Newly elected President Donald Trump’s second administration hasn’t even started yet, and he’s already thinking about what could be his first make-or-break moment.
After the Trump-blessed continuing resolution and debt ceiling package failed yesterday, with an embarrassingly high number of 38 Republicans in the House of Representatives voting against the proposal, House Speaker Mike Johnson racked his brains last night for a ‘Plan C’ to fund the government before funding runs out. midnight tonight.
His challenge: find a path that can keep Trump happy, appease conservatives in the House of Representatives, win the support of a substantial number of Democrats in the House of Representatives, and pass the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House. – while Johnson may keep his gavel in January.
The conventional wisdom in Washington is that everyone wants to go home for the holidays, and that shutdowns are political losers.
But Johnson and Trump have seriously considered whether it is best to simply order a shutdown. We’re told both men’s teams reflected on the positives and negatives last night.
To be clear, Johnson’s crew was still trying to find a way out last night. We heard talk of a whole range of ideas, including passing a ‘clean’ CR to January to buy some time.
Still, it’s quite a turnaround from a few months ago, when Johnson almost single-handedly brought Trump back from the brink of the shutdown. At the time, Johnson presented Trump with polling showing that Republicans in swing districts would pay the price politically — even using numbers from a Trump poll to make his point.
But this time it’s different, people close to Johnson tell POLITICO.
First, it’s not right before the election — meaning any lawmakers hit by a potential shutdown would have time to recover before the campaign season, the thinking goes. Additionally, some Republicans believe they have a mandate to govern and could potentially weather the storm better than previous shutdown battles.
Right or wrong, some people close to Trump also seem convinced that some kind of debt ceiling disaster is looming and something must be done about it. now.
Behind this idea lies the fear that Democrats are so eager to trip Trump that when the debt ceiling subsequently needs to be raised, they will demand that the Republican Party make politically impossible concessions. Republicans will then either give in to Democrats’ demands or breach the debt ceiling, causing an economic catastrophe in Trump’s first year in power.
Based on this logic, these Trump world figures argue that it is better to face a shutdown now to try to solve the problem. Trump himself increased his demand early Friday morning: “Congress must abolish the ridiculous debt ceiling, or perhaps extend it until 2029. Without it, we would never be able to make a deal.”
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But that thinking collides head-on with the political reality of the recent government shutdowns: the party making the demands not only pays politically, but never gets what they want.
Trump didn’t get a dollar for his wall during the 35-day shutdown in 2018-2019, and he paid a political price for it. Democrats also failed to get protections for Dreamers during the shutdown fight they fomented while Trump was in power.
So what makes Republicans think that once in a shutdown, Democrats will give them what they want and the Republican Party won’t be crushed politically?
Top Republicans like Vice President-elect JD Vance are already trying to make it clear that Democrats will own this shutdown – if it happens. “They asked for a shutdown and I think that’s exactly what they’re going to get.” Vance told reporters yesterday.
But Trump’s team knows it will be an uphill battle to convince the public that a shutdown is Democrats’ fault. Trump picked the fight, and it was Trump – well, he and Elon Musk – who derailed the bipartisan deal.
Start with that as a starting point and add the political damage: There will inevitably be headlines about the reality that government employees — and even members of the military — won’t get paid over Christmas. A backlash from the public seems inevitable.
There are political implications to this. There is some concern within Trump’s sphere of influence that all this could undermine the president-elect’s election numbers, which are at a record high.
There are also policy implications: What would the logistical realities of a shutdown mean for Trump’s ambitious agenda? Remember his goal of passing a border bill within the first thirty days of the inauguration? Say goodbye to that: Republicans will be too busy pressuring Democrats on the debt ceiling.
Which brings us to a final point: Even if Trump succeeds in raising the debt ceiling, a shutdown on this issue all but guarantees that his first major legislative achievement will be raising the nation’s borrowing limit, when we are already over $35 . trillion in debt – not exactly a way to get Republicans excited.
But as Trump says, we’ll see what happens. People close to him say he wants a fight — and if that’s what he wants, Johnson might just give it to him.
