DON & GOP BLAMED FOR SHUTDOWN, POLL FINDS
Most rap wall plan, want gov’t reopened
It’s all on you, Mr. President.
American voters overwhelmingly fault President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress for the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and firmly dismiss the notion that a border wall is crucial to national security, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday.
The survey found that 63% of voters oppose Trump’s tactic of keeping the government closed in an attempt to strong-arm Congress into funding the construction of a behemoth barrier on the Mexican border. Only 32% support the strategy, which is forcing some 800,000 federal employees to work without pay or not work at all.
The issue still falls on partisan lines, however. Contempt for the wall is high among every political, gender, education, age and racial group, except for registered Republicans, who support keeping the government closed 67-24% and oppose Democratic attempts at reopening it 52-39%.
But Trump is losing overall on the question of who’s to blame for the shutdown — going into its 25th day — with 56% of voters blaming Trump and the GOP while a mere 36% point fingers at Democrats.
In another rebuke of Trump’s partition obsession, 63% of voters support, and only 30% oppose, the repeated attempts by congressional Dems to reopen a majority of the shuttered federal agencies with full fiscal year funding while bankrolling the Department of Homeland Security on current spending levels through Feb. 8.
The compromise, which was previously backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), would allow Congress to keep discussing disagreements on border security spending without holding the rest of the government hostage.
The poll also shows 55% of voters remain solidly opposed to building a wall at all while only 43% are keen on the project, which the President used to promise Mexico would pay for.
Voters separately reject “every argument” for the wall, according to the poll: 59-40% say it’s not a good use of taxpayer dollars; 55-43% say a wall would not make the country safer; 59-40% say a wall isn’t necessary and 52-41% say a wall is inconsistent with American values.
“’Mr. President, it’s on you,’ voters say about the government shutdown,” according to Tim Malloy, assistant director of the nonpartisan Quinnipiac survey.
The poll was conducted between Jan. 9 and 13 and interviewed 1,209 voters across the nation of all political stripes. The sample had a 3.3% margin of error.
Trump ignored the poll results and kept pushing his peculiar talking points
for building a wall.
“They say it’s medieval, a wall — it is medieval, so is a wheel,” Trump said at an agricultural event in New Orleans on Monday afternoon. “Every car I’ve seen still has wheels. Wheels work and walls work, you know, there are some things you can’t beat.”
Malloy pointed out the poll shows voters agree across party lines there are security and humanitarian crises at the southern border, 54-43% and 68-26% respectively.
But, the pollster heeded, voters “absolutely don’t think a wall will solve the problem.”
The President has long tried to fire up his base by accusing Democrats of being against any type of border security, claiming they want “open borders” and “crime.”
Those assertions are, however, simply not true.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have agreed to earmark some $1.3 billion for beefed-up border security, including hiring more agents, advancing drone technology and repairing existing fencing.
Dems remain resolute on not putting up any taxpayer dollars for a border wall, the very concept of which they excoriate as ineffective, overly expensive and immoral.
Speaking from the Senate floor Monday afternoon, Schumer noted the Quinnipiac poll found “a healthy minority of Republicans” back the Democratic plan to reopen the government.
“So even Republicans are moving to the position: open the government, then debate border security,” Schumer said. “President Trump started this shutdown. He’s the person continuing it.”
The partial shutdown went into effect on Dec. 22, resulting in the closure of the Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, State, Transportation, Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security and Housing and Urban Development, as well as dozens of federal agencies. Last week, the shutdown became the longest in history, beating out the previous 21-day record set in 1995.
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) introduced another package of continuing resolution bills on Monday, which would reopen all shuttered agencies and are likely to pass the House. However, the effort will presumably stop in its tracks as McConnell says he won’t put anything up in the Senate that Trump won’t commit to signing.
Trump used the historically solemn backdrop of a national address from the Oval Office last week to advocate for his wall by reiterating selective statistics about crimes committed by immigrants and drugs smuggled across the border.
But the Oval Office speech didn’t prove particularly convincing, according to Quinnipiac.
Only 2% of the surveyed voters said Trump’s televised talk changed their minds on the issue while 89% said it didn’t. Meanwhile, 49% of voters deemed the speech “mostly misleading” and 32% called it “mostly accurate.”