Senate Republicans are still somehow under the impression that they can make this shutdown be the Democrats’ fault. To that end, we’ve got the number 2 guy, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), abdicating all responsibility.
So here’s a suggestion for Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Leader Nancy Pelosi: Trump can have his $5 billion if they get citizenship for Dreamers, they get, oh, say $1.5 billion for Puerto Rico, the special counsel protection bill, and what the hell, the next debt limit increase. Seems like a decent trade, since they probably can’t secure his promise to resign.
The thing is, Trump doesn’t know what he’ll accept. And Republican senators sure don’t know what in the hell he’ll take.
They might manage to finally close the vote they began hours ago—it’s still open while they wait for all the senators to return, but they sure don’t have 60 votes to pass a cloture vote on it. And they have no idea where they’re going to go from there.
Except to a shutdown of a duration that’s a mystery.