Lawmakers Say They Need Trump’s Help to End the Shutdown

With Capitol Hill entering its fifth week of gridlock, lawmakers say they have finally identified the key to ending the government shutdown.

One problem: The key is in Asia.

“Right now he’s overseas, but that doesn’t mean that his team’s not talking to people,” Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said of President Donald Trump. “But we also recognize that this president is very much a hands-on fixer, right? And I have every reason to believe that when he decides that we need to resolve this, things move along more rapidly than they might otherwise.”

Trump has supported Republican congressional leadership’s bill to extend government funding through Nov. 21, and White House advisors have collaborated with Republican lawmakers behind the scenes to navigate the shutdown. But in the 27 days that the government has been shut down, the president has not personally visited Capitol Hill, nor has he hosted top Democrats at the White House.

That strategy is unlikely to change soon. Trump is currently abroad for a five-day swing through South Korea, Japan and Malaysia.

But even some Republicans think Trump is the missing piece to resolving the stalemate on Capitol Hill.

“Obviously, we’re pretty stuck here,” Republican Sen. Roger Marshall told NOTUS. “President Trump, one of his greatest traits is the ability to negotiate. So I think at some point in time, when the moment is right, he’ll be able to step in and put the pieces together.”

Republican Sen. Rand Paul also told Fox News on Sunday that Trump should create a bipartisan commission to address expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies to resolve the shutdown, while reopening the government for a month or two.

“I suggest that President Trump come forward and name three Republicans and three Democrats in the Senate to an official commission to figure this out over a one-month period and come back with a solution,” Paul said.

Trump’s approval of any plan will be essential to ending the shutdown. Even if his sign off weren’t a prerequisite to secure many Republican votes, the president literally has to sign whatever ultimate Congress passes. Lawmakers interested in bipartisan negotiations, like Murkowski, say that lack of hands-on engagement is hamstringing progress. After all, Trump could derail any compromise lawmakers reach if he or his lieutenants are not in the room to broker it themselves.

“I think right now you have some real mistrust from the Democrats to the Republicans on, ‘How do we know that if we make a deal with you the president is actually going to respect that?’” Murkowski said. “So why are we going to spin our wheels here?”

Majority Leader John Thune said he talked to Trump on Sunday evening and that Republican leadership is “very engaged” with administration officials about the shutdown during the president’s trip to Asia. But Republican and Democratic senators recognize that dialogue from across the world is a far cry from Trump regularly engaging with lawmakers in-person in Washington.

“It’s a lot easier if he stays home and finishes his job here of reopening the government,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin told reporters last week. “I wish he would decide to do that. I wish he would do it today.”

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal explained to NOTUS that he would be satisfied with Trump empowering Speaker Mike Johnson and Thune to begin earnestly negotiating with Democrats, delegating to a member of his cabinet or convening leadership at the White House because “the Oval Office has an enormous power as a physical setting, especially when the President’s there.”

But Blumenthal’s assessment is: “It won’t end without President Trump becoming actively engaged.”

Some Republicans are more skeptical, holding out for Democrats to cave and back their short-term funding bill without concessions on extending ACA subsidies or limiting executive authority to claw back congressionally approved funding. That logic, however, is an increasingly dubious prospect given no Democratic senators flipped their vote despite the largest federal workers union publicly supporting Republicans Monday.

“Once the shutdown is over, I think he’ll be directly involved in a lot of the negotiations,” Sen. Mike Rounds said of Trump, indicating the president should not involve himself more deeply before the shutdown ends.

“The sooner we get the shutdown completed and they open up the government again, I think the president will be involved in a lot of the different parts of putting together the appropriations package,” Rounds continued.

But pressure points, from funding running out for food assistance to missed paychecks for federal workers, do not appear to be persuading Democrats to switch their vote — or Republicans to begin substantive policy negotiations.

“I don’t know what more the president can do, other than say, I’m willing to talk, which he has said,” Sen. Josh Hawley told reporters.

Democrats dispute that characterization of Trump’s willingness to negotiate. Senate and House Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries requested a meeting with Trump last week. The president responded that he would not speak to them until the government shutdown ends.

“The President and his entire Administration have been clear: we will not have policy conversations while the American people are held hostage. While the Democrats brag about using the American people as ‘leverage’ for the far left agenda, the Administration’s position is clear: reopen the government,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to NOTUS.

Without Trump engaging sooner, some lawmakers fear they do not see an end to the shutdown. Even independent Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats and backed the GOP-led funding bill, said Trump needs to negotiate for the shutdown to end.

“He just needs to tell Mike Johnson and John Thune to make a deal, and we would get it resolved in a couple of days,” King told NOTUS.