As the government shutdown continues on with no end in sight, President Trump’s only hope is that gradually people stop blaming him and start claiming that “both sides” are responsible for making hundreds of thousands of people come to work without pay.
It seems to be working on The View co-host Abby Huntsman.
During a discussion about the shutdown on Wednesday morning’s show, co-host Joy Behar said that all Trump has to do is “end the shutdown and then talk to that Democrats about what they want to do” but he “doesn’t want to do that.”
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“It does seem weird to me that we were in a place, literally, a year ago when Democrats agreed to $20 billion for the wall, but now they're not willing to budge on any money for the wall,” Huntsman, a former Fox News host, said. “How do you go from such an extreme and a year later?”
Similarly, Meghan McCain said she has a “fear there's going to be no budging on either side and our government is going to be shut down for an unfathomable amount of time,” adding, “this is the type of thing that happens in third world countries.”
“Wait a second, why should Nancy Pelosi give in? The polls are on her side,” Behar said, interrupting her. As Huntsman accused her of “admitting that it’s all political,” Behar added, “If you give in to his shutdown this time, he’ll shut it down the next time. It's like a child, you give him the cookie this time, he wants the cookie the next time, that’s what we’re dealing with.”
Later, Huntsman returned to her same line of questioning, arguing, “We are here at this place where no one has a strategy, no one seems to be willing to compromise on anything to come to the middle, they're not even meeting together at the White House is where we are right now. Why were Democrats willing even a year ago to pay for that money knowing that the Mexicans weren’t paying for it?”
“Immigration reform was on the table then, Abby,” Sunny Hostin told her.
As their co-hosts pointed out, during those negotiations a year ago, there was a potential deal to give the DREAMers legal protection in exchange for border security funding that would have included Trump’s wall, but the president ultimately blew up the deal. And that was at a time when Democrats did not control either branch of the legislature. Now that Democrats control the House, the president has made no indications that he would be willing to strike such a deal again.
They did not need to remind her that Trump told the Democratic leadership, “I am proud to shut down the government for border security. I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it.”
