Although just recently, President Donald Trump proudly touted his willingness to have the federal government shut down for lack of funding if he doesn’t get what he wants for a border wall, now he’s chickening out. He’s claiming the impending shutdown is the Democrats’ fault and casting himself as a pseudomessiah in the whole situation.
He wants Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to abolish the filibuster in order to push a government funding bill that provides the $5 billion he wants for the wall, ranting on Twitter this Friday morning:
‘Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!.. Thank you Steve Daines (R-Mont.) for being willing to go with the so-called nuclear option in order to win on DESPERATELY NEEDED Border Security! Have my total support.’
In the Senate, Democratic support is the only way for Republicans to get to the 60 votes they need to keep the government open, including through voting down any member who chooses to filibuster a government spending measure.
McConnell has already bent Senate rules in the past, having made it so that only a simple majority was needed to confirm U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Trump has pushed for the Senator to do the same in regards to government funding bills multiple times in the past. It’s a line that he routinely trots out, remaining ever confident in his demands for a border wall despite the many, many issues it presents.
On a fundamental level, undocumented immigrants who make it to the U.S. over the nation’s southern border do not cost the country the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that the president claims.
Yet, Trump keeps pressing on anyway, and late Thursday, he garnered the support of the currently Republican-led U.S. House for his Hail Mary agenda. They passed a funding bill that provided the money he wants for his racist vanity project, but that was immediately set to fail in the Senate and with hours to go until shutdown on Friday, no politically viable government funding options were on the table.
Meanwhile, Trump just keeps threatening those many millions who remain on government services remaining operational. Instead of actually approaching a negotiating table either literally or metaphorically, he insisted Friday there will be a shutdown for “a very long time” if Democrats don’t decide to back the wall.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
