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On Capitol Hill, Republican leaders in the House and Senate are well aware of next week’s government shutdown deadline, and they’re hoping that some of their most radical members will back off their threats and defuse a crisis. But away from the Hill, GOP leaders aren’t exactly getting a lot of help from their party’s presidential candidates.
Last week, for example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared to side with the far-right House contingent that actually seems to want a shutdown, participating in a phone meeting with several of the members clashing with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Politico reported soon after, “DeSantis’ message, according to a person familiar with the call: ‘I got your back. Keep fighting.’”
Donald Trump is apparently thinking along similar lines, though his motivations seem a bit more personal. The former president published this item to his social-media platform Wednesday night:
A very important deadline is approaching at the end of the month. Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government that refuses to close the Border, and treats half the Country as Enemies of the State. This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other Patriots. They failed on the debt limit, but they must not fail now. Use the power of the purse and defend the Country!
There’s obviously no point in parsing every strange detail of Trump’s missive, but there are a couple of elements to keep in mind. The first is that he clearly remains focused on his own legal jeopardy.
The former president’s pitch wasn’t that a shutdown would itself derail federal prosecutions, but rather, that his GOP congressional allies should take this opportunity to “defund these political prosecutions.” In other words, Trump sees this as a point that deserves to be part of the negotiations.
This is, in his mind, the Republicans’ “last chance” to deny funding to federal law enforcement as part of the larger campaign to rescue Trump from accountability.
The second element of note is that the House GOP’s pro-shutdown contingent wasted little time seizing on the former president’s online statement. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, for example, declared in a missive of his own overnight, “Trump opposes the continuing resolution. Hold the line.”
Or put another way, the former president’s statement might very well make a shutdown even more likely.
As for the consequences for the Justice Department if Republicans follow through on these threats, Attorney General Merrick Garland told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, “I haven’t done a complete calculation on the effects of a shutdown. ... It will certainly disrupt all of our normal programs, including our grant programs to state and local law enforcement, and to our ability to conduct our normal efforts with respect to the entire scope of our activities.”