It’s the second day of the government shutdown and President Donald Trump is already pushing the “nuclear option.” In this case, an option that probably wouldn’t solve anything.
Over Twitter Sunday morning, Trump advised Republican leaders to make a historic change to Senate rules, and pass a partisan government spending bill with only 51 votes. A spending bill has always needed 60 votes to pass the Senate, which, given the makeup of the current Congress, requires bipartisan support.
The government spending deadline elapsed at midnight Friday, and Democrats and Republicans are still deep in a standoff over the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Trump has promised to sunset fully by March 5.
Frustrated with Trump’s inability to keep to his word on immigration negotiations, Democrats walked away from a short-term government spending bill that would have kept the government open for four more weeks and funded the Children’s Health Insurance program for six years — something that Democrats have been calling for since the programs funding lapsed last October — because it did not include a path forward on DACA.
Read 7 thoughts about Trump’s suggestion to change Senate rules to avert shutdown by Tara Golshan at www.vox.com.
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