Trump Caves To Democrats, Agrees To Deal To End Shutdown Without Wall Funding
In a deal that can only be described as a cave by the President, the government shutdown is on course to be ended by the end of the day today.
The White House, House of Representatives, and Senate have reached a deal to end the Federal Government shutdown:
WASHINGTON — President Trump agreed Friday to reopen the federal government for three weeks while negotiations proceeded over how to secure the nation’s southwestern border, backing down after a monthlong standoff failed to force Democrats to give him billions of dollars for his long-promised wall.
The decision paved the way for Congress to pass spending bills as soon as Friday that Mr. Trump will sign to restore normal operations at a series of federal agencies until Feb. 15 and begin paying again the 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or forced to work for free for 35 days.
The plan includes none of the money for the wall that he had demanded and was essentially the same approach that Mr. Trump rejected at the end of December, meaning he won nothing concrete during the impasse. But if Republicans and Democrats cannot reach agreement on wall money by the February deadline, he indicated that he was ready to renew the confrontation or declare a national emergency and bypass Congress altogether.
“We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier,” Mr. Trump said in the Rose Garden. “If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.”
The cease-fire could pave the way for Mr. Trump to deliver his State of the Union address to Congress after all. He had originally been scheduled to make the speech next Tuesday, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi rescinded her invitation to come to the House chamber until the government was reopened. It was not immediately clear when the speech might proceed.
As he announced the move, Mr. Trump paid tribute to the federal workers who have endured five weeks without pay, expressing sympathy for them in a way he had not until now. “You are fantastic people,” he said. “You are incredible patriots. Many of you have suffered far greater than anyone but your families would know or understand.”
He promised to ensure that workers will be compensated for the paychecks they have missed since the shutdown began in late December. “I will make sure that all employees receive their back pay very quickly or as soon as possible,” he said. “It will happen fast.”
The surprise announcement was a remarkable retreat for a president who made the wall his nonnegotiable condition for reopening the government. Mr. Trump relented as the effects of the shutdown rippled across the Northeast, with impact far beyond paychecks, such as air traffic slowingFriday because of a shortage of air traffic controllers, who called in sick. The F.B.I. director said he was as angry as he had ever been over his agents not being paid, and 14,000 workers at the Internal Revenue Service did not show up for work despite orders to come in.
Mr. Trump offered no explanation for his surrender, nor did he even acknowledge that it was one. Cabinet officials and White House aides lined the sides of the Rose Garden and applauded him. The president began his remarks as if he had actually emerged victorious, saying that he was “very proud to announce” what he called “a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government.”
With polls showing the president enduring most of the blame by the public, Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, pressured Mr. Trump to agree to the temporary cease-fire. Over the next three weeks, a House-Senate conference committee representing both parties will negotiate a border security plan, but if it fails to reach a consensus, government agencies could close again.
More from Politico:
President Donald Trump on Friday announced a deal to temporarily reopen the federal government, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history without securing any money for his proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The agreement, which funds the government until Feb. 15 so negotiators can try to work out a larger immigration and border security compromise, marks a major reversal for the president. Trump has insisted for weeks that he wouldn’t reopen the government until lawmakers agreed to fork over more than $5 billion for the border wall.
Trump’s Rose Garden announcement comes as the effects of the shutdown, which stretched into its 35th day on Friday, have started to dramatically ramp up. As the shutdown’s fifth week came to a close, the East Coast was riven with airline delays and federal workers missed their second paycheck.
It’s unclear whether divided lawmakers will be able to reach an agreement in the coming weeks that can satisfy the president’s demands for a wall. In his Friday speech, Trump threatened to declare a national emergency if the negotiations fail.
“As everyone knows, I have a very powerful alternative, but I didn’t want to use it at this time,” Trump said. “Hopefully it will be unnecessary.”
The president said that he plans to make sure the 800,000 federal workers who have gone without a paycheck for more than a month will receive back pay “very quickly or as soon as possible,” likely within four or five days, according to one senior administration official.
Congress is expected to green-light the president’s proposal quickly. The Senate is taking steps to approve it on a voice vote. The House is also hoping to clear the bill by unanimous consent in hopes of sending the proposal to Trump by Friday evening. House Democratic aides were reaching out to their members shortly after Trump’s speech to make sure no one objects to moving the bill quickly and without a roll call vote.
