Tyler Pager

In past shutdowns, we would see the president going to Capitol Hill or holding meetings with congressional leadership in the White House trying to hammer out a compromise or a deal.

The president held one meeting with top Democrats and Republicans from Capitol Hill.

And beyond that, he's had very little engagement.

And so the sort of frenzied energy you would see has been replaced by the president's focus on other issues, on the Middle East peace deal.

He's expected to go to Asia next week.

He's talking about Venezuela.

He's making an announcement about IVF.

There's just so many other things the president is more interested in talking about and focusing on that the shutdown is not even the top issue animating the White House at this point.

Yeah.

I mean, the sense is that Republicans on Capitol Hill didn't think that was the right message.

Republicans have been very adamant that they want to reopen the government and then negotiate on health care.

And Trump trampled over that messaging by basically opening the door to negotiations.

And that is not the stance of the Republican Party.

And it was really a rare moment in this presidency where Trump...

was forced to sort of redirect his messaging based on feedback from Congress.

But the question, Michael, is how long he's willing to do that as this shutdown continues to drag on.

Well, Michael, I think what is interesting about this moment is that every time in Trump's second term that he's wanted Congress to do something, they've done it.

And so if Trump decides at any given point that he's had enough and he wants the shutdown to end, he has shown the ability to persuade the Republican Party to fall in line.

And so far, he has largely kept an arm's length away from the shutdown.

He has railed against Democrats for keeping the government closed, and he has weighed in on which workers should get paid, like the troops, but he has not really dived into the fight going on on Capitol Hill.