Donald Trump and the White House have greeted the government shutdown, which has been in effect since the Senate was unable to pass a continuing budget resolution by early Saturday morning, as an opportunity to push this point: Democrats are extremists on immigration.
“We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a statement late Friday night. “This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators. When Democrats start paying our armed forces and first responders we will reopen negotiations on immigration reform.”
President Trump forwent a weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago and instead spent Saturday in the West Wing. The White House released a few photographs of the president, donning a white “Make America Great Again” cap, in the Oval Office and with members of his staff. The official line was that photos showed Trump “working” to “end the Democrats [sic] government shutdown.” But despite the show of activity at the White House, nearly all of the work on finding some kind of budget agreement was taking place at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The federal government remains shut down at the beginning of the work week, however, after negotiations between Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer did not conclude Sunday with an agreement to hold a vote in the early hours of Monday. Instead the vote to end debate on a new version of a CR will come around noon on Monday. If it and the resolution itself pass, the House of Representatives will need to consider the CR, which would be modified from what the House passed last week.
The divisions between the two parties over immigration are what have driven this shutdown, as well as the internal split within the GOP. Though there seems to be consensus among most in Washington that some protection from deportation is needed for those immigrants brought into the country illegally by their parents, the dispute is over what amount of border security and immigration enforcement provisions ought to be coupled with the amnesty. The president, frustratingly for lawmakers in his own party, has been unclear about what kind of deal, exactly, he’d be for.
Here’s the New York Times on the “paralysis” in Washington regarding the central issue leading to the shutdown:
Trump Tweet of the Day
Thank you to Brad Blakeman on @FoxNews for grading year one of my presidency with an “A”-and likewise to Doug Schoen for the very good grade and statements. Working hard!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2018
National security adviser H.R. McMaster has selected a replacement for one of his deputies, Dina Powell, who left the West Wing last week. Politico reports that Dr. Nadia Schadlow, a member of the National Security Council staff, will be the new deputy national security adviser. Here’s more from Politico:
Schadlow was the lead author of President Trump’s National Security Strategy, which the White House released last month.
Must-Read of the Day—In the new issue of the magazine, Christopher Caldwell continues his compelling reporting on America’s opioid crisis with an article on how overdoses are becoming a big problem in the unlikeliest of places: the suburbs. “In nine days in early December, eight young people died of overdoses in Fairfax County, Va., the second-richest of the 3,007 counties in the United States,” he writes. Read the whole thing.
Sports Watch—Via ESPN: “Eagles open as biggest Super Bowl underdogs since 2009”
Screw-Up of the Day—From the Yale Daily News, a speaking appearance from former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal practically bankrupted the student-run Yale Political Union.
Song of the Day—“Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be” by the Black Keys
