As the blame game over the current government shutdown in D.C. threatens to take up more political resources than actually finding a solution to the deadlock, there is at least one person who knows what the president should do.
That person is Donald Trump himself – with videos of Trump’s advice about a previous potential shutdown going viral amid the current crisis.
“They don’t have the right leader”, he said in 2011 when Barack Obama was in the Oval office. “The United States’ President has to get this done.
“It’s pretty sad because the whole world is looking at us and laughing at us.”
Trump made the comments in an interview with NBC News adding that in his opinion, it isn’t the Democrats or the Republicans that should shoulder the blame, but the U.S. president.
“I hear the Democrats are going to be blamed and the Republicans are going to be blamed. I actually think the president would be blamed,” he told broadcaster Meredith Vieira.
“I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. He’s the one that has to get people together.”
Two years later, in the middle of the 2013 budget standoff, the reality‑TV host, as he then was, was back on screen, offering the same take: “Problems start from the top and they have to get solved from the top. The president’s the leader and he’s got to get everybody in a room and he’s got to lead,” he told Fox News.
The president’s own words are now being used by his political opponents against him.
Democratic Senator Patty Murray – the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history – said: “Trump is shutting down the government because he doesn’t care if you go bankrupt paying for health care. It’s wrong, but he’s right about one thing: he’ll own the Republican shutdown.”
Quoting from Trump himself, she added: “I actually think the president would be blamed if there is a shutdown.”
Federal operations have ground to a halt for the first time in nearly seven years after Congress failed to agree on a funding bill and Democrats and Republicans remain deadlocked over health care subsidies and Medicaid cuts.
How long the current shutdown lasts is anyone’s guess: the shortest shutdowns last only a day or even a few hours. However the longest was in 2018-19, during Trump’s first term, which lasted 34 days and wiped an estimated $6bn off the country’s economy.
