4 Reasons Why Trump Reopened the Government & Caved on the Shutdown

Trump understands leverage well – and his rapidly weakening leverage led to his complete cave in today on the shutdown.

Four factors underscored his weakening leverage (several of which were self-inflicted and reflect Trump negotiation mistakes – noted in my USA Today column):

1. Trump’s base supporters started to abandon him, with recent polls showing his approval ratings going down below his historically stable 40%.
2. Republican Senators were peeling off from the Trump party line, 6 of whom voted yesterday for the Democratic proposal. And more were reportedly increasingly upset over the shutdown and getting pressure from their constituents – many of whom do not think the wall issue was important enough to warrant a shutdown.
3. Most Americans blamed Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown.
4. Shutdown pain started to become more widespread, with air traffic problems reported today impacting a wide swath of business and other travelers. This would continue to spiral, and cause factors 1 – 3 to become even worse for Trump.

Bottom line: Trump’s Plan B – what would Trump face if he did not cave – was getting worse and worse. He recognized this and so caved.