The government shutdown was caused by a standoff between Trump and the Democrats over the president's demand for funds to build a multi-billion dollar wall along the US border with Mexico.
Radio Sputnik has talked about President Trump's decision to end the government shutdown in the United States with Rogers Smith, President of the American Political Science Association, and Christopher H. Browne, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
READ MORE: Trump Became 'Wary' of Kushner After He Failed to Help End Shutdown — Report
Sputnik: So the US government has received funding for three weeks, does this mean that the problem is fully resolved? What are your thoughts?
Rogers Smith: Clearly not. There is no agreement on the President's demand for funding for a wall. He says that if he has not got that funding by 15 February, he will either shut the government down again or use emergency powers that many legal scholars think he doesn't have to try to build the wall. So, fortunately, federal workers are getting paid some back pay now, but the issue is not resolved.
I mean, after all, the actual expense to the US taxpayer from what I was reading, I don't know if it is correct in terms of the figures but they were saying [that] by the end of this week or at the end of the week, that the actual cost for the taxpayer was the same as the amount of funding that he would want because of this government shutdown. What can you add to that?
Rogers Smith: It is hard to see that the President has advanced his purposes here. He essentially accepted a deal that he earlier rejected in December and he insisted that the Democrats had to give him more. They didn't give him more and now he is getting a lot of criticism from his base for… capitulating, criticism from others for doing the shutdown in the first place and while the costs are hard to estimate there is no doubt that it was a major cost to not just the government workers, but to a whole lot of people affected by government services.
READ MORE: Shutdown Aftermath: No Trump Wall, $6 Billion Lost, Says Wall Street
Sputnik: So you are saying there has been damage to the country's economy due to this government layoff and obviously the effect that you're alluding to their on the President's rating. Do you foresee that this could have seriously damaged the president's desire for an extension of his presidency to the next general election in America in two years' time? Has it seriously damaged him then?
Rogers Smith: I think it has significantly weakened his position. It doesn't mean he can't recover, but he appeared to be saying that he was going to make building the wall the issue he would run on in 2020. It is to be seen how this controversy will be settled but the most likely outcome is that the Democrats will fund a variety of border security measures that will include some additional physical barriers but mostly electronic security systems and other personnel. And he is going to have to say that his wall, it is not going to look like a wall to anybody really. And so the issue that he said he wanted to run on; it doesn't look like he is going to have it in 2020.
He has obviously mentioned this three-week stretch of [a] period that he will hope to negotiate something with the Democrats. What do you expect now in the next three weeks in terms of the relationship between the two parties? Is there going to be some kind of negotiation now, moving forward, or is it just another period where the Democrats are going to attack President Trump even further now?
Rogers Smith: There is always a power game going on and in this case, at this moment Nancy Pelosi has emerged the stronger of the two. She is clearly the second most powerful political figure in the United States today. She got her way on the State of the Union Address. She got her way on the shutdown at President Trump's expense.
READ MORE: Donald Trump Starts 'Immediate' Talks With Democrats as Shutdown Halted
So she is playing with a stronger hand over the next three weeks. The president is going to have to come up with something that is hard to see right now if he is to regain leverage. It is true that this story [of the] shutdown and settling the shutdown has diverted attention from the variety of other investigations that the Trump administration is experiencing, including the arrest of Roger Stone yesterday. So the reality is that the president is not in a strong position on many fronts. He has come back before and [might] do it again but this is a low point for him.
You can take that to the bank and there we are all laughing about it" but she certainly seems to be turning the screw and twisting the knife now and obviously she seems to have momentum. You are saying she is one of the most powerful ladies in the American political machine at the moment. Do you think she has got designs on running for the Democratic leadership position? Is that her motivation or is it just her motivation to do as much damage to this president as possible?
Rogers Smith: She is at the peak of her carrier now. She is 77 years old. She is going to do a few more years as Speaker of the House and that will be the culmination and end of her carrier. She has no aspirations for any other office. She does very much want to put the Democrats in a position to win the White House in 2020 and advance their agenda, preferably to win the Senate as well. Those are her goals.
The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
