Wednesday, January 23, marks day 33 of the government shutdown. With his approval rating in the toilet and the majority of voters (rightly!) blaming him for the situation he alone engineered, you might think Donald Trump would be itching to cut a deal to get the federal government functioning again. But you would think wrong! Instead, the president spent the morning digging his heels in over a border wall more than half the country opposes, threatening to blather on about it for the next two years:

Despite the fact that part of Congress’s job is to act as a check on the executive branch, and the longest shutdown in U.S. history would be a great time to do so, Republicans have remained loyal to Emperor Trump, proposing a bill that includes wall funding they know Democrats will more than likely oppose and refusing to vote for a Democratic bill that lacks the president’s ransom money. Assuming the competing measures fail on Thursday, some 800,000 federal employees will go without a paycheck for the second time in a month. That may be of little import to the White House, whose chief economic adviser has told furloughed workers to consider the shutdown a free vacation, but it might start to matter when millions of Americans don’t receive their tax refunds! Earlier this month, the administration decided to call workers back to process refunds out of fear that delaying returns could put a dent in the economy (last year, the I.R.S. sent checks for more than $147 billion to 48.5 million households between January 29 and March 2). But on Wednesday, reports suggested the president’s quick fix may not pan out as planned: