BORDER/CONGRESS/ELECTION/GOP/IMMIGRATION/SPENDING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “Congressional Republicans, already facing a difficult election landscape, confronted a prospect on Sunday [7-29-18] they had worked feverishly to avoid: a threat by President Trump to shut down the government over funding for a border wall…Last week, Republican leaders thought they had reached a deal with Mr. Trump to delay a confrontation on funding for the wall until after the November midterm elections, according to a person familiar with their discussion. But Mr. Trump’s shutdown threat, in which he also demanded several pieces of a comprehensive immigration overhaul that is stalled in Congress, has opened the door to a politically bruising spending fight as the fiscal year ends in September. With the election coming just weeks later, the party can ill afford a disruption that voters — already disgusted by Washington dysfunction — may hold the president accountable for. A shutdown would also distract from Senate Republicans’ main business in September: their push to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”
–Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “G.O.P. Faces Another Midterm Threat as Trump Plays the Shutdown Card,” The New York Times online, July 29, 2018