Trump’s demand to tie voting to DHS funding complicates slow going shutdown talks

President Trump is rebuffing suggestions from Republican lawmakers and his own aides about how to end the Homeland Security Department shutdown and instead adding a demand that likely will extend the six-week-long stalemate.

He is refusing to cut a deal with the Democrats, who are demanding immigration enforcement policy changes in exchange for funding DHS, unless the Senate passes a GOP bill to require proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast one.

“The most important part of homeland security is voter ID and proof of citizenship,” he said. “Nobody can vote on Homeland Security [funding] without voter ID or proof of citizenship.”

Mr. Trump went as far as to invoke Jesus in urging Republicans to cancel their upcoming two-week Easter recess, if that is needed to get the SAVE America Act through. The Senate is currently in its second week of debating the bill.

“You don’t have to take a fast vote. Don’t worry about Easter, going home,” the president said. “In fact, make this one for Jesus.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said a decision on whether to cancel the recess will not be made until later in the week.

The South Dakota Republican called the president’s new demand “a wrinkle” given that the Senate does not have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act.

“The idea that we would have to guarantee its passage in order to open up the government, I think you all know that’s not a realistic outcome,” Mr. Thune told reporters.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said the president “is trying to sabotage negotiations” after a deal was within reach to fund all of DHS except for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency Democrats want to overhaul.

“The SAVE Act does not have the votes to pass this chamber, and Democrats will fight it every step of the way,” he said, noting the election bill has nothing to do with homeland security as the president claimed.

However, one of Mr. Schumer’s arguments against the measure does involve DHS.

He says the bill’s mandate that states turn over their voter rolls to DHS to run through an unreliable algorithm ostensibly designed to root out noncitizens would lead to millions of eligible voters having their registration revoked without their knowledge.

Before Mr. Trump’s push to tie the SAVE America Act to DHS funding, Republicans had started to accept that they may have to split off ICE to get the rest of DHS funded, as Democrats have suggested for weeks.

Sens. John Kennedy of Louisiana and Ted Cruz of Texas are among a group of GOP senators who suggested the party accept Democrats’ offer to fund other DHS agencies and then use another party-line budget reconciliation bill to give ICE more money, like they did last summer.

White House aides presented the idea to Mr. Trump on Sunday, after which he and Mr. Thune discussed the prospect, according to a source familiar with the conversations.

The president rejected the idea privately and then publicly on Truth Social, saying Republicans should not make any deal with Democrats until they pass the SAVE America Act.

“It is far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate and that includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems (who are to blame for this mess!), a five billion cut in ICE funding, a deal, which even disguised as something else, is unacceptable to me and the American people,” he posted.

A Harvard-Harris survey published earlier this month found that 71% of respondents want the SAVE America Act to pass and 85% said only U.S. citizens should vote in elections. The same poll found that 58% of respondents believe some level of voter fraud exists in the U.S.

Mr. Trump not only wants Democrats to agree to the SAVE America Act as written, but he wants to add restrictions on mail-in voting and electronic ballots and bans on transgender surgeries for minors and transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports — issues he says are all popular with the American people.

Both parties are also looking for popular support in the shutdown fight as they try to cast blame across the aisle for the long security lines at airports, caused by Transportation Security Administration agents not getting paid and calling out of work.

Mr. Schumer said Mr. Thune finally considering funding TSA shows that Republicans are feeling the heat, while Mr. Trump said it’s Democrats who face public pressure.

“The Democrats are being blamed by the American people for the catastrophe going on right now in our airports and other points of transportation and beyond,” the president said. “We want the public to know we are not going to let them out of this trap that they have created for themselves.”

Mr. Trump has deployed ICE agents to airports to help perform some TSA functions, which Democrats have warned could lead to more chaos and potentially violence.

Mr. Schumer said the president holding TSA agents’ pay hostage to pass his “voter suppression” bill is “callous.”

Democrats and the White House have been trading offers on immigration enforcement policy changes that could be made to the DHS funding bill since the shutdown began on Feb. 14.

White House border czar Tom Homan went to Capitol Hill twice last week to negotiate with senators in both parties.

Republicans expected to have a third meeting Saturday evening in which Democrats would respond to their Friday offer, but they said Democrats canceled.

Mr. Schumer said Democrats have a return offer they were ready to present in negotiations with Mr. Homan on Monday, “but apparently the White House pulled that meeting because of Donald Trump’s temper tantrum.”

A White House official told The Washington Times that after Democrats canceled the previous meeting they decided it was “appropriate” to wait until Sen. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as DHS secretary on Monday night so he could be a “full participant” in the conversations.

The White House did not respond to a follow-up question on whether that meant their negotiators would be prepared to meet on Tuesday.

The parties have found some common ground on plans to require ICE agents to wear body cameras and limit their ability to conduct enforcement in “sensitive locations,” such as schools and hospitals.

But disagreements remain on Democrats’ demands to require judicial warrants for ICE to enter private property and to force agents to stop wearing masks.

The latter is something Mr. Trump appears unwilling to support.

“I am a BIG proponent of ICE wearing masks as they search for, and are forced to deal with, hardened criminals,” the president posted Monday on Truth Social.