Don’t Be Fooled by Trump’s Empty Government Shutdown Threats

Donald Trump has said that if Congress doesn't give him money for his big, beautiful border wall, he will shut down the government, a bit of brinksmanship that has all of DC up in arms, or at least the portion of DC that writes headlines. On CNBC, the two sides were about to "barrel toward a Christmastime government shutdown"; on Fox News, the shutdown "looms." It's true that if a spending bill isn't passed by Friday, one-fourth of the government will shut down (many departments have already been funded by piecemeal legislation). But as Trump does what he does best and kicks up great clouds of confusing media coverage, the proper response is a yawn.

Trump has pulled this exact stunt before, and the great dealmaker is still no closer to getting a wall.

There's a long history of President Trump threatening to shut down the government. The first came back in April 2017, just three months into his term, when the new administration suggested he wouldn't sign a spending bill without money for his wall. He backed off that demand as Congress passed a bill to keep the government funded until that October. In August, he made the same kind of noise about vetoing a spending bill, but Democrats welcomed his threats, since if the government did shut down after such bluster, Americans might blame the blusterer-in-chief, not the opposition party. Days later, Trump quietly caved—caving being the only thing he does quietly—as the White House said it would not veto a spending bill that didn't have wall money in it.

When a government shutdown did happen in January (after another contentious spending extension in December) it was Democrats driving Congress over the cliff in an attempt to force Republicans to compromise on immigration reform. That gambit ended after a few days and was regarded by most as an embarrassing failure for Democrats. The conventional wisdom, after all, is that shutdowns look bad for the party that initiates them—the public doesn't like them, and it tends to pin the blame on whoever is taking the government hostage in an attempt to get what they want.

That hasn't stopped the president from periodically threatening to shutter the government to get his wall in the months since that shutdown ended. (A second funding gap in February was really a shutdown in name only, as it was resolved in hours.) But neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to be in a hurry to give him his money, and so far Trump has been shown to be the most transparent, least effective sort of bluffer. He signed another wall-free spending bill in late September—yet another capitulation. The only hint of movement on Trump's signature promise has been some funding for a chunk of barrier in Texas—and that's mostly gained attention for alienating a butterfly expert who voted for him.

So could this be the time these threats actually lead to a shutdown? Currently Democrats are willing to allocate $1.6 billion to border security—not a wall—whereas Trump wants $5 billion. Many Republicans who are leaving the House of Representatives in the new year have come down with senioritis, and their absences may mean that a spending bill will have to attract more Democratic support in the lower chamber. (Thanks to a 60-vote threshold for most legislation in the Senate, Democratic votes were always needed in the upper chamber.) More concerning, Senate Republicans don't seem to know what the president is doing.

But everyone should be used to Trump's love of chaos and brinksmanship by now. Trump—or at least his advisers—surely know that the White House will be blamed if the government shuts down, and a few billion dollars is a tiny, tiny amount of money when compared to the vast federal budget. On Tuesday morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration could find ways to get wall money. It wasn't clear what she meant—if Trump attempts to build a wall without specific congressional approval, it will be met by intense Democratic outrage—but the broader point is that the White House seemed fully prepared to lie down on the wall issue, once again.

Congress is still likely to pass funding legislation that doesn't include Trump's mythical wall, and Trump is still likely to find a way to declare victory. None of this should surprise anyone.

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