By Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman
WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Monday that he has rejected a proposal by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to temporarily reopen the government in an effort to jump-start talks with Democratic lawmakers on funding a border wall.
“I did reject it,” Mr. Trump said of the proposal, speaking to reporters as he boarded Marine One outside of the White House, en route to delivering a speech to a farm convention in New Orleans.
In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Graham, a close ally of the president, pitched Mr. Trump on a plan for the president to agree to a vote by Congress to reopen the government for about three weeks “before he pulls the plug on the legislative option.” If there was no progress made during that time, Mr. Graham said, the president could then declare a national emergency as a way to obtain funding for a border wall without congressional action.
But Mr. Trump said that he did not want to extend the impasse over funding for the wall. It was not clear, however, what Mr. Trump saw as an alternative. “I’m not looking to call a national emergency,” he said on Monday. “This is so simple you shouldn’t have to.”
Mr. Trump, advisers said, has refused to allow his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, or anyone else negotiating on his behalf to compromise on his demand for $5.7 billion in border wall funding. That has led to awkward moments in front of congressional leaders.
In a meeting at the White House with lawmakers from both parties on Jan. 4, Mr. Trump castigated Mr. Mulvaney for proposing a compromise figure between Mr. Trump’s desired $5.7 billion for a wall and the Democrats’ offer of $1.3 billion for border security, as a way to end the shutdown.
Using an expletive, the president blamed his acting chief of staff for messing up the negotiations. The salty exchange was first reported by Axios.
Mr. Trump emerged on the South Lawn on Monday after spending a snowy weekend without leaving the White House grounds. It was a rare occurrence for a president who typically spends weekend afternoons during winter on his golf course in Palm Beach.
But Mr. Trump’s physical presence in the capital has become one of the ways he has tried to demonstrate his willingness to negotiate with Democrats on funding the wall, even as he has staked out an intractable position on the issue. It is a point of pride he has highlighted on Twitter and in interviews, as he has become concerned about the perception that he is being outmaneuvered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a veteran negotiator who even Mr. Trump has praised in the past.
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