It might have taken a bit longer for us to accept that when Donald Trump said he wanted to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico border that he literally meant a real one and not a metaphorical one. It would seem that given the first several months of the Trump administration, no one really took it that seriously. But now as the 100-day marker for his presidency nears and Congress returned from their two-week Easter break, they're facing a White House that wants to use Obamacare funding as leverage to fund their border wall or the government gets shut down.

Congress weakens forceful White House

The Blasting News article linked above reported on an unnamed White House official who seemed to be rather excited that the government could be facing a shutdown this week, if they're not able to come to an agreement on the budget to fund Trump's border wall. But reports from various media outlets are saying that not one Congressional lawmaker, Republican or Democrat (mostly), are interested in being forced to give the White House what they want. In fact, some outlets predict that they are on a collision course with the White House budget director Mick Mulvaney who, as Blasting News reported, warned Congress in a statement saying that "elections had consequences".

The article published the response of the spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to say that this wasn't going to happen. But it's also been reported that there isn't a lawmaker that represents the border who want the border wall, according to a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal.

Bipartisan motion against border wall

Reasons for this are either because they are fully against it or, they have many unanswered questions and are at the very least are not committed to a yes decision. This would mean that Republicans simply wouldn't have the votes to approve funding.

Democrats are not likely to cave as they seem to have found it rather easy to step into their new role as obstructionists, a role that Republicans previously played during the Obama administration and with ease. But since President Trump represents the Republican Party, the GOP are being a little more diplomatic to say that the administration is going to have to try to accept funding for the wall later on in the year. 'Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) who was the former Homeland Security Committee chairman and who wrote a 2006 law that authorized the construction of a wall, confirmed that the White House would accept this, but even he has seen the difficulty of pursuing such an ambitious and controversial endeavor.

Reality sets in

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Peter King said that the priority was to keep the government running. The administration will be looking for a downpayment on the wall from Congress which Blasting News also reported on in the article mentioned; taking subsidies from Obamacare to pay for it. President Trump also wanted to push for tax reform on Wednesday which is surprising to wonder how they're going to get all of this done before the end of the week. The border wall, their demand for money to hire more ice agents, and immigration-related budget proposals were made to Congress at the beginning of April which lawmakers appeared to ignore This should provide some indication as to what kind of power the administration has over Congress, none. While President Trump tries to push for his agenda using force, many Congressional leaders feel that Trump and his staff should stay out of their process.
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