Democratic pollster Molly Murphy on Monday said public opinion on who is to blame for the government shutdown is unlikely to change unless President Trump changes his rhetoric on the border wall.
Murphy said there are members on both sides of the aisle that want to move forward and Trump seems to be “single-handedly blocking any progress.”
“As long as Trump maintains his current posture, it is unlikely to shift,” Murphy, a partner at ALG Research, told Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons on “What America’s Thinking.”
“If he does not massage and walk back some of that, I don’t see public opinion changing because you have Republicans in the Senate, you have Republicans and Democrats in the House … you’ve got [Sen.] Lisa Murkowski [R-Alaska], who’s saying, let’s separate the two issues. Let’s have a debate. Let’s open the government and have a debate on border security,” she continued.
“It’s not just Democrats who are sort of saying squarely no wall and that’s it. There’s a group in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, who are looking for a solution, and President Trump seems to be the one who is single-handedly blocking any progress there,” she said.
A CNN poll released on Sunday found that 55 percent of Americans said that Trump was responsible for the shutdown, which entered its fourth week on Monday.
Trump is demanding $5.7 billion for his long-promised wall along the southern border, but Democrats have refused to provide him with the funding, offering just $1.3 billion for border security measures.
The shutdown entered its 24th day on Monday.
— Julia Manchester
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