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Democrats' shutdown question: Where's Trump?: From the Politics Desk
Democrats' shutdown question: Where's Trump?: From the Politics Desk
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, we report on how Democrats are pushing for President Donald Trump to be more engaged to bring the government shutdown to an end. Plus, Steve Kornacki breaks down some new polls that show Democrats are warming up to the “socialist” label.
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— Adam Wollner
Shutdown, Day 21: Democrats call on 'disengaged' Trump to get more involved
By Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong and Monica Alba
As the government shutdown crosses the three-week mark, Democrats are increasingly calling on President Donald Trump to get more involved in finding a solution.
And while Republicans acknowledge that Trump has been disengaged, some say it wouldn’t hurt if he got more involved.
“Hakeem [Jeffries] and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the health care crisis, address it and end the Trump shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters today. “We urged him to meet with us, and we said we’ll set up an appointment with him any time, any place before he leaves.”
And when Republican senators held a private lunch meeting with Trump and ate cheeseburgers this afternoon, there was little discussion of the shutdown, several of them said afterward.
“He mentioned it briefly, but my sense is that nothing’s changed,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “We’ll talk about all the issues the Democrats want to talk about once the government reopens.”
That has been the GOP strategy all along — to hold firm on their short-term funding bill and expect Democrats to back off their demands to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. It hasn’t worked, with the Senate rejecting on 11 occasions the bill that passed the Republican-led House.
Trump has only met once with Schumer and House Minority Leader Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Sept. 29 — two days before the shutdown began — and it didn’t go well. The president reacted hours later by taunting the two Democrats with an AI-generated post that put words in Schumer’s mouth and a sombrero on Jeffries’ head.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Trump’s involvement is “essential” to ending the shutdown because GOP leaders on Capitol Hill won’t cut a deal without his blessing.
“Republicans here are not going to make a move without Trump saying that he’s ready to end this,” Schiff said. “He doesn’t seem particularly interested, or to care. And until that changes, I think we’re going to be at an impasse.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said Trump has “had his hands full with Israel and international matters.”
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“So he’s had every reason to be disengaged and just to let legislators handle this themselves,” she said, adding that Democrats should deal with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., instead of Trump.
Trump said today he would only meet with Democrats “with one major condition,” which is “open up the country first.”
Related: Food banks and community groups brace for spike in demand as shutdown continues, by Ryan Nobles
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