“The longest shutdown in American history will finally end today,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Friday afternoon.
(…)
The agreement was the product of negotiations between the Senate’s top leaders, McConnell and Schumer, who met on Thursday following the failure of two long-shot measures to reopen the government. During the meeting, McConnell and Schumer discussed several options to temporarily reopen the government: One was a pro-rated “down payment” on the wall, another was larger funding bill for other departments beyond DHS, aides said. Both were deemed unrealistic.
Schumer insisted that Democrats wouldn’t support wall funding. Schumer then countered with a proposal to first reopen the government, then move to negotiations on border security. McConnell said he’d take that proposal to the White House. The two Senate leaders kept in touch on the phone throughout the day on Friday.
Trump’s decision to back a measure to temporarily open the government while negotiations continue comes one day after the White House urged Republicans to reject a nearly identical proposal put forward by Senate Democrats. Some in the White House, including the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, had been hoping to strike a wide-ranging immigration compromise as part of the talks to reopen the government, a prospect that few on Capitol Hill believed was realistic.
Here’s the video of President Trump’s announcement:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2019
With this agreement, the process should move fairly quickly. The Senate will likely take up the bill first, which will essentially amount to passing the Democratic bill that was rejected yesterday with the addition of a provision extending funding only to February 15th and another that will lead to the establishment of a House-Senate Conference Committee that will deal with the border security aspects of the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. This committee will be tasked with coming up with border security proposals that both sides can agree upon. These bills will advance to the House of Representatives today, which will apparently use accelerated voting procedures permitted under House rules to get the matter voted on today. From there, it will go to the President where he’s expected to sign the bill later today.
Theoretically at least, we could end up back in a shutdown situation again after February 15th, but that seems unlikely. This shutdown has been an utter disaster for the Administration and, by extension, for Republicans. One of the main reasons for that has been the repeated reports regarding the impact that the shutdown has had on Federal workers and contractors, on the businesses that cater to them, and more broadly on the economy. While it’s not clear what exactly spurred this deal forward, the fact that we began to hear this morning about delays and ground stops at major airports on the East Coast likely helped to drive the point home that things were only going to get worse as time went on. Because of all this, it’s highly unlikely that either side will be all that eager to risk another shutdown.
There’s really no other way to characterize this other than to say that the President has caved and that the President has lost this battle with the Democratic House and Senate Democrats. With the exception of the fact that the Continuing Resolution that will be through February 15th instead of February 8th, this is basically the same deal that unanimously passed the Senate before the shutdown began in December. Namely, a deal that will reopen the government, pay Federal workers who haven’t been paid since December 28th, and does not include a single cent of funding for the President’s border wall. In the time between now and then, the House and Senate will work on a funding bill that would fund the government through the end of the Fiscal Year as well as a separate “border security” package that may or may not include funding for a border wall. All in all, this was a massive political loss for the President and a victory for Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats. Not too bad for their first month in office.
Have you met James Pierce yet? Because…
Ann Coulter is going insane on Twitter. She just called Trump the “biggest wimp” ever to serve as president. The Daily Caller and Breitbart are after him.
The Democrats really need to kick Pelosi to the curb and get somebody younger for House Speaker. If they had done this from the gitgo, like so many commenters here had suggested, we wouldn’t be in this wholly embarrassing and totally avoidable situation today.
@mattbernius: Also Fox News (sic), he said snarkily, but it may be really entertaining to see how Fox and the rest of the CEC deal with this. At the moment the FOX website headline says, Trump…vows to build wall despite uncertain funding”. I guess uncertain is one word for it.
@mattbernius: Count your chickens. 3 weeks till they hatch.
@OzarkHillbilly:
The partisan lizard brain is powerful.
35 days passed before your ancient, praise-worthy Speaker “forced” Trump’s hand. LaGuardia closes for a couple hours, though….
@James Pearce:
Let’s not shout “Hooray!” until we get Trump’s actual signature on the agreement. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t do a 180 5 minutes before signing. He’s that much at the mercy of his ego. Little Orange Toddler is going to have a meltdown.
Trump’s balls are being squeezed by Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and the Breitbarters.
@James Pearce:
“Count your chickens. 3 weeks till they hatch.”
Says the person who has been counting them incorrectly for weeks.
