Democrats figured that they could get Donald Trump and the GOP to cave on healthcare money that Dems wanted added back into the budget.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) surely thought that Trump would not want to risk a government shutdown, but he was wrong.
Trump stood firm, and now the shutdown may benefit his agenda, much to the chagrin of Democrats.
Polling was recently done on this subject, and Schumer will not be happy with the results.
By and large, and this goes right across the aisle, Americans do not like the tactics of Democrats.
Republicans have done a very good job of promoting “clean” legislation to make Democrats look like the villains, and it is working.
A recent New York Times/Siena survey showed that 65% of Americans disapprove of how Democrats are handling this. More importantly, Democrat voters are about 50-50, which is not good news for Schumer.
Donald Trump was asked again for a meeting with Democrat leadership, and he agreed to have them come in this week for a chat.
Trump knew he was not going to cave, but he wanted the opportunity to have the Dems in his office staring at his collection of MAGA hats, which, of course, included the “Trump 2028” hat.
After the meeting, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson then stated, "The Trump administration wants a straightforward and clean CR [continuing resolution] to continue funding the government -- the exact same proposal that Democrats supported just 6 months ago, 13 times under the Biden Administration."
She continued, "But radical Democrats are shutting the government down because they want a nearly $1.5 trillion wish list of demands, including free health care for illegal aliens. The Democrat’s radical agenda was rejected by the American people less than a year ago at the ballot box, now they’re shutting down the government and hold the American people hostage over it."
As the deadline approached, Trump made it clear that he would love to keep the government operations running, but the shutdown would benefit his administration because Trump could issue mass firings if there was a shutdown.
This would enable Trump to decrease federal employment without the approval of Congress, but I can guarantee that Democrats will fight this and take him to court.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) responded, "There isn't any substantive reason why there ought to be a government shutdown. This is something that has been done routinely, as I said, 13 different times when the Democrats had the majority. But we are not going to be held hostage for over $1 trillion in new spending on a continuing resolution.”
Dems are trying hard, but it is hard to pin the blame on someone else when the entire GOP voted in favor of the legislation, and Democrats blocked it. Democrats also have to deal with the optics that the GOP gave them their continuing resolutions when the Dems did not have the numbers. Schumer can spin this as much as he wants, but this time, it appears that the American people are not buying his excuses.
