Michael Barbaro

On Capitol Hill, where Republicans and Democrats are at complete loggerheads over the idea of reopening the government, who is likeliest, potentially, to lower their guard and abandon their position here and bring the government back to life?

Okay.

Katie, since Tyler just talked about the Republican side of this, can you talk about how the Democrats on Capitol Hill are seeing this moment, seeing the polling, seeing the weaponization that's directed at them, and seeing the question of healthcare that they think makes this all worthwhile?

Wow.

Not bring the government back so I can get paid.

Keep up the fight.

Okay, but let me point something out.

You said in that answer that a reason why the Democrats believe in this shutdown is because they see it as an act of resistance to an executive branch under Trump that's getting bigger and stronger and doing things that Congress is supposed to do.

And yet, is it right to think that the shutdown is—

is giving the administration a chance to basically experiment with treating the entire federal budget as the province of the executive branch, rather than needing to follow the direction of the legislative branch, which appropriated and passed the money.

I'm thinking about the fact that that money to pay the troops was basically borrowed from some research fund, right?

I mean, is that kind of stuff happening throughout Congress?

The government right now is the executive branch basically acting like Congress when it comes to who's getting paid, who's not getting paid, who's being punished by being defunded.

Katie, what do you say to that?

When this shutdown is over, is there a fundamental rebalancing of power away from Congress to the president?

In other words, the president will never agree to essentially respect the traditional rule of Congress.

So how does this come to an end?

And when does it come to an end?

I wonder if each of you can just briefly offer us what I hope is not an irresponsible prediction, given how weird this shutdown is, as we've firmly established, and the complex disincentives to end it right now.

Mm-hmm.