President Trump and GOP lawmakers are itching to make a possible authorities shutdown as painful as attainable for Democrats as negotiations present few indicators of progress with lower than per week to go.
Republicans and Democrats have talked previous one another for weeks, with both sides refusing to pivot from their requires a seven-week “clean” stopgap package deal and for safeguarding Reasonably priced Care Act subsidies, respectively.
However with the high-stakes deadline approaching, Republicans are warning the minority social gathering that if a shutdown involves cross, Trump will make life extremely troublesome for them.
“I’d be much more worried if I were a blue state. The president has a lot of discretionary power on what he declares is … essential,” stated Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) when requested a few shutdown’s affect on his state. “We do not want a shutdown.”
For the primary time shortly, Republicans imagine they’ve the wind at their sails heading right into a shutdown battle. The social gathering has been largely united behind the seven-week persevering with decision (CR) push, with Senate Majority Chief John Thune (R-S.D.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) heading their efforts.
In addition they have further instruments of their toolkit they seem prepared and keen to wield if the federal government’s lights go darkish — a few of which have been used towards them up to now.
Quite a few Republicans have cited the affect of the 2013 shutdown, which former President Obama and then-Senate Majority Chief Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used to pillory the GOP when conservatives had been making an attempt to defund ObamaCare.
Democrats on the time went as far as to shut off common sights, such because the World Struggle II Memorial on the Nationwide Mall and the Smithsonian museums. A photograph of a younger baby dressed as a monkey on the closed-off Nationwide Zoo gates went viral, underscoring the shutdown’s affect.
There are extra acute levers that Trump can pull too, together with with the ability to power authorities employees to proceed displaying up for work with out potential scheduled pay and, maybe extra importantly, the power to shutter components of the federal government. This might depart the telephones unmanned at key departments and businesses, together with Well being & Human Companies, Veterans Affairs and the Inside Income Service.
“Once you enter a shutdown, the A-block is, more times than not, the effect of the shutdown rather than what the party is trying to get out of it,” one Senate GOP aide stated.
There are additionally actions GOP leaders on Capitol Hill can take. Thune is anticipated to carry the “clean” CR up for a vote when senators return early subsequent week. He might maintain repeated votes on that measure, together with others geared toward focused reopenings and paying the navy, to call just a few.
Democrats have remained largely united, however there are questions as as to whether that may sustain, particularly if there stays no decision nearer to the deadline or previous it.
Some within the social gathering are additionally cautious of crossing the shutdown Rubicon and imagine that Democrats should not in a powerful sufficient place going into subsequent week.
“I don’t believe Democrats are truly prepared for what they’re walking into because there’s no exit strategy. When you’re the party who believes in government and more specifically, the good that government can do through funding, you’re already at a disadvantage,” a former senior Democratic aide stated, including that they wouldn’t be stunned if Trump had been to chop off main companies and blame Democrats for what occurs.
“His microphone is a lot bigger than Democrats’ right now. … That is my concern,” the aide stated. “This is a high-stakes game of poker, and Trump would go in with like a 2-7, but it just so happens that I think he has a stronger hand. I feel as though Democrats have walked into this without looking at their cards.”
Proper on cue, Trump on Tuesday tossed contemporary uncertainty on the spending course of by cancelling a deliberate assembly with Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
The transfer got here after a name Monday night time the place Johnson and Thune talked to Trump concerning the “clean” CR by means of late November after information of the deliberate assembly emerged and laid out what Democrats had been proposing.
Johnson questioned on Monday morning whether or not the assembly was even crucial, with different Republicans warning Democrats that even when they received a presidential sit-down, it could not go as they hoped.
“I think they better be careful what they wish for,” Marshall said. “On more than one occasion I’ve seen someone go into the White House [and] the Oval Office, think they’re really going to tell the president how the hog eats the cabbage, and they leave without one of their organs.”
Trump, on his approach to give remarks on the United Nations Common Meeting, cancelled the assembly after he had reviewed the calls for of Democrats to forestall a authorities shutdown. The Democratic stopgap measure features a everlasting extension of the expiring Reasonably priced Care Act subsidies, overturning the GOP’s Medicaid cuts through the “big, beautiful bill” and a restoration of rescissions cuts.
“I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive,” Trump stated on Fact Social, including that Democrats are “threatening to shut down the Government of the United States” over “free healthcare” for migrants, “transgender surgery for minors, allowing Medicaid for “dead people” and open borders, amongst different points.
The president quipped that “there are consequences to losing Elections but, based on their letter to me, the Democrats haven’t figured that out yet.”
The White Home didn’t reply to a request for touch upon if Trump will communicate to lawmakers earlier than the shutdown deadline. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday instructed Trump had spoken to Democrats about authorities funding, telling reporters, “Discussions are ongoing with both Republican and Democratic members of Capitol Hill.”
Jeffries, in the meantime, tried to put the blame on the GOP for a possible shutdown in a “Dear Colleague” letter to Democrats.
“Donald Trump has now chickened out and cancelled the meeting. Clearly, GOP extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America,” he stated.
“Equally revealing, House Republicans have made the stunning decision to cancel votes on Monday and Tuesday of next week, notwithstanding the fact that funding to keep the government open expires at midnight on September 30. This is the height of irresponsibility and further evidence that Republicans are determined to shut the government down,” he added.
The White Home, in the meantime, had pushed the messaging that Democrats could be at fault within the occasion of a shutdown earlier this week.
“We want a clean funding extension to keep the government open, that’s all we’re advocating for,” Leavitt stated.
“If the government is shut down, it’s only going to be — it would be the fault of the Democrats and it will only hurt the most vulnerable in our country, our seniors, our veterans, our military families and increasing security for members of Congress, which is something this White House and the administration supports.”
