Give Sen. Cory Gardner credit. Not only did he go rogue — shocking in its own right — he went rogue at just the right moment.
I mean, Gardner couldn’t have had any idea that just one day after becoming the first Senate Republican to say publicly that the shutdown must end with or without Donald Trump’s wall, Trump would tell Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in a White House meeting that if he doesn’t get his wall, the shutdown could last “months or even years.”
He certainly had no idea that Trump would hold a Rose Garden news conference ramblethon during which he would say, almost in passing, he was considering declaring a national emergency to build the wall without congressional approval. For those who worry about democracy dying under Trump, this won’t help you sleep tonight. Neither will learning the powers that any president can actually summon in an emergency.
This emergency would presumably be about all those terrorists/Middle Easterners Trump likes to cite crossing at the border. And yet the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism wrote in July 2017 — during Trump’s tenure — that it had no information of “any member of a terrorist group” crossing the border with Mexico.
Maybe Gardner could have guessed — but only because it’s Trump, who is rarely constrained by the facts — that Trump would make the case that many of the 800,000 federal workers going without pay were more than happy to do so if it meant helping Trump resolve what he calls the crisis on the southern border. Meanwhile CNN reports that hundreds of unpaid TSA airport screeners called in sick Friday.
And, of course, there was this for the fact-checkers: Trump’s claim that some former presidents had told him they wished they had built a wall. Here are the former presidents during Trump’s tenure: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush (before his recent death) and Jimmy Carter. You see any pro-wall guys there? I know Carter builds houses, but I’m pretty sure that’s where he stops on walls.
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I could go on, but what’s the point? Oh, yeah, if the shutdown goes much longer, your tax refund could be delayed. But I’m guessing if you don’t get the refund by May or June, Mexico will pay it. Maybe Mexico will send up groceries, too, for those who may be affected by reductions in food stamps.
Did anyone bother to think of these ramifications? Apparently not. The truth is, there is a national emergency. It’s called Trump. The question is, what will Senate Republicans do about it? Susan Collins sort of followed in Gardner’s footsteps, also calling for ending the shutdown, but not nearly as starkly as Gardner did. And Gardner made his case while Mitch McConnell, whom Gardner tends to meekly follow, has very publicly refused to play any kind of role in resolving the shutdown.
If you want to see Gardner on the point, Kyle Clarke had the interview on 9News. Gardner seemed a little, well, nervous. You can’t blame him. He has spent two years getting back into Trump’s favor after calling him a buffoon during the campaign. I mean, this interview may have seen Gardner’s lowest smile count in memory. For days, Gardner had been dodging reporters who wanted to ask him about the shutdown, but when he finally made his statement, he then had no choice but to explain it.
And that’s where it got weird. Gardner, ever the good soldier, not only bucked Trump, he also praised Nancy Pelosi, who has replaced Hillary Clinton as the GOP’s favorite bogeywoman, although Elizabeth Warren and Breakfast-Club-dancing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also are in the running. Gardner’s praise for Pelosi — he twice cited her House package on reopening the government — is so far removed from the Republican playbook that he might as well have been quoting from Noam Chomsky.
Not that Gardner has much choice here. If he wants to be re-elected in 2020 in a state in which voters have profoundly rejected Trump at every opportunity, he has to put some distance between himself and the president. No wonder he’s nervous. I mean, there’s no guarantee it would work. Ask the formerly invincible Mike Coffman, who went far more rogue than Gardner will ever do, and still got clobbered by a political neophyte.
How far is Gardner willing to go? He’s got a test right now. Will he say anything about Trump’s national emergency threat? His lack of concern for government workers missing paychecks? His stated willingness to let a shutdown go on for years? If Gardner wants to distance himself from Trump, that’s where he has to go — someplace really rogue.
Meanwhile, Gardner’s pal Pelosi introduced an anti-corruption, voter-reform bill on the second day of her historic second tour as House speaker. The Senate will never hear this bill — just as McConnell has promised never to allow the Senate to vote on the House-passed end-the-shutdown bill. But these are the kinds of battles that will be fought between the Republican Senate and Democratic House, where Pelosi, when she’s not meeting with Trump, is busily tamping down, uh, colorful talk from Dem newcomers about impeachment.
I’m pretty sure impeachment is hardly Trump’s biggest problem now. I don’t think Bob Mueller’s Russia probe is Trump’s biggest problem now either. If Trump is truly willing to allow a shutdown that lasts for months, he is actively daring anxious Republicans to join the resistance. What I mean is, once you lose Cory Gardner, even if just on one issue, you’re in danger of losing anyone.
Mike Littwin runs Sundays in the Aspen Times. A former columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post, he currently writes for ColoradoIndependent.com