'Honey trap': The real reason Trump may be itching for a government shutdown

Not everyone is worried about a government shutdown—especially President Donald Trump, for whom a shutdown would be, according to Semafor, a welcome distraction from the Epstein scandal that just won't go away.

On Sunday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told CNN that he was hoping the president would sit down and negotiate to avoid the shutdown.

"“I hope and pray that Trump will sit down with us and negotiate a bipartisan bill,” Schumer said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” days before federal funding is set to expire on Sept. 30.

The likelihood of that happening, according to Semafor, is less than zero.

This time around, he’s in a wildly different position — lobbying for the status quo, in part because the Republican Congress has already given him everything he wants," they write.

Trump, says Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WVa) knows the shutdown is a "misery march," and doesn't care.

"“He’s recognizing the Democrats really don’t have enough leverage here to convince the American people that we should shut the government down,” Capito told Semafor.

During his first term Trump loudly took credit for the government shutdown over the failed funding of his border wall, saying, “I’ll be the one to shut it down. I’ll take the mantle," leading to the longest partial government shutdown in US history.

Trump's current position, Semafor says, is "a strange position for a president who spent much of his first term picking fights with Congress that he couldn’t win."

However, there may be a more nefarious strategy behind it.

"Should Washington tip into a shutdown, Trump’s fusillades against Democrats will be a welcome diversion from the Epstein case, a weakening economy, and other pressure points."

An anonymous GOP strategist agreed, saying, it indeed would be “a distraction from Epstein” and a reminder that “we’re no longer the only team that eats its own.”

Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is one of just two Democrats defying the party's push for a shutdown, saying, “They’re begging us to shut it down. That’s a honey trap."