Apparently the President of the United States has no idea what his own party is trying to achieve. Apparently relations between Trump and the Congress controlled by his own Republicans is so bad they don’t talk about even the most pressing issues.
I know this because the Republican controlled Congress is just about to pass its first bipartisan piece of legislation in the Trump era. The bill will provide funding for the running of the government until the end of September.
The reason that the budget bill will pass is because Republicans in Congress have made some compromises. They need support from at least some Democrats to pass the budget bill, so they cut out a lot of Trump’s biggest wishes. There’s no money to build a giant wall, for example. Planned Parenthood isn’t losing its funding.
Because Senate rules currently require 60 votes to pass a bill, Republicans alone can’t just do whatever they want. If the GOP hadn’t been willing to compromise with Democrats, the government would be shutting down at the of this week.
And if you can’t manage to keep the lights on when you control all three branches of government, then you’re kind of a pathetic political party.
Republicans in Congress understand this.
Donny Trump doesn’t.
In a typically impulsive Twitter rant, the President actually said that he wants the government to shut down in September. In fact, he said that what we need is not a responsible, adult group of leaders who keep the best interests of the people at heart. No, he said that what we need is a “good shutdown” to force everyone to do things Trump’s way.
What a jerk.
The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good "shutdown" in September to fix mess!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
Aside from the heartlessness of wishing a shutdown on the hardworking people in the government, this is just plain stupid.
How does Trump not realize that a government shutdown would, more than anything else, make him look completely inept?
If you have to change Senate rules to get anything done, even when you control both Houses of Congress, you are a pretty crappy leader in anyone’s eyes.
Featured image by Evan Guest via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
