Ex-FBI negotiator Chris Voss on Trump, Pelosi, shutdown talks
The ongoing government shutdown, now in its 27th day, is the longest in history with no end in sight.
Negotiations between Democratic leaders and President Donald Trump have been at an impasse for weeks over the refusal of both sides to budge from their stances on Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to fund a border wall. With more than 800,000 furloughed federal employees going without pay, and the potential economic cost of the shutdown growing every day, most Americans are wondering how and when it will finally be resolved.
So what does an expert negotiator have to say about it? Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss gave CNBC Make It his take.
Voss, who was the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator and a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years, predicts the shutdown will “last a little longer.”
“There’s going to be some more pain,” he tells CNBC Make It. Trump’s “base is going to have to feel it some more.”
In other words, Trump is dug in on the issue of funding a border wall — which he promised repeatedly during his 2016 presidential campaign — and he’s unlikely to budge unless he starts to lose support among his more ardent backers, according to Voss.
“People make their decision over what’s the biggest loss,” Voss says. “And, until he’s really worried about the loss of his base, he’s not going to make a deal.”
A new CNN poll found Trump to be losing support among one of his key demographics: white Americans without college degrees. However, in December, Trump was seen as doubling down on the border wall issue due to its importance to the conservative right, including pundits like Ann Coulter.
Voss, founder and CEO of strategy consultancy Black Swan Group, previously told CNBC’s “Power Lunch” that Trump is “an assertive, openly aggressive negotiator.”
“He’s actually the kind of negotiator that as a hostage negotiator I had to learn how to get the upper hand on, without making them mad, without making it worse,” Voss said.
