Former WH aide predicts no shutdown before midterms

Marc Short, the former White House legislative affairs director and recently hired CNN contributor, predicted on Monday there would not be a government shutdown ahead of the midterm elections.

"There are two different timetables here," Short said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."

He continued, "One is September 30, which I fully expect you'll have a continuing resolution that gets us till December. I think the time frame we're talking about is if Congress hasn't provided the funding by the end of the year in December."

Short left the White House earlier this month after announcing the news to staff in June.

Short's comments came after President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that he would be willing to force the government into a shutdown if Congress did not appropriate money for his proposed border wall, which he promised Mexico would pay for, and change the nation's immigration laws. In comments on Monday, Trump repeated his threat, saying he would "leave room for negotiation" but insisting Congress pass new border security and immigration measures.

"If we don't get border security after many, many years of talk within the United States, I would have no problem doing a shutdown," Trump said Monday.

Trump signed a spending agreement in March that funded the government through September, but he did so after threatening to veto it and declaring he would "never sign another bill like this again."

Short said "we should" take the shutdown threat from Trump seriously, but that he thought the threat of a shutdown was "really toward December more so than in September."

Short also pointed to part of the Senate's August recess being canceled as evidence there could be significant progress on appropriations in the coming weeks as congressional negotiators continue to hammer out a series of agreements on spending.