Wall Street Journal
By Joshua Jamerson
January 22, 2018
The Democrats and the Republicans in Washington are still arguing about who deserves the blame for the government shutdown, which extended into a third day. The GOP has been pushing to reopen the government with a three-week spending bill, but Democrats haven’t agreed to that without a path forward for the Dreamers, young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said he made significant concessions to President Donald Trump, including offering funding to build a wall along the Mexican border, but the president rejected it.
The Senate was expected to vote at noon whether to advance a measure that would reopen the government for three weeks, but it wasn’t clear if it would have enough support to advance, Kristina Peterson, Natalie Andrews and Siobhan Hughes report.
One thing to keep in mind is that the party that ends up taking the blame for a government shutdown doesn’t always suffer big consequences in elections. The Republicans took the brunt of the blame from the public after the 2013 government shutdown, according to polls at the time; a year later, the GOP took control of the U.S. Senate. So while the party that loses the blame game is important politically, it may not be the end-all-be-all in terms of what motivates voters, as other forces will likely be at play.
On that note, there are some warning signs for Republicans in our latest WSJ/NBC News poll. Here are three:
We asked participants if their vote in the midterm this November would be used to send a signal of support for Mr. Trump or a signal of opposition. A red flag: 38% said their vote would be a vote of opposition to the president, compared with 26% who said their vote would be a show of support. 34% said their vote won’t be a signal either way.
The Republicans appear to be losing support from white voters, the bloc that most propelled Mr. Trump to office in 2016. Asked which party they’d prefer to see control Congress, white independent voters gave Democrats a 7-point edge, compared with an 8-point preference for the GOP in 2016. An even bigger swing: white, college-educated voters preferred a Republican Congress by a 4-point margin in 2016. Now, college-educated white voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress by a whopping 21 points.
The swing districts — those rated as a toss-up by the Cook Political Report — are slipping away from the Republicans. In 2014, when the Republicans gained a majority in the Senate, these districts preferred a Republican-controlled Congress by 14 points. Today, the same counties prefer Democrats running Congress by 10 points.
MORE SHUTDOWN COVERAGE: The effects of a government shutdown that began Saturday will kick in more forcefully with the start of the workweek as agencies implement contingency plans to scale back operations and send workers home … The fight that sparked the continuing government shutdown in Congress centers less on the border wall and more on an array of other conservative policies… Even a long shutdown isn’t expected to leave many imprints on the broader economy … Mr. Trump stayed in Washington during the shutdown.
SEIB: SHUTDOWN IS DRIVEN BY THE PARTIES’ BASES
There is a broad swath of Americans who want their government to stay open, and want legal status for the Dreamers, but are getting neither. Moreover, they are getting neither at a time when a compromise to have both was, and is, available. How does this kind of thing happen? For many politicians, the danger lies less in the shutdown than in anger within the base. Activists in the bases, after all, provide the energy in election season, and they have shown an increasing willingness to shoot their own kin when they prove too willing to compromise with the other side, Jerry Seib writes in his latest column.
From Washington:
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is emerging as one of the president’s chief conservative anchors on the immigration issue while Republicans and Democrats try to sort through the spending impasse in Congress, Michael C. Bender reports. He helped scuttle a bipartisan Senate deal and made the phone call that ended immigration negotiations on Friday, paving the way for a government shutdown.
In enacting a tax cut that is projected to raise annual federal-budget deficits to nearly $1 trillion in the coming years, Washington could be trading more growth now for the risk of more pain down the road, writes Nick Timiraos. The good news is that very few economists think a recession is anywhere near. Still, a downturn will eventually happen, and when it does the government could be ill-prepared to respond.
Vice President Mike Pence received more blowback Sunday from President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, with Jordan’s king cautioning that such a move should be part of a “comprehensive” Middle East peace deal, Peter Nicholas reports. At a luncheon, Jordan’s King Abdullah II suggested that the decision could spark more unrest and possibly terrorist attacks, making it harder for Muslims “to fight some of our root causes of radicalization.”
Canadian and Mexican trade officials in Montreal on Sunday began laying out proposals aimed at convincing their U.S. counterparts not to put an end to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Since August, the three countries have been locked in negotiations to renegotiate the 24-year-old trade pact, after Mr. Trump called it the “worst trade deal ever made.” The talks that started Sunday ramp up Tuesday with the arrival of chief negotiators. They are scheduled to end Jan. 29.
House Speaker Paul Ryan ordered an investigation into workplace harassment allegations against Pennsylvania Republican Patrick Meehan and removed him from the committee that investigates such complaints. A spokesman for Mr. Meehan denied the allegations.
From across the WSJ:
U.S. scientists helped devise the Crispr biotechnology tool that has captured global attention for its potential to treat incurable diseases. The first to test it in humans are Chinese doctors, who don’t face the same regulatory hurdles as American counterparts.
Financial firms needing to assess thousands of homes are turning to a sort of drive-by valuation that is done more quickly and cheaply than a traditional appraisal in a process that is drawing criticism.
Thousands of people gathered Sunday in Las Vegas for a “power to the polls” rally held on the first anniversary of a wave of marches organized by women across the U.S. National organizers said they chose Las Vegas for the rally because Nevada is a swing state that will influence this year’s midterm elections.
Twitter Inc. said it identified 1,062 more accounts tied to a Russian government-backed propaganda outfit, as the social-media company and other tech firms continue to grapple with how their platforms were manipulated in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
China criticized the U.S. Navy for sailing a guided-missile destroyer close to a disputed outcrop in the South China Sea, adding to tensions between the two governments already strained over trade and North Korea.
Turkey launched a weekend offensive on a Syrian Kurdish enclave, raising tensions with the U.S. and opening a new front in the seven-year war after watching rivals gain ground on the battlefield.
Angela Merkel’s efforts to form her fourth coalition government cleared a crucial hurdle after the center-left Social Democrats voted in favor of entering formal coalition talks with the German leader’s conservative bloc.
Afghan authorities said 19 civilians, including 14 foreign nationals, had died in a 12-hour siege of an international hotel that ended Sunday.
The number of murders in Mexico jumped last year to its highest level in recent decades, largely the result of a powerful and relatively new drug gang expanding its operations across the country.
HERE’S A LOOK AT THE DAY AHEAD
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: President Donald Trump receives his daily intelligence briefing at 11 a.m. Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence begin a two-day visit to Israel, where the vice president holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits London to meet staff and families from U.S. Embassy London as well as attend a meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May and National Security Adviser Mark Sedwill and a working luncheon with U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
CONGRESS: The Senate convenes at 10 a.m., and debates the government funding bill. A vote on the bill is expected at noon.
WHAT WE’RE READING AROUND THE WEB
A new Quinnipiac University poll finds that American voters support allowing Dreamers–undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children–to remain in the U.S. legally, including 49% of Republicans.
Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner has become a key point of contact for China, write Adam Entous and Evan Osnos for The New Yorker: “Kushner was ‘their lucky charm,’” a former National Security Council official is quoted as saying. “’It was a dream come true. They couldn’t believe he was so compliant.’”
The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, in an appearance on MSNBC, defended President Trump against assertions he had an affair with a porn star who was later paid for her silence: “I believe at 70 years of age the president is a much different person today than he was four years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago,” Graham said. “He is not President Perfect.”
TWEET OF THE DAY
@realDonaldTrump: Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!
@SenSanders: This government shutdown is part of the long-term, anti-government ideology paid for by the Koch brothers.
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