President Donald Trump on Friday released a statement urging members of the House to approve bipartisan legislation that would "fix" a budget issue for Washington, D.C. that already passed in the Senate.
City officials have warned in recent weeks that the legislation is needed to prevent major cuts to the district's budget caused by the stopgap funding measure, which did not include necessary language to keep the city operating under a budget approved by its own leadership. Without this, Washington to lose about $1 billion from its budget in the upcoming months.
"Washington, D.C., must become CLEAN and SAFE again! We need our Great Police back on the street, with no excuses from the Mayor, or anyone else," Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday.
"The House should take up the D.C. funding ‘fix' that the Senate has passed, and get it done IMMEDIATELY. We need to clean up our once beautiful Capital City, and make it beautiful again," he added. "We will be TOUGH ON CRIME, like never before. I will work with the Mayor on this and, if it does not happen, will have no choice but to do it myself. Washington, D.C., will be better, safer, and more beautiful than ever before!"
Trump's plea comes the day after House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., said he's pressing Republican leaders in the House to push back a vote on the bill.
"We've urged the leadership to delay it until we get the budget resolution fixed, and then we should put requirements on that for the District of Columbia," Harris said on Thursday, according to The Hill.
"We should get the budget resolution agreed to before we take up an issue like whether or not, D.C. should be able to spend that billion dollars on whatever crazy stuff they want to spend it on," he added.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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