Trump Border Wall Shutdown Fight Can Wait, Key Conservative Says

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump may be gearing up for a shutdown fight to get Congress to pay for his border wall, but a leading House conservative said he’s fine with delaying that battle until December.

“I’m willing to do it whenever it makes sense,” Representative Jim Jordan, a founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Friday.

Jordan said he’s fine with a short-term stopgap bill to fund the government after Sept. 30 without border wall funding. That puts him in line with House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has suggested a better time for a stand would be when the House and Senate negotiate final fiscal 2018 spending bills later in the year.

Delaying the border wall fight could simplify Congress’s job of raising the debt ceiling. Jordan said he still wants entitlement cuts or other provisions to rein in spending to be attached to a debt bill. One compromise he said Republicans could get behind: a provision withholding pay from lawmakers if they fail to produce a budget.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net.