Trump’s Chief of Staff Says Another Government Shutdown Might Be Unavoidable

Congress has until Friday to reach a deal.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In late January, Congress put an end to the longest government shutdown in history with a three-week spending bill and a promise to return to bipartisan talks for a long-term deal. But on Sunday, Trump officials and Republican leaders were uncertain that another shutdown could be avoided.

“You cannot take a shutdown off the table and you cannot take $5.7 billion [for the wall] off the table,” White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday morning on Meet the Press. Congress has until Friday to reach a deal and prevent a second shutdown. 

The 35-day shutdown that began last December as a result of Trump’s insistence on funding for a wall along the Mexican border wreaked havoc on the economy and the day-to-day stability of the 800,000 furloughed and working without pay federal employees. 

On another Sunday show, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the chair of the Appropriations Committee, said there was a “50/50” chance that Congress would be able to make a deal. According to Politico, negotiations hit an impasse when Democrats asked for a cap on the number of beds for immigrant detainees. 

A pair of tweets from the president also seemed to imply that talks about border wall funding were not going smoothly.

Polling shows that most Americans blame Trump and the Republicans for the impasse and have little appetite for a second shutdown. The president has also floated the idea of declaring a national emergency in order to circumvent Congress and secure funding for a wall. Polls show that Americans don’t like that idea either.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate