If the government shuts down over funding for Donald Trump’s precious border wall, who will be to blame? Be prepared for an avalanche of “both sides” claims from journalists—even where their own reporting doesn’t back that up. Take this self-contradictory three-reporter effort from Politico. According to the lede:
President Donald Trump and Congress are on a collision course over government funding this week, as the White House demands money for a border wall with Mexico and Democrats vow it will never see a penny.
Democrats vow? Good for them, and it’s a crucial piece of blocking border wall billions, but that’s not all that’s going on here.
Even Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the former Homeland Security Committee chairman who wrote the 2006 law authorizing the wall’s construction, said the White House should push for it later in the year.
“There’s going to be compromises going on,” King said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Once the government is up and running, and stays open and running, then we have to fight this out over the next year.”
Sen. Marco Rubio echoed those sentiments:
“We cannot shut down the government right now,” Rubio said on CBS' "Face the Nation," later adding that the border fight is “worth having for 2018” funding rather than for the current fiscal year. “The last thing we can afford is to send a message to the world is that the United States government, by the way, is partially functioning.”
Democratic opposition to the Trump border wall is a necessary but not a sufficient condition here, so any “both sides” reporting—and this article literally contains the claim that “both sides are puffing up their chests”—is just silly, because there are at a minimum three sides here: the Trump side, Democrats, and congressional Republicans. And congressional Republicans may have embraced Trump as the best way for them to pass their hateful agenda, but that doesn’t mean they have the nerve to actually pass his agenda.