I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Trump told House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) during a contentious, 17-minute exchange inside the Oval Office.
I will take the mantle, the president added. I will be the one to shut it down, I'm not going to blame you for it.
GOP leaders were left cringing by Trumps vow to take responsibility for a partial shutdown and his promise not to blame Democrats.
Asked if he had seen the exchange on television, Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), said, I did, unfortunately. I wish I didnt.
Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (S.D.) threw up his hands when asked about his reaction.
I heard it was very entertaining television, he said.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who urged the president in a private meeting before Thanksgiving not to shut down federal agencies over the border wall, said he would have handled it differently.
Ive never said that myself. Im always trying to work to fund the government, he said.
Shelby said Trumps comments heightening the likelihood of a shutdown.
I think its a step in that direction, obviously, at least [with] the rhetoric, he said.
Sen. Pat Leahy (Vt.), the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said hes never seen a spat play out so publicly at a senior-level White House meeting during all his years in Congress.
Ive only been here with eight presidents, said Leahy, who was elected to the Senate in 1974.
Somehow hes made up his mind that it will make him look good to have a Trump shutdown but a Trump shutdown costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, creates havoc and does nothing for border security, he added.
