CONGRESS/GOVERNMENT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “With Washington just hours away from a partial government shutdown, lawmakers and President Donald Trump still have not yet reached a deal to stave off a shutdown. An effort to broker an agreement that would prevent a shuttering of key federal agencies appears to be underway, however. Republican Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker said on the Senate floor late in the day Friday [12-21-18] that an ‘understanding has been reached’ that the Senate will not take any further votes related to the funding issue ‘until a global agreement has been reached between the President’ and congressional leaders. It is not yet clear whether that effort will succeed in stopping a partial shutdown or exactly what it might involve. Corker made his remarks just after the Senate approved a motion to proceed to consideration of a House-passed spending bill that includes an additional $5 billion for the President’s border wall, and which has been widely considered dead on arrival in the upper chamber. Vice President Mike Pence, budget director Mick Mulvaney and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were on Capitol Hill on Friday afternoon meeting with senators, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, about finding a solution.”
–Clare Foran, Phil Mattingly and Manu Raju, “As shutdown deadline approaches, congressional negotiators search for a deal,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, December 21, 2018 8:10 pm