Sunday morning talking heads

A passage from WaPo which might you might see mentioned on today’s shows:

Food stamps for 38 million low-income Americans would face severe reductions and more than $140 billion in tax refunds are at risk of being frozen or delayed if the government shutdown stretches into February, widespread disruptions that threaten to hurt the economy.

The Trump administration, which had not anticipated a long-term shutdown, recognized only this week the breadth of the potential impact, several senior administration officials said. The officials said they were focused now on understanding the scope of the consequences and determining whether there is anything they can do to intervene.

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That was published Friday evening, Day 14 of the shutdown. Appearing this morning on behalf of the White House to deny the report and reapply pressure to Democrats are Mick Mulvaney and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who’ll sit down with “State of the Union” and “Fox News Sunday,” respectively. Mulvaney has been encouraging Trump to stand firm and not compromise. Presumably he’s been tapped to reiterate that message publicly.

The Republican to watch, though, is perennial swing vote Susan Collins, who has a tough reelection in 2020 in a state Trump lost and has already signaled some anxiety about the current standoff. She’ll be on “Meet the Press.” On Thursday she said she’d support separating Homeland Security funding from other appropriations bills in order to reopen as much of the government as possible — a proposal Democrats have embraced. How much longer before Collins joins Cory Gardner in calling for a clean funding bill to end the stalemate? Today might be the day. If not, expect it to come by the end of the week as the TSA sick-out spreads.

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Also worth watching is Lindsey Graham, who’ll be on “Face the Nation” to continue to push his compromise plan of a DREAM amnesty in exchange for wall funding. If there’s been movement towards that position within the White House, Graham’s surely been made aware and might be prepared to reveal it this morning. Stay tuned. The full line-up is at the AP.

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