There was a lot of posturing over the last few days, as Democrats were sure they could get Donald Trump and the GOP to bend on the government spending bill.
Dems puffed their chest out when Trump backtracked and agreed to a last-second meeting with Democrat leadership.
To the Democrats' chagrin, it was all a setup for Trump to score some points with his base, and on Tuesday night, the shutdown went into effect.
With the shutdown looming, polls were flying to see which side of this argument the American people were taking, and the results were overwhelmingly in support of Donald Trump and the GOP.
A recent New York Times/Siena survey showed that 65% of those surveyed did not support the Democrats' tactics related to a government shutdown, and that included roughly 50% of Democrat respondents disagreeing with party leadership.
Democrats have been posturing in the media, and that has not sat well with most people.
This was especially true when the GOP stated that it wanted to pass a “clean” continuing resolution, but Democrats rejected the idea in order to push through their healthcare agenda.
Trump went into his last-minute meeting knowing that he was not going to cave to Democrats' demands. The gathering was designed solely to shut them up in terms of their media grandstanding that suggested he was "scared" to meet with them.
So, Trump gave Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) an Oval Office audience, but he also had a bit of a surprise ready for them when they showed up. Trump had some of his MAGA hats on the desk, including some that read "Trump 2028," right in their faces as they sat down to negotiate with him.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson then stated, "The Trump administration wants a straightforward and clean CR [continuing resolution] to continue funding the government -- the exact same proposal that Democrats supported just 6 months ago, 13 times under the Biden Administration."
She continued, "But radical Democrats are shutting the government down because they want a nearly $1.5 trillion wish list of demands, including free health care for illegal aliens. The Democrat’s radical agenda was rejected by the American people less than a year ago at the ballot box, now they’re shutting down the government and hold the American people hostage over it."
Trump was very clear over the weekend that if Democrats did not support the clean CR, the government would shut down.
The bill hit the floor, and while three Democrat senators did cross over and support it, the measure fell five votes short, so, as of midnight, the government shut down, opening the door for Trump to fire government employees in his quest to shrink the government's payroll.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) responded, "There isn't any substantive reason why there ought to be a government shutdown. This is something that has been done routinely, as I said, 13 different times when the Democrats had the majority. But we are not going to be held hostage for over $1 trillion in new spending on a continuing resolution.”
And Thune is exactly right, as the GOP always caved and allowed Democrats to pass a CR rather than shut down the government, knowing they would be to blame if that took place. Every Republican voted in favor of this spending bill, and had only a handful of Democrats done the same, it would have passed. So, you tell me… who is to blame? I think the poll referenced above tells the story of who America is holding responsible.
