Not a thing going on….
Trump won’t do the national emergency thing for now….
Democrats aren’t moving….
But have passed House bill’s to restore money to different agencies…
Polls indicate that the American public blames Donald Trump , who asked that he be blamed….
Axios….
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett suggested during a PBS NewsHourinterview that furloughed federal workers might be “better off” following the shutdown because they’re currently getting time off from work without having to use vacation days.
Why it matters: Approximately 800,000 federal workers missed their first paychecks Friday, with many struggling to pay bills, loans, and even childcare in the absence of consistent income. The shutdown is set to break the record tonight for longest in U.S. history, with no clear end in sight….
The Hill…
A majority of Republicans in a new survey say the partial government shutdown is “embarrassing for the country.”
The new NPR/Ipsos poll reports that three-quarters of all respondents believe the ongoing shutdown is “embarrassing.”
As the shutdown nears the end of its third week, it is now tied for the longest in U.S. history.
Nearly 70 percent of respondents in the survey said the shutdown is going to hurt the country and the economy. The same portion of respondents say Congress should pass a bill to reopen the government now, while only 30 percent believe the government should stay closed until there is funding for a border wall….
TPM…
Upon returning back to the White House following a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border — a trip he admitted to reporters was just a photo op — President Trump concluded that the U.S. is being invaded by immigrants.
“I just got back and it is a far worse situation than almost anyone would understand, an invasion!” he said in a Friday morning tweet.
Trump and his team have been bending over backward in recent days to paint the situation at the border as a crisis in order to justify the government shutdown Trump ignited when he refused to sign any funding bill that didn’t include money for his border wall….
Huffington Post…
It should be obvious by now that Mexico is not going to pay for “the wall” ― if a wall is actually built at all.
Significant parts of the government are shut down right now over a dispute about how much money Congress ― and therefore taxpayers, not Mexico ― will dole out for new barrier construction along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But don’t tell that to Republicans. For the most part this week, Republicans refused to contradict President Donald Trump’s contortionist explanations for why, technically, sort of, in a roundabout way, Mexico is footing the bill.
“I certainly understand the president’s logic, and I’ve always got it,” Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told HuffPost Friday, “that if we have more jobs in America, because of an improved [North American Free Trade] Agreement, that it’ll be more economic tax base for the United States.”
The new trade agreement negotiated last year has not yet been approved by Congress and does not mention the wall. If that explanation wasn’t confusing or tenuous enough, Marshall also said the wall was “an investment.”…
The men and women trained to sacrifice their own lives to protect Donald Trump’s have now missed a half month’s pay, thanks to the partial government shutdown the president bullied and blundered his way into over a border wall he had originally promised Mexico would pay for.
Trump, who claims a net worth of billions of dollars and used to pay his private security guard nearly $300,000 a year, does not appear to have taken any action to help Secret Service agents with mortgage, rent or day-to-day living expenses.
Like hundreds of thousands of other federal workers, the 7,000 employees of the Secret Service, including the protective details for Trump and his family as well as uniformed agents who guard the White House, were scheduled to be paid on Friday. It would have been the first paycheck of the new year, and the first after the holiday gift-giving season.
“These are the people who are closest to him and clearly put their lives on the line for him every single day,” said Rick Tyler, a Republican political consultant who worked on the campaign of rival GOP candidate Ted Cruz in the 2016 GOP primaries. “He has demonstrated no empathy for them over this situation.”…