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Trump's failed shutdown strategy produced an even worse deal than he started with
The Fix Analysis
Trump’s failed shutdown strategy produced an even worse deal than he started with
The fact that Republicans signed off shows how little leverage they have.
By Aaron Blake
February 12 at 9:00 AM
It has been about 12 hours since House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative deal to avert another government shutdown, and President Trump still hasn’t issued his all-important endorsement.
That may be because this deal is a pretty bitter pill to swallow. In fact, it’s probably a worse deal than Trump would have gotten if he had never shut down the government in the first place.
The deal as laid out does include some border fencing — $1.375 billion worth, or 55 miles. That’s well shy of the $5.7 billion and 200 miles in wall funding he demanded that led to the shutdown, but it’s not nothing. Trump could argue that he got something out of the 35-day government closure.
But only if you ignore two very important things.
{snip}
But it’s all rather transparently geared toward saving face at this point, rather than winning the debate. Assuming Republicans can’t get anything more out of this deal than they have right now, it will be quite the capitulation. Trump could have taken $1.6 billion and/or declared a national emergency last year, before all this went down; he will have gotten basically nothing for shutting down the government for 35 days.
And he might just have to take it.
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Hill newspaper. Follow https://twitter.com/aaronblake
Trump’s failed shutdown strategy produced an even worse deal than he started with
The fact that Republicans signed off shows how little leverage they have.
By Aaron Blake
February 12 at 9:00 AM
It has been about 12 hours since House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative deal to avert another government shutdown, and President Trump still hasn’t issued his all-important endorsement.
That may be because this deal is a pretty bitter pill to swallow. In fact, it’s probably a worse deal than Trump would have gotten if he had never shut down the government in the first place.
The deal as laid out does include some border fencing — $1.375 billion worth, or 55 miles. That’s well shy of the $5.7 billion and 200 miles in wall funding he demanded that led to the shutdown, but it’s not nothing. Trump could argue that he got something out of the 35-day government closure.
But only if you ignore two very important things.
{snip}
But it’s all rather transparently geared toward saving face at this point, rather than winning the debate. Assuming Republicans can’t get anything more out of this deal than they have right now, it will be quite the capitulation. Trump could have taken $1.6 billion and/or declared a national emergency last year, before all this went down; he will have gotten basically nothing for shutting down the government for 35 days.
And he might just have to take it.
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Hill newspaper. Follow https://twitter.com/aaronblake
2 replies
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