Frustrating, as usual, to watch Chris Hayes be defeated by a Rethug's "logic."
In this case it was former Governor Chris Christie.
Hayes made the TRUE point that Trump had failed to pass money for a wall in his first two years, when his party controlled both houses of Congress. So it obviously wasn't a priority.
Christie responded that Trump couldn't get it passed because a 60 vote majority was required in the Senate, and not enough Democrats were willing to help.
WRONG.
They could have put money in the budget reconciliation bills, which only require a simple majority in both Houses. But they apparently didn't think they had a simple majority, even though they controlled both Houses.
OR they had another option: COMPROMISE -- the way it used to be done in Congress. If Trump really wanted his damn wall, then he could have gotten 9 or 10 votes from Democratic Senators by offering them enough things they really wanted in exchange -- like a permanent DACA fix.
But that's where it would all fall apart. Because ever since Dennis Hastert invented the Hastert rule, the House GOP has been determined to pass NOTHING that requires ANY Democratic votes. So if they were given a compromise Senate bill, which had needed 10 Democrats to reach the 60 votes, they would have refused to pass it unless they could do it with ONLY Republican votes -- which would be almost impossible because a large group of Republicans would have refused to pass anything any Democrats wanted.
The Hastert Rule means a House bill couldn't be passed with, for example, 200 Republican votes plus 123 Democratic votes.
In other words, a real COMPROMISE, a centrist bill, has been almost impossible since Hastert and his damn rule.
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