Trump blinked first
Between football scores and weekend chores, you might have missed the big news: Trump has blinked. TACO Don has struck again
Trump announced that he has “found” some Defense Department research funds that will make it possible for the men and women of our military to be paid on time. This comes less than 24 hours after Republicans on Capitol Hill were making a full-throated allegation that it would be the Democrats’ fault if our men and women in uniform went unpaid.
If the GOP truly believed that this strategy was going to work, then why the sudden reversal? The answer is easy: No one was buying it. Republicans are clearly getting the blame for the government shutdown. And why shouldn’t they? They control all of the levers of government. If they truly wanted to pass a budget, they could so and the Democrats wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
As late as Friday afternoon, Republican leadership said they were unwilling to even pass a bipartisan bill, separate of the budget, that would’ve made possible for the military to be paid without affecting the budget negotiations. But they would not even do that. Do you wonder why? The answer is simple: To pass that bill they would have to bring the House back into session. And if they did that, they would have to swear in the recently elected Democrat representative from Arizona, which, in turn, would have provided the necessary 218th signature required for a petition to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files. And Donald Trump would rather eat dirt than have that happen.
So what is a beleaguered President to do but scrounge up money for military pay so the one vote and he dreads most can’t happen? But here’s the thing, Donnie. The Epstein vote will eventually happen. And America can’t wait.