Trump marks year one with federal government shutdown drama

Bloomberg

Donald Trump woke up on the anniversary of his inauguration with the federal government shuttered, a development that seemed almost predictable after a year of tumult in Washington.
“This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present,” the president said on Twitter early on January 20. He said in separate tweets that Democrats “could easily have made a deal” to avoid the shutdown but were “ holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Can’t let that happen!”
The White House believes a catchy nickname—the “Schumer Shutdown”—and the fact a majority of Democrats in the Senate voted to block a stopgap spending bill will rally public opinion to Trump’s side. But early polling shows that a plurality of voters are inclined to hold the president and congressional Republicans responsible, not the Democratic minority in the Senate led by New York’s Chuck Schumer.
Trump was defiant, however, vowing not to negotiate immigration changes Democrats desire until the government reopens—while characteristically insulting his opponents.
“This is the behaviour of obstructionist losers, not legislators,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement shortly before the shutdown began. “We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands.”
With the government shut, Trump postponed plans to spend the weekend at his Florida club. An anniversary party had been planned at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach Saturday night with tickets going for at least $100,000 a couple—a price-tag that would include a photo with the president as well as dinner.
One thing that could spare Trump any lasting damage: if the shutdown remains brief. Congress may vote as early as this weekend to reopen the government for at least a few weeks.
An extended shutdown would blunt the momentum from a tax overhaul bill that was the top achievement of his first year in office—something Trump has emphasized in his Twitter messages.
It also could muddy the message of his first State of the Union address on January 29 if the White House remains mired in budget negotiations.
Trump’s refusal to concede to Democratic demands that Congress rapidly enact protections for so-called Dreamers— immigrants brought illegally to the country as children—may play well with his base. But Trump’s standing with his base seems rock-solid. It’s the middle-of-the-road voters who doubt his capabilities as a leader, and shutting down the government controlled entirely by his own party will likely rekindle those questions.
Schumer said the shutdown was due to an absence of leadership by Trump. In negotiations at the White House, the Democrat said, he had “reluctantly put the border wall on the table for discussions,” referring to the wall on the US border with Mexico that was the centerpiece of Trump’s campaign.
“In the room, it sounded like the president was open to accepting it,” Schumer said. But afterward, he said, Trump didn’t press Republican leaders in Congress to take the deal. When his fellow Republicans looked to him for guidance, “the president provided none,” Schumer said.
“Unfortunately, a Trump shutdown would be a perfect encapsulation of the chaos he’s unleashed on our government,” Schumer said. “Instead of bringing us all together he’s pulled us apart. Instead of governing from the middle he’s outsourced his presidency to the extremes.”
Democrats could share blame for the shutdown if voters conclude that the plight of the immigrants—who aren’t under imminent threat of deportation—isn’t worth the fight. A CNN poll showed 56 percent of Americans believe it’s more important to keep the government open than to preserve protections for the immigrants that Trump announced he’d end in September.