Democrats are betting that they can win the PR battle over a potential government shutdown this week if a deal on a government spending bill is not reached. Democrats want any potential deal to include a permanent solution to DACA, and the president, along with congressional Republicans want funding for a border wall.
But recent comments made by President Trump over countries that certain immigrants come from have given Democrats, they believe, the moral high ground in the debate. Ed Espinoza, a Democratic strategist in Austin, Texas, said, “The politics, especially right now, is more about why the shutdown is happening — and, if there is a shutdown, it can easily be attributed to the unreasonable demands of a racist president.”
Republicans, however, seem ready to call the Democrats’ bluff. Republican Senator Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, suggested over the weekend that Democrats should think about how their gambit may backfire.
So Democrats are now threatening to shut down the government if they don't get amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants. Let's see how that works out for them, especially in places like WV, IN, MO, ND, & MT.
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) January 15, 2018
Cotton is known for his hardline stance on immigration.
Democrats seem intent on taking this argument toward the path of a shutdown, though. They seem concerned, more than anything, about how their base will react if they don’t. In the past week, Democratic lawmakers Keith Ellison, Elizabeth Warren and even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have called on Congress to pass a clean DACA bill, that would not include border wall funding.
The last time the government shut down was in 2013. That shutdown lasted two weeks and was over the implementation of Obamacare.