Jon Lovett

It would have gotten through fine.

So he's doing his own politics.

He's protecting himself against a few members of his caucus.

He's worrying about Trump.

That's what's happening here.

It doesn't matter what they say, how they describe it.

They left DHS shut down and went on vacation.

Trump is paying TSA agents because that's what's been getting the worst headlines, but I don't

see what the argument would be for why TSA agents should be paid, but not the other 50,000 or 100,000 people that are going without a salary who also work for the Coast Guard and do all kinds of vital work that are also working without P, but that Americans don't see day to day when they're traveling.

Yeah, so let's assume that the filibuster continues to hold, and we don't have a reason to think it won't, though I could see the Republicans realizing their only way out of this is with Democratic votes, and so they need to start threatening to remove the filibuster to get some Democrats to be more amenable to some kind of compromise.

That's just one path that this could go.

But assume the filibuster is holding.

Democrats have a pretty simple position.

We talked about this with Murphy, Chris Murphy, on Friday, Senator from Connecticut.

we won't pay for ICE unless there are reforms.

And we've laid out those reforms.

Now, originally when this shutdown began, it was so that there would be a negotiation over what the level of reform would be.

And the reforms necessary are impossible.

Funding without the reforms would be unacceptable.

So you'd end up with some kind of compromise.