A Whole New World Of Uncertainty
Trump Is Really Good At Creating Crises. He’s Not Really Good At Solving Them.
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Just yesterday, Trump just seemed so over it; like he really wanted to get away. Even though he’d sworn never again to sign a budget measure that didn’t include “the wall”, and even though this is the last chance to pass anything in the President’s first term with a Republican-controlled Congress. The Senate passed a temporary budget measure; the still-Republican controlled House seemed on board with it. And everybody wanted to get home (or to Mar-a-Lago) for the holidays…
Then the President did a last-minute 180.
And that’s where we are at time of publication of this article.
Trump saying he won’t sign a bill to extend funding for the government past Friday unless wall funding is in it.
So House Republicans Thursday went ahead and added in Trump’s $5-billion wall funding demand and passed it. Now it’s back to the Senate where it needs 60 votes. Which means some Democrats would have to vote for it to pass. Which they almost certainly won’t. Which then means a shutdown. Unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is willing to forever change Senate rules just to get a wall done. Or unless Trump changes his mind again. Otherwise it becomes a pre-Christmas weekend full of finger-pointing and tussling over messaging.
Trump’s already started with that in today’s early morning Tweets: attempting to blame Democrats if there’s an eventual shutdown even though just a few days ago he said he’d be “proud to shut down the government” for a border wall. Maybe Trump thinks that would work in his favor… Other early morning Tweets cheerlead Republicans “I am very proud of you!” And the President also somewhat inexplicably asserts “I know tech better than anyone”, which is how he knows a physical wall is necessary. And he threatens he’d be willing to keep the government shut down “for a very long time”.
So what’s ultimately more important to the President? Holding out for the wall and almost certainly shutting down the government at the end of Friday? (Terrible optics if the President simultaneously jets as scheduled to his luxury resort in Florida for 16 days of vacation, which the White House says…
