By Carl Hulse
WASHINGTON — The trick in Washington has always been to make sure a government shutdown is pinned on the other guy. President Trump is the first to ever pin one on himself.
In a new twist on the old game of shutdown politics dating to the 1990s, Mr. Trump was essentially goaded on Tuesday by Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York into embracing ownership of a shutdown yet to come if Democrats do not accede to his request for $5 billion to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico.
“I will take the mantle,” Mr. Trump told the two Democratic leaders in the Oval Office, saying he would proudly close parts of the executive branch if he did not get his way. “I’m not going to blame you for it,” he continued. “The last time you shut it down, it didn’t work. I will take the mantle of shutting down, and I’m going to shut it down for border security.”
A smiling Mr. Schumer seemed more than satisfied with Mr. Trump’s retort. “O.K., fair enough,” he said.
The moment was a little reminiscent of the climactic scene in “A Few Good Men,” when Tom Cruise’s character elicits an incriminating answer from Jack Nicholson’s Marine colonel. In this case, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer were more than happy to handle the president’s truth. Ms. Pelosi couldn’t say the term “Trump shutdown” enough times.
“We gave the president two options that would keep the government open,” the two leaders said in a joint statement after the remarkable White House session that offered a sneak peek at 2019’s divided government. “It’s his choice to accept one of those options or shut the government down.”
Mr. Trump has consistently played by his own rules in Washington, and perhaps this is just one more example of how he can upend the conventions of the capital and win a shutdown showdown on his own terms. Many of his most enthusiastic supporters are both anti-Washington and pro-border wall, so his decision to potentially close down a section of the federal government to secure funding for the wall could play well with them. It could also generate some welcome backing from his base at a time when he seems under siege on the legal end and is struggling to staff his administration as the two-year mark nears. In addition, the 2020 campaign is already on the president’s mind, and his efforts to limit immigration have worked for him in the past.
With Democrats about to take over the House, the president’s opportunities to win the wall money — a central facet of his 2016 campaign and one he has so far been thwarted on — are diminishing. As that window is closing, shutting down the government is starting to sound like a victory, at least in the president’s mind.
“If we have to close down the country over border security, I actually like that in terms of an issue,” Mr. Trump told reporters late Tuesday after the Democrats had departed. “I will take it because we are closing it down for border security, and I think I win that every single time.”
“I don’t mind owning that issue,” he said of a shutdown.
Politicians with more experience in government shutdowns aren’t so sure that is a good idea. Both parties have engaged in such brinkmanship over the years and paid a political price. In the end, a sudden halt in government services or the closing of national parks feeds the public perception of a dysfunctional Washington, a place in which politicians are unwilling to compromise and find solutions — but are willing to let their constituents suffer the consequences.
And while the border wall is a significant symbolic issue, the dollars at stake in this fight are not huge — basically a difference of under $4 billion. That is the only issue holding up a major package of government spending that has deep bipartisan support.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, would prefer not to go there. He has repeatedly vowed to avoid shutdowns at all costs to try to project a Republican image of government competency.
“One thing I think is pretty clear no matter who precipitates the government shutdown: The American people don’t like it and I hope that will be avoided,” he said Tuesday.
Republicans have for years tried to shed their mantle as the shutdown party after engaging in budget clashes during the Clinton and Obama administrations, which led to government agencies being closed for varying periods of time as the two parties fought it out. The Newt Gingrich-led Republicans took most of the blame in the mid-1990s after President Bill Clinton vetoed the spending plan passed by the Republican Congress over Medicare cuts.
Republicans took it on the chin again in 2013 when the government shut down for 16 days after Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama refused Republican demands to end funding for his new health care law. They were probably spared the worst of the political fallout by the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act just a few weeks later.
At the beginning of this year, it was the turn of Senate Democrats, who briefly provoked a shutdown over the refusal by Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans to protect the special program for undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children. Democrats quickly backtracked, realizing that they were losing politically, and the shutdown extended only over a weekend. Mr. Trump said Tuesday that Democrats got “killed” for that maneuvering.
Such experiences have made both parties leery of delving into shutdown territory. Time still remains to work out some sort of deal. But if no accommodation can be reached, parts of the government might be closing for the holidays. Democrats believe it was Mr. Trump, with his fervent shutdown embrace, who presented them a gift.
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