In what must have been a slip, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said the quiet part out loud in regard to the reason for the government shutdown over a spending bill that started on Wednesday. 

Her response when a reporter asked her, “Are Democrats demanding healthcare for illegal aliens?” tells us everything we need to know about her party's brazen attempt to bend the majority Republicans to their will and thwart President Donald Trump's policies.

“Democrats are demanding healthcare for everybody,” Waters responded, tacitly admitting that yes, illegal immigrant health care is the hill they were willing to die on this time around.

"Clean bill"

There is little basis to blame Republicans for this shutdown (though they will undoubtedly try anyway).

The bill that passed the House and got held up in the Senate was a continuing resolution (CR) that didn't have any spending cuts.

It was a "clean bill," its only intention to maintain the status quo until November and then try again.

CRs have been done countless times and are usually not controversial, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is trying desperately to show members of his base that he can veer far enough to the left to satisfy them so they don't replace him with someone even more to the left: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Shutdown is a "political message"

As Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) correctly stated, Democrats turned the fight into a “political message against Republicans."

“They’re throwing out a whole host of other things they want to, quote, continue, because they want to set up a political message against Republicans,” he said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.

“Again, Republicans’ message is pretty simple: Let’s keep government funding the same way Democrats did, I think, 13 times during the Biden presidency, to be able to continue to move things forward on a continuing resolution," he added.

Breitbart reported that the Democrats' refusal to even pass a clean CR leaves Republicans without much of a path to ending the shutdown.

Trump turned the shutdown into a win-win for his party by instructing agencies to make permanent staffing cuts for all positions that aren't required by law and don't align with his policies.

As Breitbart said, "The plan is widely predicted to backfire, causing long-term damage to Democrats.” They're getting really good at shooting themselves in the foot, and why should our side stop them?