44 GOP senators vote to keep government shut to make Trump happy

Senate Republicans voted Thursday to continue Trump’s shutdown unless he gets billions of dollars to build a wall. In a series of votes, Republicans proved once again that they are more loyal to the racist whims of Trump than to the American people.

For the first time since Trump initiated the current government shutdown, the Senate held votes to reopen the government.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) first scheduled a vote on a virulently anti-immigrant proposal cooked up by the White House. The bill would give Trump $5.7 billion for his unpopular border wall, and would also add horrendous, draconian restrictions to current asylum laws. As expected, that vote failed 50-47, needing 60 votes to move forward.

Next, McConnell finally relented and allowed a vote on a clean funding bill that had already passed the House of Representatives. Given that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said time and again that the House will not support funding for an unpopular and unnecessary border wall, this was the only bill that could end the Trump shutdown.

Despite unanimous support from every Democratic senator who was present, an overwhelming majority of Republicans voted against the bill, denying the necessary 60 votes it needed to move forward by a vote of 52-44.

An overwhelming majority of Republicans voted against the bill, denying the necessary 60 votes it needed to move forward. Only six Republicans — Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah — voted against Trump and McConnell’s demands and to reopen the government.

In a humiliating rebuke to Trump, the Democratic plan backed by Pelosi received more votes in the GOP-controlled Senate than Trump’s sham proposal did.

Thanks to Republican intransigence and obstruction, some 800,000 federal workers will continue to be denied their paychecks. Air travel will continue to be less safe. Our national security will continue to be at risk.

So Trump’s shutdown, which he started in December and has refused to end for more than a month, will continue, with no end in sight — all because Senate Republicans, led by a feckless Mitch McConnell, are too cowardly to stand up to the racist tantrums of the hostage-taker in chief.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.