While popular vote loser Donald Trump was laboring over his phone, tweeting out the next salvo in their ongoing feud, Mitch McConnell was saying nice things about Trump and how he "is very oriented toward rural and small-town America." (Read "white" for "rural and small-town.") Meanwhile, Trump was bashing him again for failing on Obamacare repeal and making vague threats about the debt ceiling, one of a number of critical issues that is going to have be resolved in the next five weeks.
The simmering feud, even if one-sided, threatens that whole agenda. Among the issues to be resolved by the middle of October: government funding; the debt ceiling hike; federal flood insurance funding (oh, hi, Tropical Storm Harvey); Children's Health Insurance funding; as well as whether the Obama-era executive actions protecting the DREAMers—children brought into the country by undocumented parents—will continue, AND continuing cost-sharing reduction payments to Obamacare insurers.
Trump's two obsessions—Obamacare repeal and the border wall—could stand in the way of it all. Now that he's floating creating a government shutdown if he doesn't get his wall, McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are left to try to do damage control and hope.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) played down the prospect of a shutdown, telling reporters Wednesday that even if the wall debate remains unresolved, Congress probably would pass a stopgap extension of funding to prevent a lapse when the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. […]
Aides also took note Tuesday that although Trump threatened to "close down our government" over the border wall issue, he stopped short of an explicit threat to veto any spending bill that did not include wall funding.
A veto threat could box in GOP leaders as they prepare to negotiate with Democratic leaders who have pledged never to support funding for the border wall. Trump clearly placed the wall at the center of those negotiations, increasing pressure on congressional Republicans to deliver.
Conservatives, however, already smarting from the GOP's inability to pass health-care legislation, say the party is rightly feeling pressed.
So you've got Freedom Caucus guys like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) egging Trump on, saying "Obviously no one wants a government shutdown, but if Charles E. Schumer thinks it's more important to hold up a bill that does what the American people elected their government to do, then let's have that debate." (Remember the campaign promise about how Mexico was going to pay for the wall? Yeah, that.
As usual, it's going to be Trump and the Freedom Caucus fighting Ryan and McConnell to try to shutdown the government. But not as usual, they've got the White House behind them, or at least the guy in the Oval Office. And no chance that the Democrats get blamed if it really does happen. No. This is not anywhere near normal.
