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... In early October, several Trump administration officials had a friendly pool going of how long the shutdown would last. The White House, at the time, was confident Democrats would quickly fold.
No one guessed more than 10 days.
The account, relayed by a person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, underscores just how much the administration miscalculated the Democrats' will to keep the government closed even amid furloughs and imperiled social programs like food assistance.
As the shutdown heads into its second month, President Donald Trump is increasingly frustrated. On Thursday, he called for Republicans to abolish the filibuster to reopen the government -- a plea he knows is futile, but that demonstrates his growing irritation with Democrats, said a second person close to the White House.
"Trump, he's had it with these people, because he knows they're playing politics," said the second person. "Nobody thought it was going to last this long."
When the shutdown began, White House officials were certain the Trump administration was better positioned to battle the left during a funding lapse.
Trump and his top aides thought that unpaid federal workers, closed and limited federal facilities and threats of ever-more job cuts from Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, would be too much for Democrats to handle.
They were buoyed when two moderate Democrats -- Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) -- and Independent Angus King voted with Republicans two days into the shutdown.
But not much has changed since, and it is almost certain that this will be the longest shutdown in history, surpassing the record set during Trump's first term. ...
