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HOW WILL THIS SHUTDOWN END?
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
Folks, I will not waste your time with a long introduction here. The nation has an overflow of news and limited brain space for politics.
Let’s cut to the bottom line on a big story. When will the federal government shutdown end?
Quick summary: Both parties are digging in and there is little to indicate the way out yet. Based on this, it is hard to see an end to this shutdown happening this week.
1. Lawmakers agree on another short-term funding bill. Since 1987, this is the way every shutdown five days or longer has ended.
Why is this the usual off-ramp? Consider two likely reasons.
In cases where the party making demands fails to get anything they wanted, a short-term funding deal is a slightly easier way to relent without glaringly admitting failure. Alternatively, in cases where the two sides agree to a framework on a larger issue or deal, a short-term funding bill allows time for them to work out the details.
2. Long shutdowns usually end at the end of a week
Looking at all shutdowns longer than five days, a cluster of them have ended on a Friday or Saturday.
For your skeptical friends, these are the four most recent standoffs that led to funding gaps for five days or more.
The longest shutdown on record lasted 35 days, starting from December 2018. It ended on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019.
A 16-day shutdown in 2013. This one ended on a Wednesday — not at the end of the week — on Oct. 16.
There were two shutdowns in 1995. There was a five-day shutdown that ended on Sunday, Nov. 19. And a second one that lasted 21 days until Saturday, Jan. 6, 1996.
Why would this be?
I am not a social scientist, but I know Congress and shutdowns. Two ideas come to mind.
Federal workers in shutdowns usually miss paychecks on Fridays, adding to pressure to end the shutdown that day or soon after.
And, as you loyal readers know, Congress likes to go home on weekends. Staying to work often softens resolve. We joke about it, but that factor cannot be overstated.
The bottom line
How will this shutdown end? Democrats hope to get an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies. But if shutdowns of the past are prologue, Democrats are likely to either get nothing or a short-term agreement on the issue, with the hope of doing more later.
And when? While this Friday is possible, lawmakers do not appear close to ending this yet. Federal workers have not yet missed a paycheck.
History suggests to look more to the end of next week (or following weeks) for a rainbow to appear.
At Bondi’s confirmation hearing in January, a major question for Democrats was whether her loyalty as the nation’s top law enforcement officer would lie with the law or the president.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., reminded Bondi in a Senate hearing on Tuesday that she’d made a “clear commitment you would not politicize your position.”
The senator, a former prosecutor, said he had a “heavy heart” months into her tenure.
“The department has become President Trump's personal sword and shield to go after his ever-growing list of political enemies, and to protect himself, his allies and associates,” he said.
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time since her confirmation hearing, Bondi was light on direct answers as Democrats pressed her on the ways President Donald Trump might be using the Justice Department to prosecute perceived political foes.
Watch the video in the player above.
Schiff has been among Trump’s targets since he became president again in January. Trump has threatened to investigate Schiff for the senator’s role in his impeachment proceedings and on the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack.
He noted that several career prosecutors had quit the DOJ because they were worried they’d be forced to commit certain unethical actions at odds with the independence of the agency.
The senator then asked about the DOJ’s decision to end a Biden-era investigation into Tom Homan, now Trump’s “border czar,” for accepting $50,000 in cash in 2024 from undercover FBI agents in exchange for future government contracts.
Bondi refused to directly answer Schiff’s questions. At one point, arms crossed, Bondi asked Schiff if he’d “apologize to Donald Trump” for his role in pursuing impeachments against the president. She also called him “a failed lawyer.”
Watch the clip in the player above.
Schiff met Bondi’s opposition by ticking through a list of questions that she had avoided answering from other Democrats on the panel, including on Homan, as well as on how the administration had handled the Jeffrey Epstein case.
“When will it be that the members of this committee, on a bipartisan basis, demand answers to those questions, and refuse to accept personal slander as an answer to those questions?” Schiff said as Bondi continued to interject.
Another 13% want some of the Epstein files released, while 9% don’t want any documents released.
President Donald Trump’s administration has faced growing bipartisan pressure to release the government’s files on Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while in jail awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Image by Jenna Cohen/PBS News
Trump, who called for release of the files during his reelection campaign, has called the case “a hoax” since returning to office. He has also downplayed or denied his relationship with the convicted child sex offender, even as more documents, such as his purported birthday note to Epstein, have been released by Congress. Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but his relationship with Epstein has been under renewed scrutiny.
While Trump has told the public not to “waste time and energy” on Epstein, majorities in each party say they want all the documents released, with those sentiments strongest among Democrats (84%) and independents (83%).
Though the president has stoked conspiracy theories that the documents were invented by Democrats or other foes, he’s faced pressure from his own supporters on this issue. A majority of Republicans — 67% — said they’d want all the files released, which “obviously goes in the face of what the administration has been pushing,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist University Institute for Public Opinion.
“What we’ve been talking about since Donald Trump came on the political scene way back when, now 10 years ago really, is that despite things he’s done and said, nothing seems to stick,” Miringoff said, “but the Epstein thing certainly speaks to an exception that proves the rule.”
Another key takeaway from the poll: A majority of Americans — 61% — disapprove of how the Trump administration has handled the Epstein files.
That includes 88% of Democrats and 69% of independents.
Only 20% overall approve, while another 20% say they don’t have enough information to weigh in.
Only 45% of Republicans approve of the administration’s handling of the files, while 30% are unsure and another 25% disapprove.
THIS WEEK’S TRIVIA QUESTION
By Joshua Barajas
Senior Editor, Digital
A U.S. president has federally mobilized the National Guard for missions within the country at least 10 different times since World War II.
According to the Guard’s own accounting of its history, these missions have largely focused on holding up racial desegregation efforts and responding to riots, though a president has called on these troops for other kinds of emergencies.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon deployed the Guard to respond to a multi-day strike from a particular group of government workers.
Our question: Which group of workers went on strike in New York, leading to one of the largest walkouts of federal employees and a National Guard deployment?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shoutout next week.
Last week, we asked: Which president signed a law that included rebranding the War Department as the Defense Department?
The answer: Harry Truman. The president signed the National Security Act of 1947 into law, which reorganized the Navy and War Departments and the Air Force under one banner — the National Military Establishment — as a response to growing concerns over Soviet Union aggression as the Cold War got underway. Two years later, Congress renamed the organization as the Department of Defense.
Congratulations to our winners: Ed Witt and Linda Ross!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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