With just one week remaining before the government shutdown deadline, common sense might suggest that policymakers would be scrambling to work out an agreement. That’s obviously not the case.
House Republican leaders left town last week and don’t plan to return until after the deadline, Senate Republican leaders also decided not to be on Capitol Hill this week and Donald Trump apparently doesn’t intend to talk to the Democratic leaders whose support he needs to prevent a shutdown. NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump on Tuesday abruptly canceled a planned meeting with top congressional Democrats one week before a potential government shutdown. In a long social media post, Trump wrote that after ‘reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands’ that Democrats are making, ‘I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive.’
At this point, let’s pause and take stock.
On Sept. 12, the president told congressional Republicans not to negotiate with Democratic leaders, either because he didn’t know that Democratic votes would be needed, or because he didn’t care. A week later, the Senate considered and rejected both competing proposals — one from each party — that would’ve kept the government’s lights on beyond the deadline.
At that point, Congress’ top two Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, requested a White House meeting with Trump, in the hopes that they could negotiate a compromise solution.
For a short while, this offered some promise. On Friday night, the president told reporters that he was prepared to meet with the New York Democrats, and on Monday, the White House said the officials would meet to discuss a possible agreement on Thursday.
Less than 24 hours after scheduling the meeting, Trump changed his mind.
To hear the president tell it, he reversed course after seeing a lengthy list of Democratic demands, which included $1 trillion in free health care benefits for undocumented immigrants and a plan that would “essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.”
The problem, of course, is that Trump’s description was alarmingly delusional. What Democrats have asked for is an extension of existing insurance subsidies for Americans who receive health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act. The stuff Trump attributed to Democrats in his online missive was quite bonkers and had no basis in reality. “Trump is running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there,” Schumer responded soon after. “While Americans face rising costs and a Republican healthcare crisis, Trump would rather throw a tantrum than do his job. Democrats are ready to work to avoid a shutdown — Trump and Republicans are holding America hostage. Donald Trump will own the shutdown.” Jeffries added, “Trump Always Chickens Out. … The extremists want to shut down the government because they are unwilling to address the Republican healthcare crisis that is devastating America. Hold the line.” With seven days remaining, the odds of a shutdown are going up, not down.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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