Mercurial Trump Has Made Path Out of Shutdown Much Harder to Find
WASHINGTON — Officially, Republicans blame Democrats for what on Saturday will be the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history. Privately, many concede, the stalemate over President Trump’s demand for a border wall has been made exponentially worse by White House ineptitude on Capitol Hill, where two years of contradictory statements and actions have built up a profound lack of trust.
Republican lawmakers and aides worry that Mr. Trump has misunderstood Democrats’ incentives to stand firm and that he has deputized the wrong aides to press his case. And they question who — if anyone other than the president — has the authority to resolve the impasse. They describe a dysfunctional dynamic where even senior leaders in Mr. Trump’s own party never know quite what to expect from the president.
“It’s always difficult when the person you’re negotiating with changes their mind — including my wife,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, when asked about the consequences of Mr. Trump’s penchant for doing so.
Mr. Cornyn noted that in the days before the shutdown began on Dec. 22, he and every other senator had voted for a stopgap government spending measure that omitted wall funding, believing that the president supported it, only to learn later that Mr. Trump had no intention of doing so. The president’s about-face — and House Republicans’ decision to add $5.7 billion in wall funding to the Senate bill — precipitated the shutdown, which reaches Day 22 on Saturday.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mercurial-trump-has-made-path-out-of-shutdown-much-harder-to-find/ar-BBS7S9r?li=BBnb7Kz
Sounds like Cronyn's sleeping on the couch tonight.
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