On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said that “Trump absolutely understands that a shutdown would hurt him” and when there was a government shutdown in 2019, “it created a lot of leverage and power for the Democrats to take on Trump then.”
Merkley said, “Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. They control the Oval Office. They’d be voting against our proposal to keep the government open. So, I think that America would understand that this is a Republican shutdown if there’s a shutdown.”
He continued, “And the second concern is Trump’s power in a shutdown. And there are some legitimate concerns about what would happen there. But, let’s turn back the clock to 2019 and what we saw with that 35-day shutdown. Well, it created a lot of leverage and power for the Democrats to take on Trump then. And I can tell you, right now, if we stand up to him, at this moment, it gives us a lot of leverage going forward from this point to get the objectives that we have. The Republican plan is about families lose and billionaires win. And I think Trump absolutely understands that a shutdown would hurt him and it would hurt that strategy, which means it would help our strategy of helping families win and billionaires lose.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
