The Daily - The Republicans’ Shutdown Strategy

Episode Date: January 10, 2019

In his latest negotiation with Democrats over the shutdown, President Trump slammed the table and stormed out of the meeting. We look at why his strategy requires giving no ground and forcing Republican senators to stand with him, no matter the cost. Guest: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers Congress for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is Daily. Today. In his latest negotiation with Democrats over the shutdown, President Trump stormed out of the meeting. Why his strategy requires giving no ground and forcing Republican senators to stand with him, no matter the cost. It's Thursday, January 10th.

Julie Davis. Yes. It's day 19 of the shutdown. How does this latest day of a shutdown begin? Well, this is the day after the president's big primetime address and the Democrats giving their response. And what we're beginning to see is the first glimmers of Republican senators being deeply uncomfortable with where they find themselves.

I spoke with Julie Davis from inside the Capitol. So on Wednesday morning, we start to see that Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican senator from Alaska, is ready to break with President Trump. The operations of the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service or the operations of the IRS and whether or not tax refunds go out don't have anything to do with border security. And she says, we need to reopen the government. Federal workers are hurting. Americans are going to be affected or are affected already.

And this is crazy. We just need to bifurcate the two issues, get the government open, and then we can keep negotiating. But we don't need to hold up these six other departments at the same time that we are resolving these very important security issues. So break with the president and his strategy publicly. Correct. And she's not the first Republican who's come out and suggested this. Colorado's Republican Senator Cory Gardner is breaking with President Trump on the government shutdown.

Over the weekend, we started to see some cracks. People like Cory Gardner, the senator from Colorado who is up for reelection. on the government shutdown. Over the weekend, we started to see some cracks. People like Cory Gardner, the senator from Colorado, who is up for reelection in 2020. I hope that we can continue to fight for additional border security dollars. That's what we need to do. But I don't think shutting down the government is the right way to do it.

We could reopen much of government where there's no dispute. Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Certain departments like ag, transportation, housing, interior. Let's get those reopened while the negotiations continue. You know, most of these people are moderates who are relatively less inclined to be lockstep with the president anyway. And they want to say, OK, we can continue to argue over our differences over the wall.

They just want for the rest of the government to be able to open while that debate plays out. And Julie, by Wednesday morning, when Murkowski comes out and says she doesn't think the strategy is working, how widespread is that feeling among Republican senators? Well, it's still a pretty small group, but it's building. It's, you know, more people every day, and that is going in the wrong direction if you're the president, because when you're in a fight like this, unanimity is very important.

And, you know, there are clear indications here that Republicans are starting to stray off of that. So a small and seemingly manageable kind of rebellion for Trump, but something that would be worrisome for him. Well, right. And not something that if you're the president, you can afford not to address. They'd already seen defections from House Republicans when the House voted last week to reopen the government. And there was a deep sense at the White House that they needed to kind of buck up Republicans to make sure that they didn't start to get even more defections and an even weaker hand against the Democrats. So how does the president do that exactly? So on Wednesday, the president decided to go to the Capitol

to attend the weekly Senate Republican lunch to make the case himself in person, which is fairly rare. And what exactly does it tell you, Julie, that the president is traveling to Congress, kind of to their terrain to do this? Well, I think it tells us that, you know, he's worried about losing support on this, that he knows that he has to give them something to rally around because if he doesn't, he's going to be at risk of losing support on what has become a very politically difficult fight. going to be at risk of losing support on what has become a very politically difficult fight.

And also just that he really sees this as a public relations and messaging fight that he has to try to get out in front of. Right. And we know from our conversation with Senator Chuck Schumer last week, the Democratic minority leader, that this worry of Trump's is precisely the Democratic strategy, which is to peel off Republican senators, get them to turn on the president and this shutdown strategy by separating the issue of the wall from the funding of the government. What the president fears is exactly what the Democrats are actively trying to do to undermine him. That's exactly right. I mean, Senator Schumer and even some of the House Democratic leaders have been name-checking Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader,

all day, every day. Now, Leader McConnell has shown himself to be an adept negotiator during previous shutdowns. Why is he abdicating his responsibility now? Why is Leader McConnell shuffling off to the sidelines, pointing his fingers at everyone else and saying he won't be involved? Saying that McConnell needs to break with the president,

marshal Republicans in the Senate to cut a deal with Democrats in the Senate to get this done. The president needs intervention, and Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans are just the right ones to intervene. So it's true. They have been trying to really drive a wedge among Republicans on this. And if President Trump were to allow that to happen, his whole strategy here, which has been to just signal no willingness at all to compromise, would fall flat. Mr. President, how much longer can this shutdown last? And so he arrives at the Capitol, exits his limousine in the driveway, walks up the steps, walks through this whole phalanx of reporters all crowded around to see him.

And somebody shouts at him. Mr. President, how much longer can this shutdown last? We need border security. We will have border security. Tremendous Republican support. And I think we're going to win. What's your message to Republicans? We need border security. How long does he want to let this shutdown last? Whatever it takes. And then he disappears behind closed doors into the Republican lunch.

