Trump claims US can't have border security 'without a wall' – as it happened

Donald Trump gave brief remarks talking up his border wall and left the briefing room without taking questions.

He explained that he was meeting with members of the border patrol union in the Oval Office and made an impromptu decision to come out and speak to the press.

“Without a wall you cannot have border security,” Trump said.

He went on to claim that technology was not sufficient to secure the border, saying, “nobody knows much more about technology, this type of technology certainly, as I do.” Tech like drones and sensors, he said, are “not going to stop the problems.”

He ignored questions from reporters as he left.

Donald Trump is making the case for his border wall. “You can call it a barrier. You can call it anything you want,” he said.

He is joined by a group of Border Patrol and ICE agents, and introduced Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council.

“Walls actually work,” Judd said. “If you interview border patrol agents, they will tell you that walls work.”

Donald Trump himself will speak to the press at today’s hastily-scheduled briefing.

He’s taking the podium at the White House press room now.

The White House has scheduled a last minute press briefing, which is expected to begin any minute.

Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, said the Senate should vote to fund the government and end a government shutdown without money for Donald Trump’s border wall.

“I think we should pass a continuing resolution to get the government back open. The Senate has done it last Congress, we should do it again today,” he said, according to the Hill.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill to fund the government until February, before Donald Trump reversed course and said he would not accept such a bill without wall money. The House is expected to pass the same bill later Thursday. But because it is now a new Congress, the Senate would have to pass it again. And Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now says he won’t allow a vote on any bill unless Trump agrees to it.

The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to his agency’s inspector general investigators, the Washington Post reported.

Zinke was the subject of two inspector general’s probes, dealing with his real estate activities in his home state of Montana, and his involvement with the review of a Native American casino project in Connecticut.

He resigned amid multiple scandals.

Zinke spoke to the inspector general’s investigators in two voluntary interviews, a spokesman told the Post. The spokesman said he “to the best of his knowledge answered all questions truthfully,” and has not been contacted by the Justice Department about the matter.

Democratic state attorneys general are appealing the ruling from a Texas judge finding Obamacare unconstitutional.

“Our goal is simple: to stand up for the law of the land -- the Affordable Care Act -- in order to keep health care affordable and accessible for millions of Americans,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is leading the group, said Thursday, according to CNN. “This shouldn’t be a debate.”

There are 17 states participating in the appeal.

The healthcare law remains in effect as the case progresses. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled last month the law was unconstitutional because Congress eliminated the penalty for people who don’t have health insurance as required by the law’s individual mandate. Previously, the Supreme Court upheld the original law.

The state attorneys general are taking up the defense of Obamacare instead of the federal government because the Trump administration declined to defend it in court.

Donald Trump is considering former Senator Jim Webb to become his next Secretary of Defense, the New York Times reports.

James Mattis resigned from the post in protest after Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria, citing fundamental disagreements between them over the US role in the world.

Webb is a former Democratic senator and presidential candidate, who served as Navy secretary under former president Ronald Reagan.

The White House has invited Congressional leaders back for more talks on Friday about resolving the government shutdown.

The proposed meeting would be at 11:30am on Friday, White House spokesman spokesman Hogan Gidley told the Hill.

A previous meeting on Wednesday made little progress toward ending the impasse over Donald Trump’s demand for money to build a wall on the southern border.

The new Congress brings with it a new order of succession to the presidency.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, who was sworn in today to represent Minnesota, arrived for the ceremony with her father, at the same airport where they arrived as refugees more than 20 years ago.

Omar is Somali-American and lived as a child in a refugee camp in Kenya.

“As my dad said, he had high hopes for us about the opportunities we would have when we came to this country. But I don’t think he imagined that some day his baby would be going to Congress just 20 years after we arrived here,” Omar said in video of their arrival.

“It was amazing,” her father added.

Earlier we reported on some stats showing the new Congress is a bit more diverse religiously than the old one.

Those changes are reflected in the books new members used to take their oath of office.

The House has made renovations to make it possible for the first time for people with disabilities to preside over the chamber, Nancy Pelosi said in her speech after being elected speaker. To mark the change, Rep. Jim Langevin of New Jersey, who uses a wheelchair, will preside over the House this afternoon as the first president pro tempore in the new Congress.

Nancy Pelosi took the gavel and assumed the Speaker’s chair.

She noted that her election as speaker for the second time, the first woman to hold the job, comes on the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote.

By electing Democrats to control the House in November, she said the American people had chosen to exercise the “system of checks and balances that protects our democracy.”

Pelosi vowed Democrats would fight for policies that benefit the middle class, and tackle climate change - an issue whose urgency she said the American people recognize better than politicians.

“We must also face the existential threat of our time, the climate crisis,” she said. “The people are ahead of the Congress. The Congress must join them.”

The new speaker said Democrats will later today bring up legislation to fund the government and end the possible government shutdown. The legislation, previously passed unanimously by the Senate, would fund the government at current levels without adding money to build a border wall.

