i do think what the democrats can say is look, we ve been reasonable. we ll allocate money for border security, not for the wall. that s what we re willing to do. that s a logical compromise to say we ll do some plus-up for additional border security but we re not going to pay for this wall. people know the democrats don t control the entire government. what they can do is say we have a different agenda. we have an agenda to rebuild our infrastructure. we have al agenda to secure voting rights for the american people. we have an agenda that can put people to work and donald trump is focused on a wall. that s a very comfortable fight for democrats to have. to say, look, we were willing to compromise on border security but we re not going to pay for a wall that we don t need and people don t want. it needs to be stressed, $5 billion doesn t buy a wall. $5 billion is a figure leaf. it s a way for donald trump to cover a retreat. the question and it s going to be an interesting question
this decision. december 31st, new year s eve is coming up. there are people who have paid $200,000 annual membership to go to mar-a-lago and schmooze with the president. that s money that goes into his pocket. he s expected there. the secret service has paid $50,000 for tents for the secret service for them at this mar-a-lago new year s eve party. will president trump go? i assume he will want to go. how will things look the next day when there are images of the president in black tie talking to people who paid $200,000 a year for access to the president while people are out of work. this is a dynamic situation. and there is no exit for the president. he s already begging for a fig leaf. $5 billion doesn t build a wall. give us $2.5 billion. eventually give us $1.3. at that point democrats will say do they want to give the president cover and maybe for a lot of reasons they ll want to do that and proclaim it a victory or they won t and make him eat it. there s only one way this ends.
also piled on saying the democrats simply skipped town. i wish all options were open. again, we need folks to talk with us. we need folks to at least discuss with us. i cannot it still strikes me as very unusual that the democrats did not provide a counter offer to our last discussion. the president is here. the president cancelled his plans. where are chuck schumer and nancy pelosi? they are not even talking right now. meanwhile a sense of urgency among republicans who still control the house for a few days at least. right now that may be missing on their part. congressman louis gomert of texas said without concessions on a border wall, the president should continue the shutdown indefinitely. because we keep seeing people losing their lives without one. how long, january, february? until hell freezes over. until hell freezes over. meanwhile, politico is reporting that a coalition of liberal groups including the
full year s worth of funding for the wall and that could be 1$1. billion/7 billions. that s probably the lowest level they would accept. but it s a full year s funding for the wall. as it stands the measures they passed originally last week, the so-called continuing resolution would have only funded these government agencies that are closed down through february 8th and then the congress would have had to negotiate spending from that point forward. so what they really want is a full year s worth of funding to get them through to the next year at which point democrats will be in control of the house and republicans fear they re not going to get the money they want. but it s the full year s worth of funding to get from the democrats. the democrats and some of the allies have been putting the blame on nancy pelosi and saying
the republicans. how long are we going to see this narrative, especially leading up to it and will there be space for the other issue to take center stage? oh, yeah, yeah. i think the kavanaugh situation is going to come down measurably in the next few days. until this point democrats have had a huge advantage over republicans. it s only normal that republicans would sort of come back home in the weeks leading up to the midterms, so it s normal that you would see the enthusiasm come up anyway. we do think some enthusiasm additionally was raised because of the kavanaugh fight and it was something that juiced up republicans. they felt like it was a proxy battle over president trump s presidency really, to support president trump, you ve got to support kavanaugh. it did juice up some enthusiasm there. i don t think it s going to last though. it s four weeks and four weeks is a long time. who knows what s going to happen between now and then. we could be talking about something totally d