GOP seeks to change narrative in shutdown fight - Page 2

Originally Posted by jaylove16

Trump is expected to meet this week with a group of conservative leaders to get input on immigration proposals and possibly push toward a broader immigration agreement if the shutdown ends.

Miller needs to be kept out of any deal. Trump is too dense to realize that though.

Originally Posted by 2Face

In my 19 years in this country, this is the BEST CHANCE we have to pass Dreamer Legalization. Centrist Dems are for a deal in the Senate. In the House, CLYBURN has showed up and is making moves downtown out of freakin nowhere. Miller is nowhere to be seen in the WH. Koch Network has given the thumbs up too.


https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...shutdown-fight

President Trump and congressional Republicans are trying to change the narrative on Democrats as the partial shutdown drags into its fifth week.

Republicans, who have seen poll after poll showing that a majority of respondents blame Trump for the shutdown, are eager to corner Democrats by forcing a vote on the White House proposal to reopen the government and provide Trump with $5.7 billion in wall funding.

Whether the gambit works is anyone’s guess.

Senate Democrats are showing no signs of division so far, and the Senate is also poised to vote Thursday on another measure that would temporarily reopen the government but not provide funding for the wall.

Still, the votes on Thursday could allow Republicans to argue that they are putting up proposals to end the shutdown after weeks in which the only actions to do so have been taken by Democrats in the House.

After watching House Democrats pass those bills for more than four weeks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is eager to flip the script and have Democrats vote “no” on a bill to reopen the government — a day before federal workers impacted by the funding lapse will miss their second paycheck.

The White House and McConnell have also sought to sweeten the pot: Their plan includes priorities backed by Democrats including extension of the Violence Against Women Act and more than $12 billion in disaster relief funding.

Neither proposal is expected to get 60 votes without a dramatic U-turn by either Trump or Democrats. But holding the two votes will allow Republicans to try to change the media narrative and counter the Democratic strategy of forcing McConnell to repeatedly block the House bills.

It could also be a win-win situation for Republican senators, since it allows those representing red states to vote for Trump’s proposal, while purple-state senators such as Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) could vote for the clean three-week stopgap measure.

Multiple polls have shown that a majority of respondents are blaming Trump and congressional Republicans for the partial shutdown, which is the longest funding lapse in modern history.

In the latest The Hill-HarrisX survey, 46 percent of registered voters who responded and identify themselves as political independents said that Trump and the congressional GOP are primarily responsible for the government closure, a 7-point jump from a Dec. 30-31 survey.

But Trump is showing no signs of shifting his strategy in response to polling or grumbling by moderate lawmakers.

The president views the battle with Democrats over the wall as too important to lose and is convinced the 33-day shutdown has helped make his case to the public why a wall is needed to end what he sees as a crisis of illegal immigration and drug smuggling at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a source who requested anonymity to discuss the White House’s internal thinking.

Trump is expected to meet this week with a group of conservative leaders to get input on immigration proposals and possibly push toward a broader immigration agreement if the shutdown ends.

The source added that Trump does not care about the polls and is feeling no pressure to cave on his demands.

The president is not closing off the possibility of supporting permanent extensions for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as part of an immigration deal with Democrats.