Tangentially related, I don't get why there isn't more talk about Congress overriding Trump's veto to reopen the government. Both parties seem to want it, you would think a 2/3 supermajority in both houses would be attainable.
A vote like that won't happen unless the leaders of both the House and Senate allow it. The House Speaker would definitely permit the vote, but McConnell has said he won't allow anything the President would veto. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/04/mcconnell-governme...
McConnell doesn't want to rock the boat by bypassing Trump's veto. He has a re-election campaign in 2020 and if he angers Trump now, he might get primaried by another Republican, similar to what happened to several politicians in the 2018 race.
They should actually force him to veto it. This whole business of delaying doing anything because maybe he will take the political hit of using a veto is inane. Why would he want to become the face of the government shutdown? Why would he go to his base and tell them he prefers getting a wall, to having safe milk (USDA) or tax refunds (IRS) or food (welfare). Congress can only do this because there are hundreds of them, so they can point fingers at each other. But a president has no one to blame but himself.