And what does he say to these Republicans at the lunch? Well, you might think that he'd be going in with like a very concise and firm set of talking points about the wall and the shutdown. But that's not what happens. He goes in and gives what senators have told me was a very Trumpian sort of stream of consciousness, 30 to 40 minute monologue about lots of other things having nothing to do with border security or the shutdown. He starts off with, we're doing so well, everything's great. He's talking about jobs numbers. He's talking about his visit to Iraq over the holidays. He's joking with senators. And I mean, he's just all over the place, completely bouncing around. And by the time he gets to border security and the wall, there's very little time for senators in the room to ask any questions. And really his message is, this is my position.

We need border security. We need a wall. I'm not backing down. The word I heard used most often by senators coming out of this meeting was resolute. He is not budging. And you Republicans need to be behind me. We need to be behind me. We need to be united. We're never going to get anywhere if we're not united. And he just keeps that up. A few of the senators who have expressed concerns publicly about this do so in the room. Lisa Murkowski gets up and expresses her concerns.

She's worried about federal workers. She really feels like the rest of the government can open up and we can still have this debate. Susan Collins gets up. She mentions the potential for a bipartisan deal that might involve giving legal status to the Dreamers. And what the president keeps on saying is just, I understand, but we just have to hang together here. We have to be solid. You have to be behind me. This is my position. I'm not moving. The Democrats are going to have to move. And Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana said, I'm not from Missouri, but he was like the Missouri mule who just sits down in the mud and says, I'm not moving.

Mr. President, are you worried about Republican defections? I would say that we have a very, very unified party. Mitch has been fantastic. Everybody in that room was fantastic. There was no reason for me even to be there. I knew that before we went. So what happens after this meeting? Well, the meeting breaks up, and the president and the Republican leaders, as they almost always do after their weekly lunch, go out to the microphones and the assembled news cameras to make a short statement, usually. And somewhat uncharacteristically, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, kind of hangs in the background while the president does most of the talking. And he says, you know.

We had a great time, actually. There was no discussion about anything other than solidarity. We had a great meeting. You know, we didn't really talk about much other than that we're very united and we're all together. And that was kind of the message. And the Republican leadership didn't say much of anything. We're coming up, and I think the president't say much of anything.

Mitch McConnell essentially followed that up with, you know, yeah, the president gave a pretty good description of what went on, like basically what he said, which is, again, pretty rare for Mitch McConnell, who does not usually find himself at a loss for words after these meetings. He's usually pretty frank in his assessment. But it was almost as if the Republicans had sort of ceded their territory to the president. Which tells you what exactly? Well, I think it tells me that the president has taken ownership of this in a way that's very public and that the Senate Republicans, frankly, at this point kind of want

him to own this because it's President Trump's demands. It's his strategy. They do not necessarily share these priorities, but they understand that their political fortunes are, for better or for worse, tied to his. And if someone's going to make the case for why the Republicans in Congress are doing what they're doing, it's going to be the president who is, after all, the reason that they find themselves in this situation. But they can't forever escape their role, which is to legislate and fund the government and be held responsible for the shutdown. And so when the president at this lunch tells them, you must be unified, you must hold the line, you must stand with me, what is he offering them in return? And why do they seem so willing to do what he's asking in this moment when the shutdown may cost them politically and is

certainly hurting their constituents. I think it's not so much what he's offering as the implicit threat that if they are the one, two, three dozen Republicans who somehow defect at this crucial point that he's going to declare them an enemy and then their political lives will be over. But theoretically, Republicans could band together and simply decide that it's time to reopen the government. And that does not necessarily mean walking away from the wall. It simply means separating the issues out, as Senators Murkowski, Collins, Gardner are asking. So why don't they do that?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't seem like there's enough of them right now to reach a critical mass to do that. I mean, you would probably be talking about needing enough Republicans to band together with Democrats to produce 60 votes for something like that, which is what you need to get most things past the Senate. But more to the point, Senator Mitch McConnell is still the majority leader, and he has made it very clear that he has no intention of bringing up any legislation that the president is not willing to sign. So there's no path for them to do that. If they were willing to use kind of guerrilla tactics on the Senate floor against their own party to try to attach amendments to various pieces of legislation that McConnell does want to bring up or somehow try to make mischief in that way, there is a possibility they could do that. But that's not

really what we're seeing from these senators. So what's clear is that as the senators see it, the pain from this shutdown is not greater than the political risks involved in speaking out against the shutdown and breaking from this president. I think that's true for the vast majority of Republicans right now. Hmm. So what happens after this news conference with the president and the Senate Republicans? What happens after this news conference with the president and the Senate Republicans? The president leaves Capitol Hill. He goes back to the White House where he has invited the bipartisan congressional leadership, including the Democrats, to another of these meetings in the Situation Room. This is now the third time they've all gathered there to try to hash this out. And nobody really knew what to expect from this meeting.

