The clock is ticking towards September, when a new budget must be signed or the Government will shut down. Trump has promised that he will not sign a budget that doesn’t have funding for The Wall. But it sounds like that’s unlikely to make it in what Congress sends to his desk.
Most Senate Democrats supported $25 billion for border wall funding in exchange for a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants in February, but they are unlikely to agree to such a large sum anytime soon absent much broader immigration reform. And the House’s last-ditch immigration efforts have been upended by Trump’s initial comments dismissing a compromise bill written by GOP leaders, conservatives and more moderate Republicans.
Will Trump refuse to sign a budget bill sent to him by a Republican Congress and unilaterally shut down the government less than 50 days before the mid-term elections?
Maybe they’ll fund a bunch of smaller walls around the internment camps. There’s a constant flow of something like 300/wk additional illegal alien children being hidden away in these camps, so if they can’ keep them out, maybe they’ll fund a way to keep them in, but like in in.
That might pass Trump’s muster.
Otherwise I’m sure he’ll make whatever the dumbest decision could be, including a game of chicken and inevitable shutdown. Especially if he thinks GOP is gonna get slaughtered anyway.
The president said at the meeting that if Congress doesn’t give him the resources he needs for border security, he will shut down the government in September, according to one of the people familiar with the meeting. He did not give a specific number, but has been fixated on getting the $25 billion in a lump sum.
GOP lawmakers are loath to see a government shutdown on their watch just weeks before the midterm elections.
The only way to make this even close to work for Republicans is to draft up a budget that includes the full amount, knowing that Dems will reject it. Then they can blame Dems for supporting “immigrant criminals like MS-13” over heroic troops again.
Donnie himself is too dimwitted to lobby Congress to create a shutdown, or even figure out how to veto a bill. When it comes to anything vaguely resembling work, Donnie lets his aides handle all the heavy lifting. He’s just in it for the photo ops and angry tweetstorms.
Donnie will ultimately sign whatever his aides put in front of him. So the question isn’t, “What does Donnie want to do?” but rather “What does Stephen Miller want Donnie to do?”
Arise! Will Republicans follow Trump down the hole and ignore the recent election results? It would take that level of denial to assume the public would support them over Dems in a fight over wall money.
On the one hand: Dems just won 40 seats in the House and it’s pretty clear there’s no love for anything Trump wants.
On the other hand, well, there’s no other hand. There’s zero incentive for Dems to cave on this, so the question is if Rs give in and upset Trump, or hold fast and there’s a shutdown.
Oh I agree and that’s not what I was trying to say. You’re right that that’s how it will be positioned, but I’m not sure that’s going to fly here. But that will come down to who is better at messaging. Trump will blame the Dems on Twitter of course, but how will Dems approach things? We’ll see.
Think of it as a cut in government spending against the deficit. Any “wall” that gets built will simply be torn down in a few years anyway so why bother.
