the wall. it s still not clear, robert, what the groundbreaking to this wall is, the $150 million contract that the president says he has given out. the president hasn t answered our questions of where that is, who is building it and how it s getting paid for. that clip underscores how we re really only in chapter one of this shutdown showdown. even if the government reopens and they don t have a long-term deal, the government will reopen until early february. that s right around the state of the union address. you could have, in one month from now, a whole episode with the president going to the border, if they have a clean bill this time, fighting again at the state of the union to make some sort of standoff over immigration. final thoughts to you, matt. if you were in your old job, advising this president, if you were in the shoes of mick mulvaney, incoming chief of staff, what would you be telling him to do? i would be suggesting that we need to find the right end game here
positioned himself that way because subtly he s been calling it steel slats, not a wall. and he said if i call it this, maybe democrats will support it, as if they re not privy to the whole game here. what s interesting from the macro standpoint is i spent the day talking to people who inside the white house, allies of the white house, and they feel good about where they stand right now. they think that when congress reconvenes in january because everyone assumes it s going to go to january now, that they are going to be playing on their side of the 50 yard line. this will be a debate over border security and wall funding and not over what nancy pelosi wants to do which is ethics reform and government oversight or congressional oversight over the federal branch. so they are feeling somewhat emboldened. i m just relaying what i m saying. first the opening of the government. that s the first thing. you can have a conversation for the, what, six weeks the cr lasts for but you can t un
resolve this situation and this is another sign of washington s dysfunctionality. mack, you re right. that is a promise that s already been broken. mexico is not paying for the wall. the government is now shut down because the president wants to make sure that congress puts taxpayers on the hook for that border wall bill. i think that s exactly right and i think robert may have outlined a potential end game. at some point of course, we ve had the holidays here, and that softens a bit or changes the dynamic of a government s shutdown perhaps. but at some point, i think the pressure starts to build on both the democrats but particularly on the president and the white house. part of that, kimberly and charlie, is the fact that, yeah, it s the holidays. things can kind of chill, kind of quiet. this affects actual people. we talked about this hash tag all over social media, the new york times reporting on a
on that if he chooses to extend that and loses any possible claim, that he also doesn t have, that this is a democratic shutdown. it is all on him and he is waging a war over a wall. as hans explained, a lot of these workers are democrats, is the point he was trying to make, and so nancy pelosi should try to open the government for them or give him the wall for them and many of these federal workers are telling him to stay the course and stay strong. the largest federal workers union came out and said these are people who are eager to get back to work. they re unequivocal ly opposinga shutdown as a means resolving policy disputes this is not about a wall. this is about 800,000 real people with real families and real bills to pay. they re just trying to feed their families and pay the rent. but coming out of what robert was talking about earlier, this is a strategy for him that has
which is a live shot about nothing. that about sums it up, hallie. back to you, garrett. exactly. the senate will be back in session. it s not the full crew. they cleared the decks before leaving town so they could moving quickly if and when there is a deal. right now, no deal is in the offing. democrats are looking to the president, hoping they will come to him with an offer they feel he can accept. they don t really know where he stands. despite the president saying he definitely wants a border wall, he has also called it a wall, a fence, steel slats. the dollar figure seems to be an open question and democrats don t want to move until the president moves and that s leaving republicans essentially on the outside here, even though they control both chambers, waiting to see what democrats and the president can hash out. republican senator bill cassidy on another network this morning was talking about exactly that.