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Trump Just Made Dems Eat a Mountain of Crow Over Their Fake Shutdown Games

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  March 13, 2025 10:00 PM

So, that was quick. As Rebecca wrote earlier this evening, Senate Democrats caved on the shutdown theater, another brutal reminder that this party, for now at least, is incapable of stopping President Donald J. Trump. Schumer fired the first shot across the bow, keeping his caucus in line in the initial cloture vote on the House’s six-month continuing resolution, which passed on a party-line vote. The GOP’s unity on this matter has been a nice side story. 

Schumer boasted that the GOP doesn’t have the votes in the Senate for cloture. It’s an epic collapse, one that Schumer will pay for with his rabid and unhinged constituents. The Trump White House and the Republicans reacted by shrugging off the threats, the former confident the Democrats would cave. At a private luncheon today, unity among Senate Democrats quickly evaporated. Rachael Bade had more, adding that the blame for the situation in which hordes of government workers are being furloughed via a shutdown would land on Democrats: 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw down the gauntlet Wednesday, proclaiming that Republicans don’t have the 60 votes needed to keep the government open past Friday. But President Donald Trump and senior White House officials are increasingly confident Schumer will release enough centrists to put up the votes for passage, according to multiple White House officials I spoke to over the past 24 hours.

“They’re 100 percent gonna swallow it,” one White House official told me. “They’re totally screwed.”

The confidence is especially noteworthy given that Schumer has yet to detail his plans. Many lawmakers in both parties are privately predicting that some sort of deal will be reached in which Senate Democrats get amendment votes in return for allowing the House-passed “continuing resolution” to advance and ultimately pass. 

Still, that’s not a done deal. And given the intense pressure from the base to flip Trump the bird, there’s still plenty of time for Democrats to back away from a possible deal before Friday’s deadline. 

In some ways the administration looks like it’s almost itching for a shutdown and daring Democrats to touch the stove. Last month, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought notably gave agencies until Thursday to submit plans for “large-scale reductions in force.” The details could spill out hours before a shutdown and would almost certainly agitate the Democratic base even further. 

[…] 

And despite the fact that they need eight Senate Democrats to back this measure for passage, the White House hasn’t bothered to contact any so far. 

The reason is simple: The White House believes Trump and the GOP win this shutdown fight either way. While Vice President JD Vance privately told House Republicans this week that the GOP would be blamed in a shutdown since they control everything, the remarks appear to have been more of an attempt to rally GOP lawmakers to vote for the CR rather than a reflection of how the administration actually views the political landscape. 

On the contrary, White House officials brashly predicted to me that while Elon Musk has gotten flack for dismissing tens of thousands of workers, it’s the Democrats who will take the blame for more than 2 million federal employees getting furloughed, tax returns getting slowed and other benefits and programs getting shuttered if a shutdown occurs. (Which, full disclosure, I’ve been suggesting for weeks.)

Schumer also didn’t have a shutdown plan—just bluster. Was it luck, Democratic Party incompetence, Trump’s team knowing the landscape better, or a combination of all three? Maybe it was, but this party has no message which makes it hard to maintain this stance, especially with the 2026 midterms looking that much harder for Democrats with Tina Brown, Jean Shaheen, Gary Peters opting not to run for re-election in Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Michigan respectively. When has that ever been the case? Where Democrats are afraid to run for re-election in New Hampshire and along the proverbial blue wall? The Trump effect is everywhere.

And the latest Democratic Party talking point has dropped: Republicans are "bastards," and they're ruining democracy...because we didn't win an election. 

Ossoff is vulnerable, by the way.

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