Three Republican senators in the United States have indicated that they would support a bill that will end the current government shutdown, without funding for President Donald Trump’s wall.
Democrats at the House on Wednesday, went ahead with a bill to immediately reopen the Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and several other agencies that had been partially closed since 22 December.
About 800,000 federal government workers have been without pay since mid-December, after President Donald Trump refused to approve expenditure over the refusal of the Democrats to pass the $5.6billion proposed to build a wall on the Southern Mexican border.
Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Senator, on Tuesday, became the latest Republican to demand a break with Trump on the issue.
“We don’t need to hold up these six other departments at the same time that we are resolving these very important security issues,” she told NBC News.
“Let’s bifurcate these issues, let’s set them aside, let’s allow for the operations, these governmental functions of these six other departments, allow for them to continue.”
Last week, Susan Collins, from Maine and Colorado’s Cory Gardner; both senators, also said they would support action to end the shutdown. Both could face difficulty seeking for re-election next year.
“I see no reason why the bills that are ready to go and on which we’ve achieved an agreement should be held hostage to this debate over border security,” Collins told reporters.
Gardner said: “I think we should pass a continuing resolution to get the government back open. The Senate has done it last congress, we should do it again today.”
However, Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, still maintains his hardline about bringing up any government funding bill that does not have Trump’s backing.
Other Senate Republicans have stressed their support for Trump, but maintained that it will not last indefinitely.
“There’s a time when that may run out,” Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson told CNN. “But right now that doesn’t run out.”
President Trump had during an eight-minute primetime television address at the White House’s Oval Office on Tuesday had described the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border was, he said, a “humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul”.
