President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have consistently tried to blame Democrats for the federal government shutdown that has now dragged on for weeks — but Trump also keeps uttering contradictions that throw Johnson un under the bus, strategist said Monday.
"Trump both wants to pretend that he is being magnanimous and he’s governing for all of America, while at the same time, he obviously just wants to govern by fiat," Fair Share America strategist Maura Quint told Greg Sargent with The New Republic.
"And what he really would like is to not have to talk to anybody about anything. But what we have, of course, is that the Democrats have been in D.C. ready to have any sort of conversation and Republicans haven’t even been there."
During the interview, Sargent played a clip of Trump saying of the shutdown and whether he would negotiate with Democrats, "I’m always going to meet. All they have to do is open up the country. Let them open up the country and we’ll meet. We’ll meet very quickly. But they have to open up the country. It’s their fault. Everything is their fault. It’s so easily solved."
This, however, treads on Johnson's strategy of holding the House closed for business for weeks to try to force Senate Democrats to cave and pass the resolution they already did. Meanwhile, Trump himself is stepping on his negotiation message by continually demanding Senate Republicans ax the filibuster and pass the House's resolution on party lines.
Republicans aren't exactly in "disarray," Quint continued. "They’ve been in very clear array, they just sort of line up like little baby ducklings behind whatever Trump says. The problem is, Trump is kind of weaving all over the place, so it’s very, very hard to follow. What I love for that clip is that he doesn’t even say open up the government, right? He says open up the country."
"For all I know, he’s flip-flopping on his stance on borders. Maybe he doesn’t want those anymore," she added jokingly.