Amy Walter on Shutdown: Why Do Democrats Want To Do This And What Are They Going To Try To Extract?
PBS NEWSHOUR: NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter join Geoff Bennett to discuss the latest political news, including the federal government shutdown reaching day six with no signs of the stalemate ending.
GEOFF BENNETT, PBS NEWSHOUR: And, Amy, there’s some new polling from CBS News and YouGov that shows everyone is getting bad marks for how they’re handling this. About half of Americans disapprove of how the president and Republicans and how Democrats in Congress are dealing with this. Might public pressure change anything? AMY WALTER, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Well, it’s clear, I think as Tam pointed out, that it’s still in the theoretical realm right now. And so when it gets into the realistic realm, whether it’s TSA agents or whether it’s other government services that impact people being cut or stymied, then you may see the pressure coming on. Right now, Democrats feel heartened by the fact that Republicans are still getting a little bit more of the blame in a lot of these public polls. But to me the bigger question has always been, why do Democrats want to do this and what are they going to try to extract from this process? A lot of it driven by, as we have talked about before, the ways in which the Democratic base is so frustrated with what they see as a feckless leadership in Washington. When you looked at that CBS poll, though, only about 48 percent of Democrats think today that this is worth it, that the shutdown is worth it, that trying to get concessions from Republicans on health care, that is not yet breaking through to a majority of even Democratic voters. And so, at the end of the day, if Democrats do end up voting for opening reopening the government by allowing that cloture to happen, then and will the base feel like they got something out of this, or will they feel as if this was yet another fight that Democrats lost to Donald Trump?
