Democrats were having none of this. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) put out a terse statement: “If the President pursues this path, against the wishes of both Republicans and Democrats, as well as the majority of the American people, he will be heading towards a government shutdown which nobody will like and which won’t accomplish anything.” Rep. Nita Lowey (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, put out her own statement. “The President’s threat to shut down the government if he does not get his way is the polar opposite of leadership,” she said. “Wasting tens of billions on a useless and immoral border wall is a nonstarter for Democrats, particularly at a time of such real need in our communities. … If the President follows through on his threat to shut down the government, he and his enablers should be held fully accountable.”

Republicans have never favored shutdowns — especially not Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), with whom Trump has been feuding and who, according to a New York Times report, irked Trump by refusing to “protect him” from the Russia investigations. A spokesman for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) told me, “Rob’s going to work diligently with his colleagues to fund key priorities important to the country, and to keep the government open.” That sounds like a “no” on a shutdown.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) Wednesday simply said no shutdown would be needed.

A shutdown over a popular issue would be one thing, but an overwhelming majority of voters tell pollsters they do not want a wall. In January, voters in a Post-ABC poll disapproved of the wall by 60 percent to 37 percent; Pew Research found in February that they disapproved by 62 percent to 35 percent. As for Quinnipiac, “Five polls conducted over the past months show that an increasing number of voters oppose building a wall, and that support for a wall has been waning. In November, 55 percent were opposed, while 42 percent were in support. By March and April, 64 percent said they were opposed, while 33 percent said they were in favor.”

When the issue of the wall came up earlier this year, not a single border-state lawmaker supported the idea. The Wall Street Journal reported, “Not a single member of Congress who represents the territory on the southwest border said they support President Donald Trump’s request for $1.4 billion to begin construction of his promised wall, according to a Wall Street Journal survey.”

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