OPINION:
Once again, headlines are warning of a government shutdown if Congress and the White House can’t strike a deal on border security.
But this shutdown, if it comes, will be a public relations win for President Donald Trump. Why?
“Democrats reiterate demand: Reopen the government before negotiations on border security,” CNN blasted in a headline, on Jan. 21.
“Pelosi says reopen government, then we’ll talk,” wrote KCBY in a headline above an Associated Press story from Jan. 22.
So Trump did.
He reopened the government.
But border talks have been unproductive, to say the least.
Trump’s call for funding has been denied. And then Democrats threw this in the mix, just recently: Let’s abolish ICE.
“The Border Committee Democrats are behaving, all of a sudden, irrationally,” Trump tweeted. “Not only are they unwilling to give dollars for the obviously needed Wall (they overrode recommendations of Border Patrol experts), but they don’t even want to take murderers into custody! What’s going on?”
Good question.
But the simple answer is this: What’s going on is Democrats never had in mind any intent to secure America’s borders.
They pretended to the press during the government shutdown as if Trump were acting illogically and petulantly, and sold the line that if only the president would pay these poor public servants and return federal operations to normal, well then, the Democrats would come to the table to discuss immigration.
They haven’t.
What’s more, they won’t.
So this looming shutdown, if it indeed comes, will belong firmly in the fault category of Democrats. And only the farthest leftist of lefties will be able to paint it otherwise. Another way to state it? The American people aren’t stupid.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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