“The things that the president says [are] not helpful to the process. It’s not respectful to our efforts,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar. | M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico Congress Congress tunes out Trump’s border wall threats Several House GOP negotiators next week plan to visit the border in Texas as hopes for a deal fade.

President Donald Trump is doing all he can to blow up border security spending talks. But few people on Capitol Hill are listening.

Lawmakers and aides from both parties are plowing ahead with negotiations this weekend, ignoring Trump’s growing public disgust for a closed-door process that is increasingly unlikely to deliver a border wall.


The group can reach a deal to stave off another shutdown, several lawmakers and aides said, if only the president would butt out.

“With all due respect to the president, I really have stopped now listening to what he says,” Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, one of the Democratic members of the conference committee, said in an interview Friday. “The things that the president says [are] not helpful to the process. It’s not respectful to our efforts.”

In the past two days, Trump has repeatedly trashed the bipartisan committee tasked with reaching a border security deal and hinted he’s likely to circumvent Congress and build his border wall, anyway.

Trump called the talks a “waste of time” on Friday, repeating his dismissive assessment of the committee he made in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday. The president has also insisted he may not even bother to read what lawmakers come up with “if they don’t have a wall.”

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At the same time, Trump has become more direct about his plans to declare a national emergency that he argues will allow him to build a wall unilaterally. “I think there's a good chance we will have to do that,” the president told reporters Friday.

Publicly, some Republicans on the conference committee are siding with the president, accusing Democrats of already sinking the talks by ruling out any border wall funding, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi did on Thursday.

Rep. Tom Graves, a Georgia Republican who is close with leadership and sits on the conference committee, said he was more pessimistic about reaching a deal by Feb. 15, the next government shutdown deadline.

“I understand the president’s cynicism,” Graves said in an interview Friday, arguing that Democrats’ formal proposal this week seemed designed to taunt Republicans by not providing additional dollars for physical barriers.

“Whatever product — if there is a product, and I’m hopeful there will be — needs to be one that the House GOP conference can embrace, and that the president can sign. Otherwise, it’s a futile effort,” Graves said.

In an attempt to bridge the gap, several House GOP negotiators have planned their own trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas next week, according to multiple aides. Cuellar, whose district will be part of the visit, has agreed to meet the group for a tour along the border, though Democrats are largely dismissing the trip as a photo op.

Lawmakers on both sides concede the timeline they’re working under is extremely tight. In order to have a bill to the president to keep the government open by the current deadline, the committee would likely have to finalize an agreement by next Friday, Feb. 8, giving it enough time to move through both the House and the Senate.

Democratic negotiators, however, insist that White House interference isn’t yet darkening the mood of the group tasked with formulating a spending plan. They argue most lawmakers and aides couldn't care less what Trump tweeted.

The 17 Republicans and Democrats on the committee are clear that they agree on the majority of issues, from beefing up scanning technology at ports of entry to hiring more agents to stem the flow of illegal drugs.

House Democrats unveiled a formal proposal that includes no money for physical barriers — even less than the existing funding levels. Instead of physical barriers, Democrats proposed hundreds of millions of dollars more toward screening technology, drug-related search and seizures, and humanitarian aid. But Pelosi and other top Democrats this week expressed an openness to some kind of fencing along the border, an important shift in tone that could be the key to a bipartisan deal.

Pelosi, who must bless any deal before it receives a vote in the House, said Thursday she would support bolstering some of the current car blockades along the border to make it harder to people to cross.

“If the president wants to call that a wall, he can call it a wall,” she told reporters.

Democrats also feel like their negotiating position — that more money for technology and agents, not a “medieval wall,” will be most effective — was bolstered this week.

Customs and Border Protection agents made the largest fentanyl bust in history, uncovering more than 250 pounds of the drug hidden in the floor of a truck hauling cucumbers across the border. The drugs were discovered at a port of entry, one of the key areas Democrats have been saying Congress should funnel federal funds to in order to improve border security.

“[Trump’s] just out making noise, ringing his hands and pouting in a corner,” Aguilar said Friday. “We’re having conversations about line items and priorities for the department. And what he’s saying doesn’t really affect those line items or the priorities."

Republicans, particularly in the House, have hammered Democrats this week for what they see as a refusal to negotiate. It remains unclear what — if anything — can get support from both the Trump loyalists, like Graves, and the Democratic progressives, like Rep. Barbara Lee of California.

Graves argued that negotiations can’t even get off the ground on the toughest issues until Democrats make clear how much they’re willing to devote to border barriers. The Georgia Republican said Democrats need to put forward at least $1.6 billion, which is the current level of funding for barriers.

“You can’t begin that conversation without having a decent starting spot,” Graves said, accusing Democrats of taking backward steps since the shutdown began.

For some Democrats, the most likely scenario is a small amount toward fencing, like short vehicle barriers or a concrete levee wall, which would also serve the purpose of flood control. Both have had bipartisan support in the past.

Republicans, however, say they’ll require some form of impenetrable structures, though most have declined to say exactly how much money or miles they’ll need in a final agreement. Many GOP lawmakers don’t seem to know exactly how much the White House wants either.

Capitol Hill leaders likely won’t have anything to announce until late next week. Until then, most action will be on the staff level, with committee aides holed up in the Capitol racing to complete several weeks’ worth of work in just a few days.

Rep. David Price of North Carolina, another Democratic negotiator, said he fears Trump could halt negotiations by forcing Republicans to essentially give him a seat at the table. He believes most Republicans on the panel, though, will agree to leave Trump out of the talks until the end.

“Whatever [Trump] does, the Republicans do have some decisions to make as to how they’re going to proceed. I very much hope that [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell will not again be on the sidelines, and the Republican members will provide a reality check, and not just take orders,” Price said.

