US President Donald Trump should sign the compromise budget deal on border security and then take advantage of all legal means to find more money, if necessary, to secure the border, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th February, 2019) US President Donald Trump should sign the compromise budget deal on border security and then take advantage of all legal means to find more money, if necessary, to secure the border, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday.
"First of all, I hope he signs the bill and second he ought to feel free to use whatever tools he can legally use to enhance his effort to secure the border," McConnell said.
The compromise reached by congressional negotiators on Monday includes less than $1.4 billion for new fencing on the US-Mexican border, less than the $5.7 billion sought by Trump to build a border wall.
Details of the agreement must next written into a series of bills, approved by both houses of Congress and signed into law by Trump by Friday to prevent a second government shutdown.
Trump has managed to build sections of a wall by moving around existing money left over from earlier budgets, favoring a see-through structure with vertical steel panels that could arguably be called a wall, fence or barrier depending on one's political persuasion.
Semantics featured prominently in a standoff between Republicans and Democrats that resulted in 35-day partial government shutdown that began in December and ended with an agreement to reopen the government for a three-week period ending on Friday, in which senior congressional leaders the compromise.
