"With the government shutdown well into its second week, President Donald Trump's strategy to break Senate Democrats has become clear: Maximize the pain of the closure to force them into retreat. His administration is firing civil servants en masse, threatening to withhold back pay from furloughed federal employees, and canceling billions of dollars in funding for states that voted for his opponent last year."
"Far from folding, Senate Democrats appear to be unusually united and even more emboldened with each passing day the government remains closed. They haven't budged from their insistence that, before they will vote to end the shutdown, Republicans first must agree to extend health-insurance subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year. "We know what we are fighting for. Folding is not an option right now," Senator Patty Murray of Washington State, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, told us."
"Instead, it is Republicans who are showing signs of strain, questioning their leaders' tactics and, in one high-profile defection, calling on them to essentially meet the Democrats' demands. At the White House, Trump muddied the party's message during the shutdown's first days when he told reporters that he wanted to make a deal on health care and was "talking to Democrats about it.""
President Donald Trump is escalating pressure to end the shutdown by maximizing pain: firing civil servants en masse, threatening to withhold back pay from furloughed federal employees, and canceling billions in funding for states that voted for his opponent. Senate Democrats are largely united and refuse to vote to end the shutdown until Republicans agree to extend health-insurance subsidies set to expire at year’s end. Only a few Democrats have broken ranks. House Democrats express relief that Senate counterparts are holding firm. Republicans are showing signs of strain, including defections, while Trump signaled openness to negotiating health care, complicating the Republican message.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]