Tyler Pager

And I think the big picture is the polling on this is muddled and somewhat mixed with the latest poll showing that both Democrats and Republicans are receiving blame for keeping the government closed.

When some of this new polling came out, I was at the White House and showed it to a senior White House official who told me that that was good news for the White House.

Why?

Because historically, the president receives most of the blame for a government shutdown and the political blowback because Americans assume that it's in control of the president and his party to keep the government open.

Michael, it's a really good question.

And one of the other unique features about this shutdown is the lack of energy within Congress and in the White House to try to get a deal done.

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And so the sort of frenzied energy you would see has been replaced by the president's focus on other issues, on the Middle East peace deal.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