By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
January 15 at 10:09 AM

... the Quinnipiac poll ... does find that 54 percent of voters believe there is a “security crisis" at the border ...

But Quinnipiac finds that even larger majorities don’t believe the wall Trump wants will be effective in addressing that crisis. Voters say by 59-to-40 percent that a wall is not necessary to protect the border; they say by 56-to-43 percent that a wall won’t be effective in protecting the border; and they say by 55-43 percent that a wall will not make the United States safer.

This gets at an absolutely crucial way that Trump is losing this argument. The Democratic position is that we can secure the border without building the wall Trump wants, and Democrats have offered him $1.3 billion in new border security money, with restrictions against wall spending, that would do just that.

The public accepts the Democratic reading of the situation, not Trump’s. The Quinnipiac poll also finds that 61 percent of voters support funding border security without the wall; that 59 percent think the wall is a bad use of taxpayer money; and that 63 percent oppose shutting down the government to get the wall ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/15/trump-just-blew-up-his-own-absurd-spin-about-shutdown/?utm_term=.4f61be1a2fd9

And you can still think that setting fire to $5 billion isn't going to do anything about that "crisis" (however defined).

Even though Greg Sargent apparently gets that point, he meanders to it in such a roundabout way the casual reader can be forgiven for not understanding that "The public supports the Democratic reading of the situation" based on his prose.

BY ARIS FOLLEY - 01/15/19 09:31 AM EST

The Trump administration now estimates that the ongoing partial government shutdown will cost twice as much as it originally estimated.

An official with the administration told CNBC this week that the administration initially had estimated the shutdown would prompt a 0.1 percentage point subtraction from growth every two weeks, but that figure has since doubled.

According to the outlet, the Trump administration now estimates that the shutdown is resulting in a 0.1 percentage point subtraction from growth every week.

The administration's initial estimate only accounted for the economic impact of the roughly 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or forced to work without pay for the time being, the official told CNBC. The official said the administration now believes the economy will be hit twice as hard due to losses from private contractors who have been impacted by the shutdown ...

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/425366-trump-admin-estimates-shutdown-will-cost-twice-as-much-as-it-originally

David Jackson and Michael Collins, USA TODAY
Published 3:28 p.m. ET Jan. 14, 2019

... "We can stop it, but we can't stop it if we're going to play politics," Trump said in New Orleans at the convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation, some members of which have had trouble getting loans since the shutdown began 24 days ago ...

One part of the government basically shuttered for more than three weeks – the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

More than 25 minutes into his speech, Trump finally said that "the USDA is doing everything in its power to help the farmers" deal with the shutdown.

Calling himself "a great friend of the farmer," Trump also asked Farm Bureau members to lobby Democratic members of Congress to end the shutdown by backing his plans for a border wall ...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/14/donald-trump-defends-government-shutdown-group-farmers/2571098002/

By Editorial Board January 14 at 7:20 PM

FORGET DONALD TRUMP. The president — erratic, posturing, pandering and detail-averse — does not have the dealmaking chops to .. reopen the government. That’s no excuse for Congress to sit on its hands. Instead of digging themselves deeper into their own trench of irreconciliation, why don’t lawmakers put a tough-minded deal on the president’s desk and force his hand?

That deal, as many in Washington know and have advocated for months, involves a swap: Shield hundreds of thousands of “dreamers” from the threat of deportation, ensuring them the safe and secure lives they deserve in the country they’ve known since they were brought to this nation as children. On top of that, grant a reprieve to tens of thousands of Hondurans, Haitians and Salvadorans who have lived legally for years in the United States but now face the threat of removal as the administration rescinds their existing protections under the temporary protected status (TPS) program. In return, offer Mr. Trump some money to build his wall.

Everyone gnashes their teeth over that tradeoff, proof that it contains the elements of a plausible compromise.

It may feel comfortable to wallow in the moral certainties of a No Deal, but why stoop to the president’s level? Newly elected Democrats who flipped previously GOP-held seats might take account of their swing-voting constituents who might be fine with a measure of creative conciliation that restarts the government. Democrats from Trump-hating districts can sell the deal as a rescue package for well more than 1 million dreamers and TPS recipients who face imminent and drastic threats to their futures. Republicans who want to build a wall can crow that they secured funding, at last, for a down payment on one ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forget-donald-trump-congress-can-make-a-deal-to-end-the-shutdown/2019/01/14/db10b2d4-1816-11e9-9ebf-c5fed1b7a081_story.html?utm_term=.dafcdcdff46c

By Eugene Scott
January 14 at 1:57 PM

It has been said that the voting bloc President Trump cares about most — or maybe even cares only about — is his base. And while Trump won the support of certain voting blocs generally viewed as part of his base, such as white evangelicals and older Americans, few groups are viewed as being more synonymous with Trump’s base than white working-class voters.

But even though this group gives Trump higher marks than most -- only 37 percent of Americans approve of Trump job’s performance, according to the latest CNN poll, white working class voters’s support for the president is declining. CNN reported:

“The increase in disapproval for the President comes primarily among whites without college degrees, 45% of whom approve and 47% disapprove, marking the first time his approval rating with this group has been underwater in CNN polling since February 2018. In December, his approval rating with whites who have not received a four-year degree stood at 54%, with 39% disapproving.”

While Trump easily won white working-class voters in the 2016 presidential election, a lot has changed since then. The president has found himself in more controversies related to his financial dealings, high turnover among White House staffers and his relationship with Russian power players. It is perhaps these concerns that are playing a part in causing white working-class voters to express declining support for the president ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/14/shutdown-extends-trump-losing-support-white-working-class-voters/?utm_term=.441610788938

BY BESS LEVIN
JANUARY 14, 2019 5:13 PM

In mid-December, Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office and told Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, live on television, that he would take full responsibility for a government shutdown and would not blame them for it. Of course, literally no one was surprised when he proceeded to do just the opposite, in typical all-caps, shrieking-banshee fashion, because 1) he’s a pathological liar, and 2) shutdowns are unpopular, particularly the sort that drag on longer than any other time in U.S. history. Even Trump, dumb as he is, is aware that it’s preferable not to be known as the cause of human shit piling up in national parks; some 800,000 federal workers being furloughed or forced to work without pay; airport delays and terminal closures; potential salmonella and E. coli outbreaks; and hits to economic growth. Unfortunately for Trump, most Americans do blame him, probably because he alone engineered the shutdown over a pointless, expensive wall, even after being offered a variety of scenarios to keep the government open.

According to a Washington Post-ABC poll released Sunday, 53 percent of respondents said Trump and Republicans are mainly at fault for the shutdown, while 29 percent blamed congressional Democrats. Trump didn’t fare much better in a CNN poll published Monday, which found that 55 percent of people blamed him for the shutdown and only 32 percent pinned things on Democrats ...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/surprise-the-shutdown-is-making-trump-unpopular