Folks, if there's one person who could easily blow up the congressional conference committee talks intended to produce a border security funding bill, it's Trump himself.
Trump is holding a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas tonight just miles away from the border, and you know what that means -- he's going to hoot and holler about his fantasy border wall.
From the Associated Press:
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said during news show appearances Sunday that another shutdown remained on the table, although he also said Trump probably would be willing to compromise over how much of the $5.7 billion for wall construction he’s demanded would be allocated. “Someplace in the middle,” Mulvaney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” [...]
Trump advisers on the campaign and inside the White House insist, that fulfilled or not, the promise of a wall is a winning issue for Trump. The president has already sought to rewrite the “Build the Wall” chants that were a staple of his 2016 campaign to “Finish the Wall,” and will use his rally in Texas to go in-depth on the issue, aides said.
Whatever the chances of seeing another government shutdown are right now, I expect they'll be higher after tonight.
Unlike his last visit the border which involved a photo op with Border Patrol officers, this will be an explicitly political campaign rally and Trump tends to fly off the handle when he holds those. He could say virtually anything tonight and his advisers on Hate Radio and Fox News will expect him to adhere to it in the coming days.