It looks like a government shutdown will be on hold until at least February 8th. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated, “Later this morning, we’ll introduce a continuing resolution that will ensure continuous funding for the federal government. The measure will provide the resources necessary to continue normal operations through February 8th.”

Donald Trump had threatened the Government would shut down this Friday if Congress didn’t fund his border wall. Now the White House says they are looking at other questionable ways of getting the money, but this is a clear loss for the White House. There is no way around that. Politico reports:

McConnell is moving to avoid a political blunder four days before Christmas, and it appears Trump is willing to sign the bill.

“It seems like political spite for the president may be winning out over sensible policy, even sensible policies that are more modest than border security allocations which many Democrats supported themselves, in the recent past,” McConnell said. “We will turn to a clean [stop gap spending bill] later today, so we can make sure we don’t end this year the way we began it — with another government shutdown because of Democrats’ allergy to sensible immigration policies.”

Meanwhile, on Twitter, Trump is still saying that Mexico is paying for the wall. Wednesday morning he exclaimed:

“Mexico is paying (indirectly) for the Wall through the new USMCA, the replacement for NAFTA! Far more money coming to the U.S. Because of the tremendous dangers at the Border, including large scale criminal and drug inflow, the United States Military will build the Wall!”

He also says it’s not a wall per se, but instead a series of slats, that will somehow save the country money after it’s done:

“The Democrats, are saying loud and clear that they do not want to build a Concrete Wall – but we are not building a Concrete Wall, we are building artistically designed steel slats, so that you can easily see through it ….It will be beautiful and, at the same time, give our Country the security that our citizens deserve. It will go up fast and save us BILLIONS of dollars a month once completed!”