A Senate Republican suggested Wednesday that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had his feelings hurt by not being included in the Trump-Schumer deal to fund the government.
The House passed the five-bill funding package, along with a two-week funding extension for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), on Tuesday. Jeffries and most House Democrats, save for 21, voted against it as the partial government shutdown entered its fourth day.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said it was because Jeffries was ‘butt hurt’ that he was not looped into the deal brokered between Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and President Donald Trump.
‘He’s butt hurt that President Trump didn’t call him, too,’ Marshall told Fox News Digital. ‘But I think that’s on Schumer.’
Marshall described the scene in the Oval Office last week, where top-ranking Senate Republicans met with Trump as the funding deadline neared, and Senate Democrats were digging in deeper into their demands to renegotiate the DHS funding bill.
‘The president says, ‘Get Schumer on the phone.’ They get Schumer on the phone. They broker a deal,’ Marshall said.
‘So really, it’s on Schumer that he agreed to this deal, really, before bringing Hakeem in,’ he continued. ‘And really it comes down to that Hakeem’s feelings are butt hurt, and to him, he’s fighting for his political life and really struggling.’
While the deal does fund 11 out of the 12 agencies under Congress’ purview, DHS remains an open question.
Senate Democrats, following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti during an immigration operation in Minneapolis, demanded that the bipartisan bill to fund the agency be sidelined in order to cram in more restrictions and reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Turning to a two-week continuing resolution (CR) to further negotiate the bill has Republicans concerned that they will end up in the same position within the next few days, given the truncated timeframe to hash out major issues with one of the most politically perilous funding bills.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that negotiations with Senate Democrats would be carried out by Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who chairs the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.
He acknowledged, however, that Trump would be the deciding factor.
‘Ultimately, that’s going to be a conversation between the President of the United States and the Democrats here in the Senate,’ he said.
But Schumer insisted that Thune needed to be in on the negotiations.
‘If Leader Thune negotiates in good faith, we can get it done,’ Schumer said. ‘We expect to present to the Republicans a very serious, detailed proposal very shortly.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer and Jeffries for comment.