Pelosi laid out other legislative priorities including universal background checks for gun buyers, an ethics bill known as HR 1, and protections for immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

Newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and minority leader Kevin McCarthy, both Californians, took the podium to a serenade of “California Here I Come.”

McCarthy is speaking first. “We are at our best when we focus not on retribution but on building a more perfect union,” he said. But McCarthy said there is “one core principle upon which we will not compromise: Republicans will always choose personal freedom over government control.”

The full tally of Speaker votes on the House floor:

A full list of the Democrats who voted against Nancy Pelosi, via a Talking Points Memo reporter:

Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York, who promised during her campaign to oppose Nancy Pelosi, chose Stacey Abrams - the former Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia - for her speaker vote.

Rep. Max Rose, another New York Democrat who campaigned on the promise to oppose Pelosi, voted for Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

Rep. Seth Moulton, a leader of a faction of Democrats who had opposed Nancy Pelosi, cast his vote for her.

He agreed to back her in a deal that will impose term limits on members of the Democratic leadership.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also voted for Pelosi. Her vote drew a smattering of groans and boos.

Rep. Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat, is another vote against Nancy Pelosi. He voted for Georgia Rep. and civil rights icon John Lewis for speaker.

Rep. Conor Lamb, a moderate Democrat from Pennsylvania, voted for Rep. Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts.

Member of the House are now being called on by name to cast their votes for Speaker.

Rep. Anthony Brindisi, a newly elected Democrat from upstate New York, was the first Democrat to vote against Nancy Pelosi. He instead voted for former Vice President Joe Biden as speaker.

More context on the nominations of Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy to lead their parties in the House, from the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs:

Both Pelosi and McCarthy received nomination speeches from rising stars in their respective caucuses. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who has been talked about as a potential future Speaker even before his election to be House Conference Chair last month, touted Pelosi’s progressive credentials saying “House Democrats are down with NDP,” using the initials for Nancy D’alesandro Pelosi.

Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who has just been elected House Republican Conference chair, nominated McCarthy. The second generation congresswoman touted the California Republicans’ conservative credentials and his support for President Donald Trump’s border wall. Despite only being elected in 2016, Cheney has already risen to the #3 position among House Republicans.

Rep. Liz Cheney nominated Kevin McCarthy to be the Republican House minority leader.

She drew cheers from Republicans when she said McCarthy would lead the fight to “build the wall.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York has nominated Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker.

Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat recently elected to the number 5 Democratic leadership post, said Pelosi has a track record of legislative success “unparalleled in modern American history.”

Jeffries said Pelosi’s efforts “saved the American automobile industry, provided affordable healthcare to more than 20 million Americans,” among a host of other legislation he listed. “But Nancy Pelosi is just getting started,” he said.

All nine of Nancy Pelosi’s grandchildren are on the floor with her as she prepares to ascend to the speakership, per our Lauren Gambino.

Her five children are her guests in the House gallery - along with singer Tony Bennett, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, and Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.

A former employee at Donald Trump’s New Jersey golf club says managers removed her from a list of workers to be vetted by the Secret Service because they knew she was in the country illegally.

Emma Torres, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador, is the fifth worker at the Trump National Golf Club to tell the New York Times on the record that they were employed there despite lacking legal authorization, and that managers knew undocumented immigrants worked there.

Torres said she and other members of the kitchen staff were asked in 2016, when Trump was running for president, to write their names, addresses and social security numbers on a list that would be sent to the Secret Service for clearance.

She said she went to human resources and told a staffer that she was in the country illegally. The staffer said, “It’s O.K. No problem” and scratched her name off the list, she told the Times.

The HR employer then asked Torres for names of other workers, which she provided. She believes they were also removed from the list.

Torres said she was hired in 2015 with a fake social security number and green card - and told the manager interviewing her that they were fake.

Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the two first Muslim Congresswomen who will take office today, will take her oath of office on a copy of the Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson, per the Detroit Free Press.

It’s the founding father’s copy of George Sale’s 1734 translation of the Koran into English, a two-volume work that belongs to the Library of Congress.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s response to a tweet by Donald Trump mocking her presidential bid, per NBC: “Yeah, again, how about the president spends his time getting the government back open?”

Donald Trump tweeted an image mocking Senator Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for president.

It features the slogan “Warren: 1/2020th,” an apparent reference to the much-derided DNA test the Massachusetts Democrat took finding she had a small fraction of Native American heritage.

Trump has frequently mocked Warren on the issue, branding her “Pocahontas.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein says former Vice-President Joe Biden is her top pick for a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

“I’ve watched him as vice president, I’ve seen him operate, I’ve seen him perform,” the California Democrat told Politico. “He brings a level of experience and seniority which I think is really important.”

Biden, like most of the rest of the potential 2020 field, has not said whether or not he will run.

House Democrats plan to hold hearings on Medicare for All, the single payer healthcare proposal supported by many newly-elected left-leaning members.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has agreed to hearings on legislation that would create the universal health care system, the Washington Post reported.