Oh, so that’s when President Pissy Pants will get his victory? No offense, sweetie, but your predictive skills are as pathetic as the president…
How is forced in parenthesis? Did he not just cave, or are you living in some alternate reality? Also, it bears repeating that all of this is the fault of the blowhard in the White House, not the “ancient” (but obviously effective) Speaker…those folks at LaGuardia need to look to him as the cause of their troubles…
I would advise Pelosi to reschedule the SOTU for February 16th.
Someone said that once.
@James Pearce:
Let me explain this to you in simple terms:
1. Trump got zero. Zilch. Nothing.
2. Pelosi outmaneuvered him at every single turn. Every. Single. One.
3. The RightWing in this country is, as I type this, turning on Trump. They’re not mad at Pelosi. Why not? Because they, like everyone else, knows that she demolished him. If there was any way for them to be spinning this as a Trump win, they would be doing so. No. They’re not doing that. They’re turning on thier messiah.
4. Pelosi is smarter, tougher, more experienced, and, most of all, more ruthless than Trump, and she knows how the world really works. Trump should avoid tangling with her. He will lose every time.
5. You’re in the minority in thinking that this is somehow a loss for the Dems. Perceptions matters, and the perception – across the board except for in Pearceland™ – is that Pelosi kicked Trump’s ass, and that he caved 100%.
What’s the weather like in Pearceland™?
God, I love Lucianne.com. The Trumpkins there (which is 99.9% of the commenters) are the most pathetically dedicated on the planet, determined to find a triumph for Trump in this debacle . One of them said that Trump “is a student of Sun Tzu.” Interestingly, the same people used to claim that Sarah Palin was a student of Sun Tzu.
Let me see a show of hands: Who amongst us believes that Trump or Palin ever heard of Sun Tzu.
@James Pearce: Do you think there’s any republican in congress who really thinks another shutdown is a good idea? I mean, I don’t have the highest regard for Congressional Republicans, but even I don’t think they’re that stupid. Nor do I think Trump is.
McConnell held the vote yesterday to show the hardliners and Trump that the momentum was on the Democrats’ side, and it wasn’t going to suddenly improve. I suspect there was a “come to jesus” talk with the president explaining that he needed to end the shutdown because he and other republicans were taking a metaphorical beating and it was about to get much worse really quickly. No, the democrats didn’t get out of this clean, it was a spitting match, everybody got wet, but they didn’t get nearly as hosed as the republicans.
I may be wrong (it wouldn’t be the first time), but I just don’t see there being much interest in having this exact same fight again.
It was a debacle for Trump. Not only did he own the shutdown and then get nothing out of it, but the guy who stands for Real Americans was prattling on about grocery stores just giving stuff away. And the Democrats seem to be waking up and not giving a shit about offending the people who hate them. The dumb both sides stuff they’ve always fallen for or felt forced to go along with is just not working. The Republicans feel it too, which is why they are operating at extra-hysteria about everything.
No, they haven’t. That’s not just misleading, it’s downright wrong.
They have reached a deal to interrupt the shutdown for 3 weeks. The status quo remains “the government is unfunded going forward”. Yes, this is a major break in the logjam and a victory for Democrats (and America), but let’s stick to the facts.
I read that the back pay from the shutdown was 6B dollars. Being generous and assuming that 1/3 of the people actually worked through the shutdown, that means that besides the damaging effect on the workers, the tax payer is on the hook for at least 4B dollars for which we got no work whatsoever. That is 4B totally thrown away during the shutdown with NOTHING to show for it . We should be much more upset about this than we seem to be.
@EddieInCA:
Let’s not mince words. Pelosi is currently carrying Trump’s shriveled little balls around in her purse. Trump got owned at a level rarely seen in American politics. It was like Usain Bolt sprinting vs. a drunken toddler.
I see what you did there, NYT.
@RWB: assuming your figures are accurate for the sake of argument, throwing away four billion dollars is not great, but it’s one tenth of 1% of the federal budget. In the overall scheme of things, not much.
In a few months, when Trump decides to try to save his presidency by invading Venezuela / Iran, that’s going to cost trillions.
Trump pissed off all the moderates by having the shutdown in the first place, then he pissed off his Base by caving so completely, made Nancy Pelosi look like a badass, and taught the Democrats the lesson that if they hang together, they can beat Republicans.
Nobody has lost this hard since Hiroshima.
@James Pearce:
It took 35 days for the air traffic controllers and other workers to get to the point of a sick out that closed airports, but I’m guessing they won’t be willing to put up with this in three weeks time.
