President Trump’s top economic adviser predicted Monday that moderate Senate Democrats will shift this week to support reopening the government following the “No Kings” rallies that took place across the country.
Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, argued on CNBC that enough Democrats in the Senate could move toward reopening the government to bring the shutdown to an end.
“A lot of our friends in the Senate have said that it was just bad optics for Democrats to open the government before the ‘No Kings’ rally,” Hassett said. “And that now there’s a shot that this week things will come together, and very quickly the moderate Democrats will move forward and get us an open government, at which point we can negotiate whatever policies they want to negotiate.”
Millions of Americans gathered at events across the country on Saturday for the second day of “No Kings” rallies this year to protest the Trump administration and its policies.
Hassett pointed to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who last week expressed unease with the party’s opposition to uncontroversial funding bills amid the wider shutdown.
The Hill reported that some Democrats privately acknowledged concerns about getting hit by their liberal base if they vote to fund the government following those demonstrations.
“There’s sort of cracks in the Schumer armor. I think the Schumer Shutdown is likely to end sometime this week,” Hassett said, referring to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“But I can tell you that if it doesn’t … if the story that we’ve basically been hearing from moderates that we just can’t do it in front of the ‘No Kings’ rally, if that ends up not being true, then I think the White House is going to have to look very closely along with Russ Vought at stronger measures that we can take to bring them to the table,” he added.
The White House has already during the shutdown laid off thousands of government workers and moved to cancel or freeze billions of dollars in funding for major transportation and renewable energy projects in Democrat-led states.
