BORDER/GOVERNMENT/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “After the Senate voted down two proposals to reopen the government on Thursday [1-24-19], lawmakers are searching for a way to end the partial shutdown, though it is still not clear whether Democrats and the White House will be able to find common ground as President Donald Trump continues to push for border wall funding, which Democrats have so far held firm in saying they will not provide.Shortly after the failed votes — one on a Republican-backed measure that would have provided $5.7 billion for a border wall and another on a Democratic measure without wall funding — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met at McConnell’s office in the Capitol…Even amid the flurry of negotiations and support from a bipartisan group of senators to end the impasse over the shutdown, there was to be no deal or breakthrough Thursday night, according to two sources familiar with the talks…The issue remains an inability to pin down exactly what the President would accept in any type of deal, the sources said, and there is still no clarity on the next steps. Talks are expected to continue, but at the moment the dynamics that led to the now 34-day-old shutdown don’t appear to have shifted in a meaningful way, one of the sources said.”
–Clare Foran, Ashley Killough and Manu Raju, “Trump seeks ‘down payment on the wall’ as lawmakers search for way out of shutdown,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, January 24, 2019 9:12 pm