Well, it sounds like from what you've said that there's not a whole lot of optimism that something's going to happen because the president has just told Senate Republicans, stand behind me and let's not budge at all. That doesn't seem like a constructive approach to the beginning of the talks. Correct. And the Democrats also have spent the morning, you know, having a news conference with furloughed federal workers saying we will never give in to a wall. Look at how this is hurting the average American. Why can't we just reopen the government? So everyone is in their corner and it's not clear what headway can be made in this meeting. Even by the standards of these negotiations up till now, which have not been very productive, the meeting this afternoon was like way, way worse because, I mean, it hardly even got started.

It was basically the president started out the meeting handing out candy, apparently, I guess, as a gesture of goodwill or something like that. But after they got over their pleasantries, basically the president and Vice President Pence, who was also there, wanted to know why Democrats hadn't come to the table with a counteroffer. They said, you know, we gave you an offer, which was $5.7 billion for a wall. You said no, but so what's your counteroffer? And once again, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer say, well, we don't have a counteroffer and we will continue not to have a counteroffer for as long as the government remains closed. You need to reopen the government. Then we can talk about border security. And so President Trump finally turns to Nancy Pelosi and says, OK, Nancy, if I were to agree to quickly reopen the government, would you reach an agreement with me within 30 days to fund the wall? And she says, no.

The Democrats' position has been no, no, no money for a wall. We will not agree to a wall. And he just stands up and he says, bye-bye. And he walks out. Wow. He just ends the negotiation. He just gets up and leaves. Cold out here. It's cold out here.

And the temperature wasn't much warmer in the Situation Room. Our meeting did not last long. And, you know, as you can imagine, the Democrats came out and went straight to the microphones. He sort of slammed the table. And when Leader Pelosi said she didn't agree with the wall, he just walked out and said, we have nothing to discuss. So he said it was a waste of his time. So we're sort of right back to where we were before.

So in the past, we've described this situation as kind of an impasse. I would say at this point, it also looks like a kind of breakdown in the negotiations. Yes, I think that would be fair. When it comes to the Republicans and this lunch and the message from the president about unity, I can't help thinking about what Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said a few nights ago in a television interview that seems to help explain this approach. To my Republican colleagues, this is the best chance we'll ever have to help President Trump get border wall funding, steel barrier funding, and at the same time fix the loopholes. The only way we lose is to give in. If we'll stand firm, put deals on the table that make sense, we will win this on behalf of the American people.

But if we undercut the president, that's the end of his presidency and the end of our party, and we deserve to be punished if we give in now. What do you make of that? I mean, it's an interesting statement. All I could think of when he made it was it sounded like a group of people, Republicans, who've essentially kind of gotten in this bus that's hurtling toward a cliff and like can't get off it now because we're already on the bus. privately the sentiment that a lot of Republicans have, which is that, you know, this is really bad. This is not sort of the ground they want to stake out. But Trump is the leader of the party. He's the president. He's shut down the government. He's done his first ever address to the nation from the Oval Office. I mean, he is using all of the tools of the presidency on this one issue.

And I don't think it's overstating things to say that if he can't deliver this in some way, shape, or fashion that satisfies those voters, he will have a hard time being reelected. And Republicans could have a hard time trying to ride his or anyone else's coattails. And in that case, if Republicans see this as essentially an existential issue for all of them, for the president, for themselves, for the whole party, then there's no incentive to end the shutdown and to walk away from the wall, which suggests that this is going to be, in fact, a very long shutdown, even if a few Republicans are starting to break from the president.

I think that's right. This is bigger than just a few people. This is about the president and his party. And it's also the case that there's very little disincentive for Democrats to continue on the path that they're on. Their base is very happy with them saying, absolutely not. If Trump wants this wall, say no. They have no trouble sustaining that argument among Democrats and frankly, among a growing amount of independents. I mean, the wall is not popular and shutting down the government for a wall is even less popular. So they're on solid ground as well, which makes it very difficult to see how either side budges. And as of Friday, we'll be on day 21 of this shutdown, which will make it tied for the longest in American history. And I don't have any trouble imagining that it's going to go much, much longer than that. Julie, thank you very much. Thanks, Michael.

On Wednesday evening, eight Republican House members broke with President Trump by voting for Democratic legislation that would reopen the government without funding the border wall. But with the majority of Senate Republicans standing by the president, the legislation has no path to passage. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed the special counsel and has been the repeated target of President Trump's rage, will step down as soon as the president

appoints a new attorney general. Rosenstein started off as a Trump ally by writing the memo used to fire FBI Director James Comey, but quickly became a foe, who suggested secretly recording Trump in the White House to expose the chaos of his administration, and who discussed the possibility of recruiting cabinet members

to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Rosenstein will leave his post after the Senate approves a permanent replacement for his previous boss, Jeff Sessions. A candidate for that job, William Barr, who was the attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, will begin his Senate confirmation hearings next week. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.

See you tomorrow.