Three of President Donald Trump's biggest Fox News supporters savaged the border wall deal made by congressional negotiators to keep the federal government open, amid questions of whether the president would approve it or trigger a second partial government shutdown.
The government reopened after its recent shutdown when Trump signed a temporary spending bill that funded the government through February 15, and created a bipartisan committee to negotiate a deal on U.S.-Mexico border security.
Democrats, who control the House, have refused to allocate any of the $5.7 billion for a physical barrier along the southern border, dismissing the project as expensive and ineffective. The president shut down the government over this impasse, initially saying he was "proud" to do so.
Just as the president headed to his rally in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday, congressional negotiators announced thay had reached a budget agreement "in principle," which includes nearly $1.4 billion for 55 miles of new steel border fencing, The Washington Post reported, well shy of what the president demanded to fund a 200-mile concrete wall.
The White House has yet to respond to the agreement, which still has to pass both houses of Congress, though Trump reaffirmed that his border wall, a flagship pledge of his presidential campaign, would be built.
Sean Hannity, a friend of the president's who uses his Fox News show to promote Trump's agenda, blasted the deal as a "garbage compromise."
"By the way, on this new so-called compromise, I'm getting details," Hannity said on his show Monday night, which coincided with Trump's rally in El Paso, Texas.
"$1.3 billion? That's not even a wall, a barrier... Any Republican that supports this garbage compromise, you will have to explain. Look at this crowd, look at the country."
Laura Ingraham, who interviewed the president on her Fox News show before his El Paso rally, dismissed the deal as "pathetic" in a tweet.
Lou Dobbs, a Fox Business host and a vocal supporter of President Trump, also attacked the border deal in a tweet.
"Radical Dimms refuse to protect America, their 'Deal' is an insult to @POTUS and the American people," Dobbs tweeted.
Trump has until midnight on Friday to decide whether to shut down the government again and leave hundreds of thousands of federal workers without a paycheck, or pass a deal that will likely anger his supporters.
Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Appropritions, said at a news conference that he believed that the president would approve the deal.
"Our staffs are going to be working feverishly to put all the particulars together," Shelby said, the BBC reported. "We believe that if this becomes law, it'll keep open the government."
