Never-Trump conservative: 'He would like to have the government shut down' because it would pause the Mueller probe

Discussing Congress' narrowly avoided a , a CNN panel mused the close miss -- and speculated about why President Donald Trump might not be working overtime to avoid it.

"It's really difficult to furlough federal employees going into Christmas," Democratic strategist Paul Begala said. "That's particularly cruel. I think the republicans would have politically lost by that, but still, you're hurting people."

Bill Kristol, a prominent never-Trump conservative and editor-at-large for National Review magazine, had a different take.

"As Paul and I were discussing off-air, maybe President Trump like to have the government shut down because the [special counsel Bob] Mueller investigation would stop," Kristol quipped to laughter from his co-panelists. "Don't you think?"

Jokes aside, it wouldn't be the first time the president has used the prospect of a government shutdown to his advantage. In late November, The Washington Post reported that Trump privately posited that a shutdown could be good for him "politically," and in May, he tweeted that "our country needs a good 'shutdown'" to help change Senate rules that would provide a smaller margin by which Senate Republicans could pass votes.

Watch the panelists discuss the narrowly-dodged congressional bullet below, via CNN.