Trump uses fear of a shutdown to get GOP to include border wall funding in spending before 2018 election

Washington Times:

President Trump said Monday that he wouldn’t flinch from a government shutdown this fall over border wall funding, injecting confusion into what had been an unusually orderly and productive appropriations process for the Republican-run Congress.

The threat bucked an agreement on spending bills Mr. Trump struck last week with Republican leaders, put immigration front and center in the midterm election campaigns and raised questions about exactly what sort of shutdown the president had in mind.

Fed up with years of debate that accomplished nothing to secure the border or fix the broken immigration system, Mr. Trump said he wanted results or else.

“If we don’t get border security, after many, many years of talk within the United States, I would have no problem doing a shutdown,” he said at a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

The remark reinforced Mr. Trump’s tweet over the weekend that threatened a shutdown over border wall funding and other immigration reforms.

He demanded more border security, an end to the catch-and-release policy for border jumpers and a move to a merit-based legal immigration system.
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Republicans apparently fear that the open borders Democrats will use funding for the border wall as an excuse to attack other parts of the spending package.  Voters generally support the border wall so it looks like a good issue for the President and GOP to push.