Chances Of Reaching Agreement On Border Wall ‘Slim’ If Pelosi And Trump Remain At Odds, Says Top Republican

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the chances of there being an agreement on the issue of border wall are “slim” as long as Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi remain at odds, the Hill reports.

According to Shelby, the select panel negotiating a deal to keep the government funded has a “chance” to reach a compromise, but as long as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump are unable to reach an agreement, any effort will be futile. According to the top Republican, while there is a possibility that both sides agree, President Trump could be right in his claim that they are wasting their time.

“I believe that we’ve got a chance this week to move things. Will we? We don’t know. The president could be right. We could be wasting our time. On the other hand, we could come up to a solution,” he said.

“But as long as the Speaker and the president are way at odds, the chances of us reaching an agreement are slim.”

As detailed by a previous Inquisitr report, Donald Trump — who is yet to fulfill one of his key campaign promises of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border — reopened the government after the longest and most expensive government shutdown in U.S. history.

Trump shut the government down in an effort to persuade the Congress into financing the expensive border project, but the Democratic Party led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi withstood the pressure, effectively forcing Trump to reopen the government. Critics blasted the president for failing to make a deal, and even some of his closest Republican allies publicly criticized him.

Trump again said he may declare a national emergency to secure wall funding https://t.co/urQOXZgPqO pic.twitter.com/CGQhaRHoPA

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) February 3, 2019

But Trump only reopened the government for three weeks, and no progress has been made so far. Unless an agreement is reached, the president will — he vowed — declare a national emergency and start the process of building the wall.

As the Hill notes, Trump called the ongoing negotiations a “waste of time.” But Nancy Pelosi has not budged either — the House Speaker has pledged that there will be no money for the wall.

According to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, Trump is “dead set on keeping his campaign promise.”

Chances are “slim” to cut a deal to keep government open if Speaker Pelosi and President Trump remain at odds, GOP Sen. Richard Shelby says, adding they can get a deal by Wednesday if it was just up to the top four appropriators. #CNNSOTU https://t.co/6cpWSnxPAe pic.twitter.com/QOQOGIcgq4

— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) February 3, 2019

Shelby added that the president would likely be satisfied with “steel barriers and slats and stuff like that,” and that he would not insist on building an actual, concrete wall on the U.S.-Mexico border in an alleged effort to curb illegal immigration and stop the influx of drugs.

But, as the Hill points out, Trump recently tweeted that it is “political games” to call the border wall something else.