The Trump administration has, for now, ruled out Congress enacting a short-term fix to pay members of the military who risk going without a paycheck next week and is instead looking at other ways to address the issue.
President Donald Trump “will do everything he can to ensure that this Democrat shutdown doesn’t impede these fine people’s ability to keep us safe - at home and abroad,” a high-ranking White House official told POLITICO. “The president is committed to the men and women of our military and law enforcement.”
White House officials have weighed using tariff revenue to cover the paychecks due to go out on Oct. 15 for 1.3 million military members.
Trump also suggested he would pressure House Republicans to pass a stand-alone bill to fund the military paychecks, but White House officials have axed that idea for the time being.
"No bill at this time, unfortunately. No sense running legislation to a chamber the Democrats have shut down,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to speak on ongoing conversations.
The Wednesday deadline is influencing the White House’s thinking, though, as the military going without pay would catapult the shutdown to a bigger, national story. Some in the White House had expected a relatively quick shutdown with Democrats folding to GOP demands for a clean continuing resolution in a matter of days. But as the shutdown drags on the real-world effects escalate as does the political peril for both parties.
Trump, who promised the military “is always going to be taken care of” hasn’t clarified when will finalize his plans, but indicated Wednesday that he still had another week.
“You know what one week is for me? An eternity. One week for me is a long time; we’ll take care of it,” Trump said at the time.
Those in and outside the White House have indicated that using tariff revenue is a strong possibility.
The tariff revenue “is certainly on the table,” a person familiar with the White House’s thinking and granted anonymity to discuss it said Friday.
“The U.S. Treasury is now receiving record revenues because of [Trump’s] decisive leadership,” the person said. “The country is in a better position to allocate this revenue to support our troops while the Democrats continue to hold their paychecks hostage to support illegal immigrants.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Friday expressed eagerness for the White House to act unilaterally.
“My expectation is they are going to have to start making some decisions about how to move money around," Thune said. "I suspect that --yeah -- pretty soon they are going to have to do some things."
In public, the White House has been largely calm despite the government shutdown going into its second week and little visible movement from Democrats.
White House officials were giddy Thursday after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said "every day gets better for us” as the shutdown continues, and used the Democrat’s words against the party.
“Republicans feel confident that the shutdown is not being blamed on them and the recent news of the Middle East peace deal will undoubtedly give the president cover because it’s clear he’s still able to bring deliverables for the American people despite the Democrats engaged in the shut down,” the person close to the White House said.
For now, “this is largely a beltway issue, most Americans are not directly impacted by the shutdown,” the person added, “and I think Republicans are keenly aware of that fact.”
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