美国国家公共电台 NPR In Fight With 'Chuck And Nancy,' Trump Says He'd Be 'Proud' To Shut Down Government（在线收听）

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When President Trump meets Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer today, two realities will be apparent. One is that the president needs a deal with the top two Democrats in Congress to avoid a government shutdown. The other is that Democrats in Congress will be more powerful in the new year. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith has been asking if Democrats and the president can agree on much.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: A little more than a year ago, President Trump had a couple of meetings with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. He said he'd worked out a deal on immigration with Chuck and Nancy, as he called them.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And I think something can happen. We'll see what happens. But something will happen.

KEITH: It didn't happen. The deal blew up without even an agreement on what the deal was. But last month, after the midterms, Pelosi and Trump were again talking about compromise...

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TRUMP: Nancy Pelosi and I could work together and get a lot of things done.

KEITH: ...On things like infrastructure and prescription drug pricing.

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NANCY PELOSI: Hopeful that we can work in a bipartisan way in that way.

KEITH: But it's not all rainbows. Pelosi and Democrats are also talking about robust investigations of Trump and his administration. And Trump said that would lead to a, quote, "warlike posture."

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TRUMP: Then, at the end of two years, nothing's done. Now, what's bad for them is, being in the majority, I'm just going to blame them.

KEITH: When looking for historical analogies, the period after the 1994 midterms often comes up. Much like President Trump today, President Clinton saw his party's majority in the House wiped out. Then, in 1996, Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republicans came together to make sweeping changes to the welfare system.

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BILL CLINTON: I signed this bill because this is a historic chance, where Republicans and Democrats got together...

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NEWT GINGRICH: We have to recognize, this is a historic moment, when we are working together to do something very good for America.

KEITH: It was an uneasy and short-lived truce that left many Democrats feeling like the president had sold them out. During this period, Republicans in Congress and Clinton also came together on health care legislation and the budget. Leon Panetta, who was Clinton's chief of staff at the time, points out - these bipartisan accomplishments took time.

LEON PANETTA: It didn't just happen. And it took some confrontation at the beginning.

KEITH: Confrontation in the form of not one but two government shutdowns.

PANETTA: It led to a real political backlash that hurt the Republicans. And it was as a result of that, I honestly believe, that Speaker Gingrich figured that it would be much better for them to try and cooperate.

KEITH: But since then, there have been 25 years of partisan trench warfare. Now the questions are whether Democrats are willing or able to compromise with Trump. Is Trump willing to deal? If he is, will congressional Republicans go along? And given the way Trump has changed his mind in the midst of past negotiations, will anyone trust him? Still, allies of the president and Pelosi interviewed for this story say they see potential for compromise. Marc Short is the former director of legislative affairs for the Trump administration.

MARC SHORT: I think there are several positions the president has that, frankly, line up more, traditionally, with Democrats. The question, I think, that is yet to be determined is whether or not Democrats will give their leadership the flexibility to negotiate with the president.

KEITH: And John Lawrence is a former chief of staff to Pelosi.

JOHN LAWRENCE: She is going to be - and I think the Democrats in the House are going to be concerned with proving that they can be trusted, that they can govern. And if that involves having to make deals with Senator McConnell or President Trump, then I think they will do that because that's what they've been hired to do.

KEITH: Short and Lawrence both see incentives for their party to get something done - while questioning whether those incentives exist for the other side.

Tamara Keith, NPR News.

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