“It’s a huge step forward to have the speaker’s support,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who will be the House sponsor of the bill. “We have to push on the inside while continuing to build support for this on the outside.”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway argued Thursday that if Democrats really cared about the plight of migrants at the southern border, they’d support building a wall to keep them out.

“They’re now turning a blind eye to the humanitarian crisis, which includes children,” Conway said.

The government has been partially shut down since last month because Trump will not approve government funding unless it includes money to build his proposed wall on the US-Mexico border.

Conway, in an appearance on Fox News, said the wall was necessary for migrants’ own good to deter families with children from making the perilous journey from Central America to the border.

She accused incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of ignoring presentations form cabinet officials at a White House meeting Wednesday about immigration numbers.

“It’s not fair to them, and if Nancy Pelosi really cared about those kids, she would have at least listened,” she said.

“It’s very disappointing because we need a secure border,” she said. “You can’t call it anything but raw politics.”

Donald Trump is now blaming the government shutdown, which he once said he would take full responsibility for, on the 2020 presidential election.

Some new data from the Pew Research Center explores the religious composition of the new Congress set to take office today.

The new Congress is slightly more religiously diverse than the last one, according to Pew. In the 115th Congress, 91% of members were Christian, while in the 116th, 88% are Christian. There are four more Jewish members, one additional Muslim and one more Unitarian Universalist in the new Congress – as well as eight more members who decline to state their religious affiliation.

The new Congress includes the first two Muslim women to serve in the House.

But while the new Congress is a bit more diverse, its religious breakdown is still much different than the country’s overall, according to Pew’s analysis: “By far the largest difference between the U.S. public and Congress is in the share who are unaffiliated with a religious group. In the general public, 23% say they are atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular.’ In Congress, just one person – Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who was recently elected to the Senate after three terms in the House – says she is religiously unaffiliated, making the share of ‘nones’ in Congress 0.2%.” Another 3% of Congress, though - all Democrats - said they did not know or refused to state their religious affiliation in a CQ Roll Call questionnaire.

Groups heavily represented in Congress include Methodists, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Lutherans. Some 15% of members identify as Protestants unaffiliated with any particular denomination, compared to just 5% of the general public. Pentecostals are one underrepresented Protestant denomination: 5% of the general public, but only 0.4% of Congress.

About 6% of Congress identifies as Jewish, compared to 2% of the general public.

Congress has three Muslims, three Hindus, two Buddhists, and two Unitarian Universalists.

Because of the government shutdown, the Trump administration has moved to delay a court hearing in a lawsuit by the NAACP challenging their preparations for the 2020 census.

According to documents posted by an NPR reporter, the Justice Department says in court documents that without government funding, DOJ and Department of Commerce employees are prohibited from working on the case.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley says he won’t be running for president again in 2020, and pins his hopes on Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke making a run.

O’Malley, a long-shot candidate in the 2016 Democratic primary, wrote an op-ed in the Des Moines Register arguing O’Rourke would be the best candidate next year for the party. O’Rourke ran unsuccessfully last year against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

“The fearless vision and unifying message which brought people together in Texas also sparked imaginations all across our country. And, I believe, will again — if Beto O’Rourke runs for president,” O’Malley wrote.

A California Democrat plans to introduce articles of impeachment against Donald Trump on the first day of the new Congress.

Rep. Brad Sherman will introduce the measure Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reported. He first introduced articles of impeachment last year, but this time around the House will be under government control.

“There is no reason it shouldn’t be before the Congress,” Sherman told the LA Times. “Every day, Donald Trump shows that leaving the White House would be good for our country.”

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not rule out impeachment proceedings in an interview Thursday morning, but said Democrats would wait to see the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, plans to re-introduce a bill protecting the job of special counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday, CNN reports.

The legislation would say that the special counsel could only be fired for cause, and only by certain Justice Department officials. It would allow the special counsel to challenge his dismissal in court.

Democrats in the House may pass the bill, but it has little chance of passing the Senate, where majority leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring it up for a vote in spite of Senator Jeff Flake blocking all judicial confirmations unless the special counsel bill was brought up. Flake has now retired.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats will give Donald Trump “nothing for the wall,” as a government shutdown over his demand for money to build a border wall grinds on.

“No, no. Nothing for the wall. We’re talking about border security,” she said in an interview that aired this morning on NBC’s Today Show. “There is no amount of persuasion he can do to say to us, ‘We want you to do something that is not effective, that costs billions of dollars.’ That sends the wrong message about who we are as a country.”

Democrats have offered $1.3bn for border security measures other than a wall. Trump wants $5bn for a wall.

“This is the Trump shutdown, through and through. That’s why he has proudly taken, in his view, proudly taken ownership of it. There’s no escaping that for him,” Pelosi said in the Today Show appearance. “That doesn’t mean we take any joy in the fact that there is a Trump shutdown. We want government to open.”