WASHINGTON WEEK: Funding fights in Washington usually play out like games of chicken. Right now, neither party seems ready to give in. Join moderator Jeffrey Goldberg, Leigh Ann Caldwell of Puck News, Andrew Desiderio of Punchbowl News, and Toluse Olorunnipa and Ashley Parker of The Atlantic.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, THE ATLANTIC: I’m going to say something that we don’t hear enough in this city, which is I agree with you. I’m not going to try to — JEFFREY GOLDBERG, ‘WASHINGTON WEEK’ HOST: You’re really deflating this. OLORUNNIPA: — score a political point here. GOLDBERG: Not the confrontation that I was hoping for, but go ahead. for our leaders on Capitol Hill. OLORUNNIPA: [That’s] for our leaders on Capitol Hill. But I do think that a lot of what Leigh Ann is saying is true. We have had these shutdowns. This is the Democrats’ only chance to sort of fight back in an era where they feel like they’ve been taking blows from Donald Trump and the White House over and over and over again. What makes this shutdown somewhat different from what we’ve seen in the past is that Trump is weaponizing it against Democrats and against Democratic cities. Russ Vought, who is his office of Management and Budget director, is specifically targeting Democratic projects, Democratic cities, cutting funding from these various projects in places like New York and California, saying that it’s because of the shutdown. We haven’t seen that in the past because those constituents are supposed to be Americans. They’re supposed to be constituents of the president. It’s not they’re from red states or blue states, so, you know, they can be attacked or not attacked. So, that’s one of the things that’s different about this. And Trump seems to be relishing the opportunity to go after, quote/unquote Democrat agencies and Democratic constituents.

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