White House Watch: Shutdown Corner?

Here was President Donald Trump Monday morning on Twitter, not sounding as if he’s closing in on a deal:

In all likelihood, Congress is headed for another short-term budget resolution until the immigration impasse can be resolved. But notice how the point of negotiation is moving away from the White House’s position. It was quite a concession for Trump to agree to a blanket amnesty for 1.8 million people who were illegally brought into the country as minors—and they might have gotten a considerable concession from enough Democrats for it in the money for a wall. But in asking for just a little more—the additional restrictions on legal immigration—the White House may not just be pushing away gettable Democrats willing to buck their own party on the wall. Would there be enough Republicans, who are more split on the question of legal immigration than on that of cracking down on illegal immigration, to back Trump? It’s not clear there would be.

Mark It Down—“Yeah, March 5th is the deadline.” —Raj Shah, White House deputy press secretary, on when there needs to be a legislative fix for DACA before ending the program.

President Trump talked up the Republicans’ new tax cuts outside Cincinnati Monday, telling Americans his leadership will keep the economy strong and urging them to support the GOP in this year’s midterms. “When I signed the tax cuts six weeks ago, it set off a tidal wave of good news that continues to grow every single day,” he said. “Before the ink was dry, companies were announcing thousands and thousands of new jobs and enormous investments to their workers.”

Speaking at a factory in Blue Ash, Ohio, Trump praised the work ethic of “hardworking, patriotic Americans,” telling the assembled workers they were “the foundation of American strength and the key to America’s future”—along with his own strong leadership. “You know, you can work hard, but if you don’t have the right leader setting the right tone—in all fairness, I’m not even saying, I am non-braggadocious,” Trump said. “But if I don’t set a tone like, ‘you’re not going to keep taking our jobs,’ you’re not going to keep doing what you’re doing.”

After a few weeks of sticking to the teleprompters in public appearances, Trump seemed to relish the chance to perform for an adoring crowd, and he took multiple extended potshots at political opponents past and present. Democrats who didn’t clap during his State of the Union address, he said, were “un-American” and “treasonous.”

“They would rather see Trump do badly than our country do well,” he said. “Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

The president’s ebullience was undercut by some sour economic news Monday, however, as the stock market took an unexpected plunge after months of practically uninterrupted growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 1,200 points on the day, a loss of 4.6 percent. The White House downplayed the news as a short-term speed bump Monday, and maintained that the long-term economic outlook remains as strong as ever.

“The president’s focus is on our long-term economic fundamentals, which remain exceptionally strong, with strengthening U.S. economic growth, historically low unemployment, and increasing wages for American workers,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “The president’s tax cuts and regulatory reforms will further enhance the U.S. economy and continue to increase prosperity for the American people.”

President Trump has frequently taken credit for last year’s bullish markets, maintaining that the stock market would be struggling along if Democrats were in power.

The Dow remains up nearly 40 percent since President Trump’s election in November 2016.

Trailer of the Day—The next Star Wars flick, Solo, released its first trailer on Monday:

Going Through Withdrawals—The White House has officially withdrawn two of its nominees for high-profile positions within the administration. K.T. McFarland, the former deputy national security adviser who left the White House last year, will no longer be Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Singapore. Last Friday, in a statement announcing McFarland’s withdrawal, President Trump blamed Democrats who “chose to play politics rather than move forward with a qualified nominee for a critically important post.”

McFarland’s brief White House tenure working underneath embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn was a big source of concern about her nomination—and not just with Democrats. “Senate Republicans could have approved her nomination unilaterally, but the fact that it was never brought to a vote suggested that she had made even some of them uneasy,” the New York Times reported Friday.

The other withdrawn nomination was for Kathleen Hartnett White to chair the Council on Environmental Quality. White, who became controversial due to her skepticism of man-driven climate change, was unable to get enough support in the Senate following her confirmation hearing, and Trump resubmitted her nomination last month.

One More Thing—With White’s withdrawal, there are now two offices within the Executive Office of the President without presidential nominees to head them. The other is the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which so far in the Trump administration has not had a director nominated.

2018 Watch—Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics has a terrific breakdown of all the key districts that will determine if Republicans can hold on to the House in 2018—or if Democrats can win back the majority there they lost in 2010. It’s worth a read as well as a bookmark as a resource for political junkies as this November’s midterm elections approach.

Song of the Day— “29” by Ryan Adams