How Much Damage is Trump Willing to Inflict for His Wall?

Now in its second month, this unprecedented government shutdown is not only having often dire financial consequences for the 800,000 federal workers and numerous federal contractors who are directly affected, which itself is bad enough, but according to many reports is threatening the safety and security of the general public in multiple ways.  The flying public is less safe as a result of reduced staffing and increased stresses on both TSA workers and air traffic controllers due to an increasing absentee rate from being unable or unwilling to come to work without pay, suspension of training and oversight programs, and lack of radar and other equipment repair and maintenance. In addition to longer airport security lines and waits, air traffic may actually need to be reduced in some areas to maintain hopefully adequate air traffic safety. The FBI has stated that they are unable to pursue or continue various undercover investigations due to lack of staffing and funding. Even border security, the whole excuse for the shutdown, is suffering. Then there is the potentially major economic damage, with Trump’s own budget director admitting that they underestimated the economic impact of a shutdown, and that the first quarter GDP could be reduced to close to zero as a result of the shutdown if it continues! Despite this real but engineered national emergency, there is amazingly still no end in sight! Trump probably knows that he has been losing the PR war related to the shutdown, with a solid majority blaming him for it and an even larger majority of 70% now disapproving of a shutdown over the wall. Trump’s low approval rating has also been slipping even lower. Under these circumstances, both Trump and Nancy Pelosi probably realize that she retains the political upper hand for now in refusing to even negotiate until Trump reopens the government. However, Trump also realizes that if he gives in and ends the shutdown without a “win”, he loses leverage and will look weak to his base and more importantly to the right wing pundits who seem to be the ones (along with Putin) pulling his strings. For whatever reason, Trump seems to have abandoned, at least for the time being, the idea of declaring a national emergency to get around Congress, although other types of executive action are still being investigated. That leaves him with no obvious face saving exit strategy from the corner into which he has ineptly painted himself, and there are reports that his administration is making contingency plans for at least two more months of a shutdown, which would be catastrophic for the country! So the question is: how much damage to the economy and to the welfare and safety of the general public is Trump willing to tolerate as a consequence of his shutdown in order to please his base and right wing cheerleaders? Although he has publicly stated that he would be fine with the shutdown going on for months or even years to get what he wants(!), and he probably doesn’t give a shit about the welfare of government workers, most of whom he believes are Democrats, there have to be circumstances or events which would be bad enough to force him to give in, if he thought he was really losing more than gaining politically by holding out longer. Widespread flight cancellations, a commercial airplane crash due to air traffic control error, a mass shooting by a furloughed government employee or a significant economic downturn could spark enough general outrage to do that. Moreover, in addition to public pressure from multiple former Homeland Security Secretaries and others, Trump is probably getting an increasing amount of behind-the-scenes warnings of dire consequences from congressional Republicans despite their overall public solidarity with him. So much for being the world‘s greatest deal maker!  

Meanwhile, it has been another dramatic showdown between Trump and Pelosi over the State of the Union address which was planned for next Tuesday. After variably sarcastic letters back and forth and Trump finally trying to call her bluff over her request to delay the speech, Pelosi actually quickly pulled the plug on the speech, reportedly to Trump’s surprise. Obviously unable to come up with an adequate alternative venue, Trump has now suddenly and surprisingly caved, and in a very uncharacteristically polite and well crafted tweet (which therefore may have been written by someone else), has agreed to postpone the speech until after the government reopens! So: Trump 0, Pelosi 1!  Will this set a precedent (doubtful)? Or, more likely, might it be a peace overture to the Speaker, and/or a way to portray himself as more reasonable to the public? It also gives him one less thing to worry about at the moment.

Also meanwhile, the past week saw the explosive Buzzfeed story claiming hard evidence that Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Trump Tower negotiations, which would be a clearly impeachable crime, and the subsequent highly unusual and carefully worded response from the Mueller team stating that the article’s assertions were inaccurate. That burst the brief bubble of euphoria, and even got a grudging word of appreciation from Trump, despite Buzzfeed’s continued assertions of the story’s accuracy. We will just have to wait for the authorized version of the investigation findings, which we will hopefully all get to see, and hopefully sooner rather than later!