If there is a shutdown in three weeks, airports will be closed inside of five days. And the shutdown will end.
The threat of shutdown has been mostly neutered. I hope they do it again, so we can destroy that tactic.
@RWB:
I don’t think “$4B totally thrown away during the shutdown with NOTHING to show for it” is an accurate characterization of the situation. Yes, ⅔ of federal workers didn’t report to work, but in most instances that work is still going to have to get done. It’s been piling up on desks since the shutdown began and now that backlog will have to be recovered. That $4B was budgeted for regardless of when the checks went out. The stunning costs of shutdown will reveal themselves as the overtime starts to accrue.
Yes, the country should be more upset about the profound waste of tax payer dollars due to this shutdown. To my mind, that’s why a firm stand on “end the shutdown, then negotiate” has been so important. The cycle of policy via extortion has to be broken.
As others have said, this is only for three weeks so it’s not over yet. Also, with the beat down he’s taking from conservative media, I think the odds that he will declare an emergency (and try to use the military to seize private land, redirect funds, etc.) have increased dramatically over the course of the day.
Either that or declare war on Venezuela.
@CSK:
Put me down as believing they would say “He’s the guy the they named that Chinese fried chicken for.”
@Scott F.:
Actually, I think it’s an understatement. See below.
By that logic, we could save a lot of money by having feds only work one day a week. They would only get 1/5 as much done each week, but the other 80% “would still have to get done…”
News flash — it was piling up on desks even before the shutdown, because the federal government is woefully undermanned for the jobs they’ve been given. They were already falling behind, in most cases — what makes you think they can catch up now, when they couldn’t keep up before?
The $4B doesn’t account for the fact that the 1/3 who were required to work were less efficient than usual (because no pay, and only skeleton IT support, and only one shared secretary for a bunch of them, and no cafeteria in the building, and…). It also doesn’t account for the couple of days wasted before the shutdown started, where people were spending the day preparing for shutdown instead of doing productive work. Or the mass of additional work that will be required to undo messes created specifically by the shutdown, such as how to handle TSP loan payments from feds who normally pay them through payroll deduction.
Bottom line, the money poured down a hole by the shutdown is pretty much exactly the amount Trump was demanding for his wall. It’s a classic “dog in the manger” scenario.
@Kari Q:
Ah,yes, General Sun Tzu’s Chicken. A fine dish. Sadly Trump only eats KFC and Big Macs, and Palin only eats Kraft Macaroni ‘n’ Cheese and Taco Bell Crunch Wrap Supremes.
At the risk of being seen as a believer in 9 dimensional chess, here’s what I think actually happened, starting in December:
– Pelosi had obviously survived her challenge and would be elected Speaker
– Mitch McConnell realized he had a seasoned professional leading the house, and knew that Schumer was solid as Senate Minority Leader
– Trump had made a deal in December, essentially shaking hands with McConnell, Schumer and Pelosi. I’m not a politician, but I have read a lot of “Here’s How It Happened” from retired politicians on both sides of the aisles. And one thing that is sacrosanct is that if you give your word, it should be as good as gold or you are dead to all of your colleagues. Trump broke his word.
– McConnell went to Pelosi and Schumer and said “If you can keep your people focused on Trump and not the Republicans in general, I will let Trump own this negotiation and the abominable cluster-f*ck it will become. When he finally capitulates like a little bitch and his power is broken, I will honor the deal we agreed to at the start.
And that’s exactly what happened.
@EddieInCA:
Sometimes I feel like almost a million people went without paychecks to “prove” this point, and the only thing proven is that our government -including the House Dems- is incredibly dysfunctional.
And it’s our fault.
@Mike in Arlington:
It’s a breath of fresh air to hear this acknowledged.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think we’ll have a new shutdown in 3 weeks. I think we’ll get some kind of emergency order or some other scheme.
@Gustopher:
I hope so. But Trump ain’t vanquished yet.
Goddamm
It just would have been so much better to give in to the bully…so that he could throw the same exact temper tantrum the next time he wants something that he can’t get…yeah, that’s a great way to run the government…
@CSK: Don’t be knocking the Crunch Wrap Supreme. Of all the junk food at Taco Bell, it’s probably the junkiest–well maybe after the Beefy Cheesy Crunch Burrito on the Dollar Menu, but it’s either first or a really close second.
