Julie Hirschfield Davis, congressional correspondent for the New York Times, told CNN on Wednesday that both House and Senate Republicans had "very little confidence" that the White House had any strategy to end the government shutdown -- and party members are cracking as the pressure to come to a solution mounts.
"I don't want to overstate this, but a number of Republicans have started to voice a bit of the jitters," host John King said. "The fear among Republicans is when that Friday comes and people don't get paychecks that the phones start ringing and the federal workers start saying 'enough, even if I support the wall I want my paycheck, thank you very much.'" He listed several Republicans who are openly calling for an end to the shutdown and asked if it was just "grumbling" or whether the party was demanding a course correction.
"I think it's just rumblings," replied Davis, but added that it might not remain that way for long. "It's the issue of those calls are already coming into their offices and people are being affected by this shutdown and this is the wrong way to go, and we need to reopen while we continue to resolve the differences."
Davis said while Republicans have traditionally held back from "a lot of direct pushing" at the president about strategy, that may also be coming to an end as the shutdown grinds on with no end in sight.
"The president may be indicating that he'd rather negotiate with Democrats than declare this national emergency, but there is no strategy for doing that because he's been unwilling to change his demands and the Democrats are clearly not accepting them," she said. "There is no way forward here and there is very little confidence on the part of Senate and house Republicans that the White House has a play here that they think can be effective going forward."
Watch the video below.
