrats, come back from vacation now and give us the votes necessary for Border Security, including the Wall.”
Approximately 800,000 federal employees are either out of work or working without pay during the shutdown.
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These virtual walls could be the cheaper and more effective answer to Trump’s $5 billion border wall