Associated Press, NYT Torpedo Democratic Narrative On Government Shutdown

Two meteors fell yesterday. Tim covered one of them; the government has been shutdown after the Senate failed to cobble enough votes to pass a stopgap measure to keep its doors open. Nancy Pelosi of course attacked the Trump White House (via Roll Call):

Pelosi: Tonight, on the eve of the first anniversary of his inauguration, President Trump earned an ‘F’ for failure in leadership.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 20, 2018

Pelosi: Now as President, President Trump tweets that ‘our country needs a good shutdown.’ There is no such thing as a good shutdown of government. Republicans’ total inability to govern is once again threatening our economy
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 20, 2018

The Senate on Friday failed to cut off debate on a House-passed bill that would avert a government shutdown and extend funding another four weeks, setting into motion a lapse of appropriations under a unified Republican government.
Lawmakers spent the day trying to negotiate a deal. Democrats huddled as a conference prior to the vote, while several GOP members met in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office. White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short traversed the Capitol throughout the night to meet with House and Senate leadership offices. But in the end, the Senate was unable to muster the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the measure, falling short, 50-49.
McConnell voted against the measure so he could bring the measure back up for reconsideration.

After a continuing resolution to keep the government open was passed in December, Democrats signaled that they would not be supporting future spending bills, even clean ones, until FISA, Children’s Health Insurance Program, and DACA were addressed. FISA is all but a done deal. CHIP is funded for six years with the House spending bill that passed on Thursday, and DACA doesn’t come to a head until March. President Trump issued a six-month enforcement delay on DACA when he decided to wind down the program gradually in September of 2017, citing the Obama-era program is constitutionally questionable. The delay was meant for Congress to get DACA right. Everyone wants to do something for this program’s 800,000 recipients. The issue here is that Trump wants a wall. No wall, no deal—that’s the mantra.

Democrats have a) longed called government shutdowns irresponsible, directing their attacks at Republicans; and b) they’ve said that tying immigration to budgetary matters is just an exercise in chaos. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) mentioned that during the 2013 debt ceiling negotiations. The latter is the audible here. Democrats want a DACA deal first. It's all insane. Congressional Democrats are getting everything they want. The only problem is that they don’t like the order in which Senate Republicans are acting on these items. Luckily, the Times and AP cite who really deserves the blame for this shutdown—and it’s not the GOP. Five Democrats broke ranks to vote for the measure. Even The Times’ Jonathan Martin noted that it’s hard to call this a GOP shutdown when most of the Senate GOP caucus and five Democrats voted to keep the government open.

Five Democrats -- Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkamp, Doug Jones, Joe Manchin and Claire McCaskill -- all voted yes on the bill; four Republicans -- Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee and Rand Paul -- all voted no https://t.co/eK4NmkzQpF pic.twitter.com/3m618KIyuz
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 20, 2018

Hard for Ds to say this is a GOP shutdown if most Rs vote to keep gov’t open & they’re joined by red state Dshttps://t.co/AQ4zxy15fO
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 20, 2018

It’s weird to insist a shutdown is all Republicans’ fault because they run the whole government while also demanding that Dems block any funding bill that doesn’t contain a specific provision.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) January 20, 2018

(H/T Twitchy)