United States President Donald Trump has continued to take jabs at the Democrats following their deal ending the government shutdown. Despite his confident rhetoric there are less than 3 weeks left before another funding measure reaches congress and another potential shutdown ensues.
In a morning tweet Donald Trump cited Jim Acosta, a CNN reporter from a network Trump has accused of being “fake news”, as stating “Trump wins again” and that the Democrats “caved…gambled and lost”.
Many are unsure if the president was accurately quoting Acosta since he has traditionally been harshly critical of the Trump administration. Acosta is the CNN’s White House correspondent and has historically confronted Trump on his criticism of the news network.
The measure that has approved continued funding of the government is only effective until February 8 where a new vote may see the government face another shutdown. It has yet to be seen if the Democrats will drive a harder bargain on immigration reform given their ability to cause another shutdown.
Following the weekend shutdown, Democrats and a few Republicans have stated that they will continue their battle to push a bill that would protect young illegal immigrants from deportation.
Charles Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, is a target of Trump’s taunting and said he would enter new negotiations on immigration reform without some of his pre-shutdown conditions. Schumer said that he would no longer provide support for Trump’s infamous anti-migration wall on the US-Mexico border.
Schumer said that the wall was “off the table” and an immigration debate was going to need to start from a new basis.
Back at the White House Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s press secretary, said that the framework for immigration reform offered by a group of US senators was “totally unacceptable” to President Trump. Sanders said that this proposal does not meet the standards set out by Trump for an immigration agreement.
Despite this, Sanders seemed confident that a final immigration agreement between Democrats and Republicans would eventually come to pass. Some fear that this confidence is misplaced as a deal that passes in the senate would still have to get through a very tough Republican dominated House of Representatives.
Following intense political scrutiny, the Democrats were forced to give up their demands and support the bill to re-fund government which delivered a small victory to Trump’s Republicans.
Trump followed up his Twitter taunting by saying that “nobody knows for sure” if an immigration deal between the two parties would be reached before another government shutdown takes place.