Nancy Pelosi understands power; Trump does not.
Nancy Pelosi is smart; Trump is not.
Nancy Pelosi is strong; Trump is weak.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: too Carby 🙁
@James Pearce:
He just signed.
Where are you moving the goalposts to next?
@Michael Reynolds:
FAILURE!
Cause she be old!
And a Democrat!
And possibly because she has a v-jay-jay!
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ll eat some crow on that one. I still think Pelosi’s electoral instincts are terrible but her political instincts on Trump are good. She stood up to him and he’s not used to that in any context. Trump is used to making “deals” where he can just walk away. He couldn’t do that this time and so it exposed what an awful dealmaker he really is.
@Michael Reynolds:
And this is why Wonkette is selling the Pelosi “Ride or Die” t-shirt.
https://wonkettebazaar.com/products/pelosi-ride-or-die-mens-and-womens-tees.
Trump is in a desperate position. The elected Republicans hate his guts and are drooling to put a shiv in him. Every fricking one of them knows this shutdown will be wrapped around their necks come election time. And his base are turning on him. They flocked to him because they thought him a strongman, but now they see him as the weak, feckless whiner that he is. Look at the silence from our resident Trumpoids. They are embarrassed by him.
Trump has been through this cycle dozens of times in his life, but before he could always storm off in a huff and never have any dealings with his former “partners”. But now everything happens in public and he cannot get away from it. Every day he wakes up in his own personal Groundhog Day.
So, we’ve got, “Trump caved so hard there are miners trapped inside him,” from John Fugelsang, and, “On the other hand: Trump caved so hard Thailand is sending a team of divers to rescue him,” from Elie Mystal.
@Michael Reynolds: fuq dude I just saw Mystal’s line on Twitter and came here to post it and you beat me to it. 😛
@Teve:
It’s a new riff on the yo’ mama joke. Trump caved so hard. . .
@Hal_10000:
You know, sometimes I think a basic threshold of maturity is the ability to admit you are wrong. It’s startling how many grow old and die never having crossed that threshold.
@MarkedMan: actually I think this is a very important part of the intellectual dysfunction that trumpers have. lots of research has shown that one of the big differences between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives are simply more scared and afraid of things. And it takes a certain intellectual security to admit that you’re wrong about something and be able to move past that into a better understanding of things. If you’re more insecure, you’re more afraid to admit that you were wrong, and more likely to get stuck in justifying wrongheaded nonsense, and then more likely to attack the educated people who tell you you’re wrong about something, feeding into the whole anti-intellectualism of American conservatives.
@Teve: …like (cough cough) some of the trolls who post here. None of them ever have the maturity to admit: “I was wrong.”
If I get in the position where I’m interviewing people for a job, I’m going to make sure I’m going to ask “tell me about a time when you were wrong.” It may not get rid of all of the Ones You Should Not Hire, but I suspect anyone who answers “I am never wrong” isn’t someone you want to have around.
“hoped to strike a wide ranging immigration compromise” And this has been the hope and goal for years, yet the politicians once again go three downs and punt. Maybe they need to look at the strategies of Coach Belichek and Coach Saban when it comes to fourth down and short. Ever since Bush was in we keep hearing of the need for “comprehensive” immigration reform. They talk it, but really don’t want it. Pelosi knows it would bring changes in California that she does not want. Most legal immigrants oppose amnesty and “sanctuary”. Amnesty would be a slap in the face to them.
The “news” people were jumpmg on Trump for the shutdown. Now they are on him for “backing down”. Sounds like the old “can’t win for losing” thing; typical of the main stream “news”.
“It’s not news” Larry King
@Joe:
Apparently feeling that they were being too subtle, NYT edited their assessment in the paper version of the article:
@Tyrell: Immigration isn’t “fourth and short;” it’s playing the game in two different stadiums, but hold on to your delusions; they’re all you have left.
(Since I just replied to Tyrell on another post, I promise I will not feed the troll again this thread.)
@Michael Reynolds: I think the planet Zoltar might be far enough away, but who can tell.
@CSK: “Who amongst us believes that Trump or Palin ever heard of Sun Tzu.”
Sure, only he calls it “Sunny T” and keeps it in the fridge.
@Michael Reynolds:
Now that the park is open again, I expect a run at the park gift shop on “Mammoth Cave” t-shirts.