Democrats’ shutdown question: Where’s Trump?: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we report on how Democrats are pushing for President Donald Trump to be more engaged to bring the government shutdown to an end. Plus, Steve Kornacki breaks down some new polls that show Democrats are warming up to the “socialist” label.

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— Adam Wollner

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Shutdown, Day 21: Democrats call on ‘disengaged’ Trump to get more involved

By Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong and Monica Alba

As the government shutdown crosses the three-week mark, Democrats are increasingly calling on President Donald Trump to get more involved in finding a solution.

And while Republicans acknowledge that Trump has been disengaged, some say it wouldn’t hurt if he got more involved.

“Hakeem [Jeffries] and I reached out to the president today and urged him to sit down and negotiate with us to resolve the health care crisis, address it and end the Trump shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters today. “We urged him to meet with us, and we said we’ll set up an appointment with him any time, any place before he leaves.”

And when Republican senators held a private lunch meeting with Trump and ate cheeseburgers this afternoon, there was little discussion of the shutdown, several of them said afterward.

“He mentioned it briefly, but my sense is that nothing’s changed,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “We’ll talk about all the issues the Democrats want to talk about once the government reopens.”

That has been the GOP strategy all along — to hold firm on their short-term funding bill and expect Democrats to back off their demands to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. It hasn’t worked, with the Senate rejecting on 11 occasions the bill that passed the Republican-led House.

Trump has only met once with Schumer and House Minority Leader Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Sept. 29 — two days before the shutdown began — and it didn’t go well. The president reacted hours later by taunting the two Democrats with an AI-generated post that put words in Schumer’s mouth and a sombrero on Jeffries’ head.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Trump’s involvement is “essential” to ending the shutdown because GOP leaders on Capitol Hill won’t cut a deal without his blessing.

“Republicans here are not going to make a move without Trump saying that he’s ready to end this,” Schiff said. “He doesn’t seem particularly interested, or to care. And until that changes, I think we’re going to be at an impasse.”

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said Trump has “had his hands full with Israel and international matters.”

“So he’s had every reason to be disengaged and just to let legislators handle this themselves,” she said, adding that Democrats should deal with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., instead of Trump.

Trump said today he would only meet with Democrats “with one major condition,” which is “open up the country first.”

Read more →

Related: Food banks and community groups brace for spike in demand as shutdown continues, by Ryan Nobles

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Mamdani’s rise comes as Democrats increasingly embrace ‘socialist’ label

Analysis by Steve Kornacki

New York City is not exactly representative of the country as a whole. But its overwhelmingly blue bent does raise the question of whether its mayoral race has implications for the Democratic Party nationally.

The Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, is favored to win in November and has been running as a self-described “democratic socialist.” Not long ago, that label would have been considered politically toxic, even in New York. But how big of a shift within the party does the rise of Mamdani — and the prominence of other Democratic-aligned leaders who have embraced the term — indicate?

Within New York City, a Fox News poll last month found that 49% of Democratic voters had a favorable view of socialism, compared to 35% who had an unfavorable view. Meanwhile, 41% of Democrats viewed capitalism favorably, while 49% viewed it unfavorably.

Notably, these attitudes seem to extend well beyond the city’s borders. A Gallup national poll released in September found an even broader appeal of socialism among Democrats.

It should be noted that the Gallup survey included all adults, not just those who are registered to vote, which may explain some of the difference with the New York City numbers. But the result is also not a one-off. Gallup has been tracking this question over time and, since crossing 50% back in 2010, the positive number for socialism has continued to increase among Democrats. And the capitalism number has fallen, from a positive score of just over 50% for much of last decade to one that barely cracks 40% in the newest poll.

This is the atmosphere in which Mamdani has become a national figure. As the numbers show, the appeal of his ideology beyond the Democratic Party still appears to have significant limits. But if he does win in deeply blue New York City next month, the result will be confirmation of what polling has been suggesting for a while: More and more, Democrats are not scared of the socialist label.

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That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Owen Auston-Babcock.

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