Better in their words…

Well, Mr. President???
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By The Editorial Board WSJ Jan. 19, 2018

Donald Trump spent 90 minutes talking to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House on Friday trying to avoid a government shutdown, and after he left Mr. Schumer vouchsafed that “we made some progress.” But apparently not enough to stop him and his fellow Democrats from threatening to filibuster a government funding bill as we reached our Friday deadline. This is what Mr. Trump’s life will be like, times about 10, if Democrats retake the House and Senate in November. They’re going to torture him like a dancing bear.

The most important political fact of this latest shutdown melodrama is that Democrats feel they can get away with it. Democrats are essentially doing what GOP Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee tried in 2013 over repealing ObamaCare: Refuse to fund the government over an unrelated policy issue.

Democrats pilloried Republicans for that one, and Nancy Pelosi called them “legislative arsonists.” But now Mr. Schumer has rallied Democrats, or perhaps they’ve rallied him, to shut down the government over an immigration deadline that is still six weeks away and has nothing to do with funding the government. The audacity is impressive.

The House has passed its funding bill for 30 days along with some policy priorities Democrats profess to want, such as a six-year extension of the CHIP program for children’s health care. Mr. Trump says he’s waiting to sign it. But Mr. Schumer still wants to hold Mr. Trump and the government hostage to the minority’s political priority on immigration.

Democrats are insisting on their timetable for a deal to legalize the so-called Dreamers even though the two sides have only begun to negotiate in earnest and even though Mr. Trump has said he wants to work something out. Mr. Schumer is showing Mr. Trump who’s really in charge.

Democrats are pulling this shutdown stunt because they think they will pay no political price. They see Mr. Trump’s low approval rating. They saw the GOP rout in November in Virginia. They saw Democrats pick up the state Senate seat in Wisconsin this week that Republicans have held for 17 years. They have the press in their pocket. Above all, they figure that Mr. Trump is incapable of making a consistent, credible argument to the American people about the shutdown that might explain what Democrats are really doing.

And why not? Mr. Trump can give a speech saying one thing one day and issue a tweet contradicting himself the next. He nearly scuttled the House funding bill this week with a tweet that said CHIP funding shouldn’t be part of any short-term spending bill. The other day he almost scuttled the renewal of Section 702 intelligence-gathering authority with another impulsive, ignorant tweet. Republicans on Capitol Hill could only roll their eyes and try to repair the damage.

Our guess is that this shutdown, if it happens over the weekend, will be short-lived as the sides work out some deal. But with another fight looming over a two-year budget, and another over raising the debt ceiling, the Schumer Democrats will be back at the same stand soon enough if they think it will play to their advantage. They want chaos in Washington because they think it will contribute to their emerging campaign theme that Mr. Trump is a dangerous man who can’t govern and must be checked by the opposing party.

This is the price Mr. Trump is paying for his reckless habit of tweeting before he thinks and squandering his credibility with false or uninformed statements. Even the 10 Democratic incumbents running in states Mr. Trump won in 2016 aren’t afraid of voting for a shutdown. Imagine how Democrats will treat him if the polls are right and Democrats run all of Congress next year. After a few months Mr. Trump may want to be impeached.

Appeared in the January 20, 2018, print edition.