Shutting Down The Government Is Now A Game Of Chicken For Trumpanzee

A friend of mine used to be in business with one of Trump's lawyers. He told my friend and my friend told me a funny story. Lawyers hate working for Trump and not only because he doesn't pay his bill. This particular lawyer told him that among lawyers who have worked for Trump this is fairly common. He and Trump would be their way to court. The lawyer would say something to the effect of "Now, whatever happens, whatever the judge asks you, do not under any circumstances say 'XYZ.'" So they get to court and the judge says, "For the record, please state your name." And Trump says, "Let's cut the crap and get right to the matter at hand, 'XYZ.'"

Do you think Trump has changed his ways? He hasn't. And it isn't just with lawyers. Trump's a dick who thinks he knows better than anyone else in the room. And wants to prove it. This week Eliana Johnson and Burgess Everett, reporting for Politico, wrote about the GOP Senate luncheon with Señor Trumpanzee. They wrote that the senators didn’t ask too many questions to Señor T "but the party’s most vulnerable incumbent did make one big ask: Please, Nevada Sen. Dean Heller pleaded, don’t shut down the government over funding for a border wall before the midterm elections." But that's exactly what Trumpanzee plans to do and he certainly doesn't care what Dean Heller has to say about it.

Picking that fight during an election season would hurt Republicans at the ballot box, Heller told Trump, according to an attendee and two people briefed on the meeting. Though Heller prefaced his request by heaping praise on the president, Trump was noncommittal. “We’ll see what happens,” he told the group.

Heller, who confirmed he asked Trump not to shut down the government, was speaking for Republican lawmakers who fear that the president’s desire to follow through on one of his signature campaign promises could undermine their attempt to maintain control of the upper chamber. While Trump held campaign rallies with a raucous audience pushing him to “build the wall” at the U.S. border with Mexico, many Senate Republicans want to avoid a government shutdown at all costs-- at least between now and the November elections.

Government funding runs out on Sept. 30, and Trump is laser-focused on getting his wall money in the next fiscal year, telling senators on Twitter not to take their usual August recess unless the border is secured.

...[Trump] has in recent weeks expressed frustration with his advisers about the lack of progress on border security. He blew up at his Homeland Security chief, Kirstjen Nielsen, for example, during a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, telling his advisers that the border remains too porous, and he has privately groused to friends that his team isn’t being aggressive enough.

While the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill Trump signed into law in March allocated $1.6 billion for border security, it focuses on fencing rather than a massive wall as envisioned by the president and is far short of the $25 billion that White House officials wanted. That was one of many aspects of the legislation that infuriated the president and made him tell associates subsequently that he wished he had vetoed the effort and would stop future, similar efforts.

Heller, who is facing Democratic challenger Rep. Jacky Rosen in November, is widely considered the most vulnerable Republican in the Senate and has for months now sought to chart middle-of-the-road positions that will appeal to Nevada’s moderate voters without drawing Trump’s ire.

Alan Grayson was a member of Congress when the Republicans shut down the government last time. Now Trump wants to-- really wants to-- do it again. "Trump hears that you don’t like what Trump is doing," Trump said to Bill Gates, who thought, "Wow, but you are Trump." Grayson wasn't there for that crazy little get-together. Today, he told us that "If you look at the polling during the government shutdown that cost $27 billion during the Obama Administration, you’ll see that the GOP suffered a crushing 10-point drop in generic polling right then. Which they recovered from, because other things happened, and in the following election, I don’t remember a single Democrat in the entire country ran an ad condemning them for the shutdown. But if Trump does it again, maybe the Democrats won’t let the GOP off the hook this time." I'm sure Grayson won't let them off any hooks... anytime.