Mulvaney: Pelosi stalling shutdown talks over House speaker bid

WASHINGTON — Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Friday that Nancy Pelosi’s not-quite-locked-up bid to become House speaker has stalled negotiations to end the government shutdown.

Mulvaney said that while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer seemed interested in making a deal, “it’s Nancy Pelosi preventing that from happening.”

“They left town,” he said of the Democrats during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“And I think the reason they did is because Nancy Pelosi, in fairness, does not have the votes for the speakership yet. She cannot be seen by her party as being weak on negotiating with Donald Trump.”

“So we fully expect that until she is elected speaker and has locked that vote up, we don’t expect to hear from the Democrats again,” Mulvaney continued. “They told us last night that they were not countering our last offer.”

Schumer’s spokesman, Angelo Roefaro, said in a statement Thursday night that the New York Democrat had explained to Vice President Mike Pence in private that the White House’s offer wouldn’t pass the Senate.

A funding bill with the $5 billion that President Trump wants for the border wall has already passed through the House. A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has said the House is waiting for action in the Senate.

0 chance of funding in the replacement.

Practically zero, unless Senate Republicans are willing to play hardball, which they've historically been loathe to do.

If Pelosi passes a new funding bill without wall funding, McConnell could allow an amendment to add the funding in the Senate. If that happens, Schumer will block cloture. At that point, talk of the "nuclear option" will start up again. McConnell has been even more loathe to do away with the filibuster (and Pelosi & Schumer know this).

It's possible that McConnell (who loathes a government shutdown most of all) might try to trade an agreement on DACA with Schumer, amending the House bill to add wall funding tied to some form of legalization for DACA children, or maybe asylum seekers with children. If this happens, then the new bill with wall funding goes back to the House.

Once back in the House, it's possible that this is what Schumer and Pelosi wanted all along, so it might pass. A more likely scenario is that, having gotten Trump onboard with the Senate compromise, Pelosi will try to shave some money off of the wall funding to pressure Trump into taking less than was agreed to in the Senate, while still keeping all the immigration compromises that the Democrats gained.

Of course, this would then have to go back again to the Senate while the clock is still ticking on the "government shutdown," which the MSM will be constantly reminding us about. The MSM will blame McConnell for keeping the government shut down if he adds back the funding amendment; then they will blame McConnell if he doesn't accept a Democrat immigration deal; then they will blame McConnell if he doesn't accept a Pelosi bait-and-switch on the wall funding levels.

So, there are some bold moves to make to keep the funding in play. It's just that Republicans have tended to be "worst case" fatalists who assume the inevitable endgame failure, and so jump right to it without trying to keep the ball in play as long as possible.

-PJ

thanks for the explanation.

it will be interesting to watch exactly how long the republicans can hang tough on the shutdown. the house speaker will have a bully pulpit to proclaim trump the budget anti-satan every hour of every day, and the msm will parrot it in every airport on earth.

i sympathize with federal employees but i think it would be worthwhile for them to seek other employment. if they don’t i think trump could be justified in viewing the holdouts as comprised mainly of democrats. if so, in my book they are economically expendable— at least as expendable as i apparently was in 2008 (and eventually they will get back pay so they are only temporarily expendable in any case).

trump will lose his base if he caves on the wall.

that base will seek the point of least resistance to release its political resolve. i hope they can wait until the 2020 elections. (if not, then, ...)

we live in interesting times...

I'm not blaming Pelosi like the article's headline suggests. If I were in Pelosi's position, I'd be doing the same thing. I, too, don't know why the author is tying this to a Pelosi bid for Speaker.

The Democrats are simply running out the clock to expire the current House bill. They don't need anything other than time. Everything I laid out comes into play after the next Congress convenes.

-PJ

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