White House Economic Advisor Hassett says shutdown could end this week
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett predicted Monday that the government shutdown “will probably end this week.”
But if that doesn’t happen, the Trump administration could implement “stronger measures” to force Democrats to cooperate, Hassett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
The comments come amid a partisan fight in the Senate over federal funding priorities, heading into the third week of a shutdown with no clear end in sight.
Republicans want to pass a short-term resolution to maintain funding at current levels. Democrats are demanding that any interim bill include additional spending to protect health care, including an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire at the end of the year.
Hassett said on CNBC that he heard from the Senate that Democrats thought it would be a “bad view” to vote to reopen the government ahead of this weekend’s massive “No to Kings” protests across the country against President Donald Trump.
“There’s a possibility now that everything will come together very quickly this week,” Hassett said. “Moderate Democrats will move forward and provide us with open government, at which point we can negotiate in an orderly fashion the policies they want to negotiate.”
“I think the Schumer shutdown will probably end this week,” he said, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (DY), whom Republicans blame for the funding cuts.
But if that doesn’t happen, “I think the White House is going to have to look very closely. [White House budget chief Russell] “We can take stronger action to bring them to the table,” he said.
Hassett’s remarks suggest Democrats are looking for a politically opportune moment to engage in the shutdown fight. But with multiple polls showing more voters blaming Trump and Republicans for the stalemate and showing strong support for expanding ACA health insurance subsidies, Democrats have mostly held back.
“It’s getting better every day for us,” Schumer said Punchbowl News earlier this month “because we thought about it well in advance and knew that health care was going to be the focus on September 30th and we were prepared for that.”
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