McConnell's Absence in Shutdown Fight is Raising Eyebrows
With the partial government shutdown dominating the news cycles during its first week, there was a notably absent politico abstaining from publicly entering the fray.
No, we’re not talking about Nancy Pelosi, who has been partying in Hawaii during the shutdown while the President travels to Iraq to visit the troops.
We are talking instead about Mitch McConnell, whose absence from the public fight over our national border security is raising eyebrows among political observers.
McConnell is home in Kentucky, and the senator’s spokesman, Donald Stewart, said it’s up to President Donald Trump and the Democrats to come up with a deal to end the stalemate over funding for Trump’s border wall.
In other words, in McConnell’s view, it’s not on him.
Still, the sidelines is an unusual place to find the Senate leader with Washington in the throes of a budget breakdown – especially one he was determined to avoid and may have difficulty resolving next week with his Senate Republicans fearful of crossing Trump.
McConnell has made no secret of his distaste for government shutdowns, and just days before it happened he predicted that it would not, telling Capitol Hill reporters that the public doesn’t like shutdowns and “there’s no education in the second kick of a mule.”
The shutdown has been ongoing for 7 days now, as the President refuses to budge on his demand that a border wall be funded in the spending bill necessary to bring the federal megalith back into action.
