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41% to 36%
A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds more voters blame Republicans in Congress for the government shutdown than Democrats, 41% to 36%.
“This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators.”
— White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, quoted by Politico, after the Senate failed to prevent a government shutdown.
“This is so basic and runs so deep that people ignore it. But it’s worth repeating: shutdowns are part of the Republican brand. The facts, in this case, show the GOP is at fault. But even if they didn’t, even if the facts showed the opposite, the GOP would still have a hard time because again: shutdowns are part of the Republican brand. They invented them as a policy and legislative cudgel. They’ve used them consistently under Democratic presidents. And because Republicans are generally inimical to the idea that government is a positive force in people’s lives and valorize dramatic and high stakes political gambits they have consistently embraced the concept and strategy of government shutdowns.”
“After Lindsey and I left the room and got in the car together to come back to Capitol Hill, it was silence in the car. We had just witnessed something that neither one of us ever expected.”
— Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), quoted by the New York Times, on the Oval Office meeting where President Trump referred to “shithole” countries.
34%
NPR: “If President Trump’s first year in office seemed chaotic from a staffing perspective, there’s a reason. Turnover among top-level staff in the Trump White House was off the charts, according to a new Brookings Institution report. … Turnover in Trump’s first year was more than triple that in former President Barack Obama’s first year, and double the rate in President Ronald Reagan’s White House. A full 34 percent of high-level White House aides either resigned, were fired or moved into different positions in this first year of the Trump presidency.”
57%
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds 39% of Americans approve of President Trump’s job performance — “the lowest mark in the poll’s history for any modern president ending his first year. … Fifty-seven percent disapprove of Trump’s job, including a majority of respondents — 51% — who now say they strongly disapprove, which is a record high for Trump in the survey.” A new USC-Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll finds just 32%, approved of Trump’s job performance, compared with 55% who disapproved and 12% who were neutral.