Yesterday, Trump told a group of senior GOP lawmakers, "I’m OK with a shutdown."
Those not OK with a government shutdown are 800,000 federal employees who will either work without pay or not work at all — also without pay, of course — at the departments of Treasury, Agriculture, Homeland Security, Interior, State, Transportation, Commerce, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development.
In lost productivity, the cost of a shutdown will run in the billions, most likely, and millions of Americans will be inconvenienced.
All because Trump "was agitated over suggestions in the conservative media that he was caving on his border wall campaign promise."
Said Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, on the House floor: "Mr. President, we’re going to back you up if you veto this bill…. But more importantly the American people will be there, they’ll be there to support you."
True enough, except it's not. Fifty-one percent of respondents to a Morning Consult poll said they'd blame Trump or the Republican Congress for a shutdown; 55 percent said Trump's cherished wall "is not important enough to shut down the government — far greater than the 31 percent who say it is important enough."
But what's a shutdown to Trump? Why should he care? He has his, so those 800,000 federal employees and their hobbled Tiny Tims can just spend Christmas wondering when their next paycheck will come.