Day 366: Trump Adds Federal Government to List of Things He’s Overseen Shut Down
One year to the day after Donald Trump was sworn in, he now holds a unique title: he’s officially the first person to oversee a government shutdown as his party controls the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Amidst conflicting reports out of the White House and a generally unhelpful Trump, Republicans in the Senate needed to round up 60 votes to pass a continuing resolution and keep the government open past 11:59 pm on Friday. Seeing a few defections in their own right, and with only a few red-state Democrats crossing the aisle, the GOP couldn’t even break 50.
While campaigning, Trump promised over and over again that he’d run the country like he ran his companies. Perhaps more people should have taken that as the ominous warning it was.
Trump has now officially led every single one of the following entities into a shutdown:
- GoTrump.com
- Trump Magazine
- Trump Mortgage
- Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino
- Trump Shuttle
- Trump Steaks
- Trump Taj Mahal
- Trump University
- United States Federal Government
The above list does not include many of Trump’s missteps into tangential businesses, construction failures, the near-single-handed destruction of the United States Football League, or the thousands of lawsuits his companies have been forced to face.
Back in 2013, Trump pointed the finger at Barack Obama for a government shutdown, consistently yelling that blame always lies with whoever’s at the top of the chain. Trump’s past admissions betray any assertion from the current administration that Democrats are to blame for the shutdown.
Trump, by almost any measure, is a great marketer and showman. However, outside of his real estate holdings — which, in their own right, have been extremely volatile over the past 30 years, directly leading to all four of his company’s bankruptcies — Trump has shown little ability to successfully run any sort of business enterprise.
Now, rather than a company and its private sector employees bearing the brunt of poor leadership, it’s the United States and hundreds of thousands of furloughed public servants.
366 days in, 1096 to go
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