The more I think about the smackdown on the oval office yesterday, the more I believe there’s no way Trump can get any kind of win out of this.
He’s not going to get the $5 billion for the wall. Pelosi says he doesn’t even have the votes on the House now, never mind next year, and she would know. On the other hand, Juliegrace Brufke reports for The Hill that House Republicans are considering putting the $5 billion up for a vote. The idea is that if it passes in the House it would somehow “put pressure” on Senate Democrats to vote for it. But I don’t see where the “pressure” would come from. Nobody is up for election anytime soon, and it would be hugely unpopular with the Democratic base.
And I would be surprised if it passed in the House. Last year when Trump was in a better position to make demands, House Republicans danced around an all-out funding of the wall. Many of them were just plain averse to voting for any kind of spending increase for any reason. See also Jonathan Bernstein from December 4:
In fact, what’s much more likely is that most House and Senate Republicans have no interest in taking on this battle at all right now. After all, voters just rejected their party after an election in which the president’s closing argument centered on the border. And Trump’s clout with Congress is at an all-time low. Even if the leadership wanted the confrontation, Trump wouldn’t be able to help assemble a winning coalition.
If they didn’t want to fund the wall then, why would House Republicans fund it now? Especially after most of the dust has cleared from the midterms, it’s pretty certain that Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric had a lot to do with the GOP’s historic loss in the House. See Greg Sargent on that point. Although some Republicans are still in denial, at least some of them realize that hating on immigrants is not the banner they want to march under in 2020.
However, they might pass a House bill to give Trump some cover, knowing that it needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate and won’t get them. That still leaves us with a December 21 deadline for stopping a government shutdown.
What if Congress passes some kind of bill that keeps government open but doesn’t fund the wall? Trump can either sign it — losing face as he does so — or veto it. Yesterday he took ownership of the subsequent shutdown, and that will be thrown in his face very day the shutdown continues. Back to Bernstein, which again was written a few days ago —
If Republicans do choose to shut down the government on Dec. 21, Democrats will only have to wait 13 days until the new Congress convenes and they move into the House majority. Even if public opinion turns against the Democrats, which seems highly unlikely given that the wall is unpopular, the party surely could remain unified enough to drag things out that long and reap the increased leverage they would have beginning on Jan. 3. Especially since Democrats would be in the position of supporting any additional temporary measure to keep the government open while negotiations continued.
In other words, if they want to try to use a shutdown to force Democrats to go along with funding Trump’s wall, every day they wait makes their position a little weaker. I have no idea whether Trump realizes that or not, but two other GOP leaders most certainly do: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan.
I don’t see any way that Trump won’t come out of this even more damaged than he is already.
Ezra Klein writes that Trump doesn’t really want the wall, or else he would have offered something for it.
But Trump isn’t offering a deal, and he isn’t constructing the kind of process where anyone might offer him a deal. Instead, he’s looking for a photo op. He’s looking for a clip of himself he can see played, and praised, on Fox & Friends.
Some on the Right actually thought Trump “won” whatever that was in the Oval Office yesterday. The Gateway Pundit crew was pumped about it, I understand. But with people this stupid, all Trump would have to do is sign an appropriations bill and tell them it funds the wall, even if it doesn’t, and they’ll be perfectly fine with that. And that’s what I suspect he will do. But you never know.
Many good points in the post. What Trump did NOT do is offer DACA in exchange for the wall. As you observed, Trump isn't after the wall, he's after a fight ABOUT the wall.
Trump seems to think if he gets his base riled up, they can and will all vote twice in 2020. Unless that happens, the numbers aren't there to support this strategy. SO what's going on?
IMO, Trump is playing to his base. I think he's determined to pick a fight that will delight his followers. Miller and the satanic stooges in the West Wing may be dreaming up ways the shutdown can be made hell on earth for all the people lined up for "free stuff." The reality of what can be done and who the victims of a shutdown will be are a galaxy away from what Trump thinks he can do.
There's that other pesky branch of government, the judiciary.
Pass the popcorn.
When people call Hoft "the dumbest man on the internet," I think they vastly underestimate the depth and breadth of his actual stupidity.
Doug,
Another thing tRUMP didn't plan for, is that a few day's after we welcome in the new year of 2019, we'll have a new HoR, which will quickly re-open the Government – and, yes, with the help of the ReTHUGlicans.
Since their putz of a p*OTUS took on the "mantle" for the shutdown, should there be one, the rest of the GOP had their plans to blame the Democrats for any shutdown dashed!
And what fun is a government shutdown, if you can't blame it on the Democrats?
Without lies and obfuscation, why, the voters – and people directly affected by 'tRUMP's latest folly – might blame the damn Republicans for the shutdown!
And so, imo, enough R Congresscrooks and Senatebores will join the D's in shuttung down the shutdown.
PS: I want to trademark my term, 'tRUMP's latest folly!!!'
I'll a mint!!!!!
Whooooops!
I meant to say, "I'll make a mint!!!!!"
Trump's renewed focus on the Wall makes sense as a distraction from the Mueller probe, which has been getting a lot of press recently.
Long long ago, in what seems like a different world, I mentioned a National Enquirer headline in a post about the upcoming election. The pro Trump bias of the rag was more than obvious, and generally discounted as such. Still it contained the only headlines read by us fly over people about the election. Its eye level presence at the grocery store checkout line was hard to ignore.
The anti-Hillary bias it played to started way before that time. It said the things that Hillary haters wanted to hear. It fit with all of the other information and misinformation they had been spoon fed over the years. Like Pavlov's dogs, some of them exhibited hate rage at even the mention of her name. This is a result of years of repetitive training by the usual suspects.
I mention this because buried in the Cohen news yesterday was the non-prosecution of the complicit National Enquirer. They were paid to bury stories like those of Stormy Daniels. The owner was a long time confederate of Trump, and very cooperative with him until now. He and the "paper's" staff have flipped and are now cooperating with the investigation.
As reported by Politico: As part of the deal, the tabloid publisher acknowledged a series of “admitted facts” tied to its work with the Trump campaign to ensure damaging allegations about the real estate mogul didn’t come out before Election Day 2016. The arrangement — which involved Pecker, Cohen and one other member of Trump’s campaign — stretched back to August 2014, according to a separate court filing on Friday.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-‘loud-gong’-national-enquirer’s-surprise-deal-could-imperil-trump/ar-BBQSatS?ocid=spartanntp
So far, no report of any copy with original Russian and suggested translation, but this is not good for the white house. Those cozy meetings reported in the articles with Saudis and Pecker (his real name) are just too revealing. Doug is correct, the play about the wall and the shutdown are most likely a diversion and a news manipulation. Otherwise we hear about him at play with his little Pecker friend.