Breaking: Trump tells congressional Republicans he won't sign spending bill without border wall funding

After meeting with Republican congressional leaders, President Donald Trump has stated he will not sign a continuing resolution that does not include funding for a border wall. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made the announcement to the media after meeting with Trump for nearly 90 minutes.

Congress needs to pass a continuing resolution in order to fund the government after Friday. Failure to do so would result in a government shutdown.

What's the story?

The White House has seemed to change its position several times on whether or not Trump would sign a spending bill without a border wall.

On March 23, Trump signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that included $641 million for a 33-mile stretch of border fence, but not for a wall. At the time, Trump said he was "forced" to sign this bill in order to get funding for the military, and promised he would "never sign a bill like this again."

On Nov. 28, Trump told Politico that he was "firm" on getting $5 billion from Congress for the border wall, and that he would be willing to shut down the government over this issue.

On Tuesday, the White House signaled that it was unwilling to shut down the government over the border wall. Speaking to Fox News, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, "At the end of the day, we don't want to shut down the government, we want to shut down the border."

During that same interview, Sanders said that the Trump administration had identified "a number of different funding sources" through which it could fund the wall without Congress.

This announcement was met with opposition from some GOP leaders in Congress, including members of the Freedom Caucus.

On Thursday morning, Trump tweeted that people were focusing too much on the border wall, and that existing measures were already keeping the country safe.

With so much talk about the Wall, people are losing sight of the great job being done on our Southern Border by Border Patrol, ICE and our great Military. Remember the Caravans? Well, they didn't get through and none are forming or on their way. Border is tight. Fake News silent!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2018

Later that day, however, Trump tweeted:

When I begrudgingly signed the Omnibus Bill, I was promised the Wall and Border Security by leadership. Would be done by end of year (NOW). It didn't happen! We foolishly fight for Border Security for other countries - but not for our beloved U.S.A. Not good!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 20, 2018