WASHINGTON — We’ve been here before — Congress and the Trump White House facing a potential government shutdown — and each time the major players have backed away from the brink. But this time feels different, with the government's funding expiring on Saturday. Consider:

Democrats, as well as former Homeland Security secretaries, believe that Congress must pass a deal on DACA by this month in order to begin processing applications before the Trump administration’s self-imposed March 5 end date for the program. So they want a resolution now, not in March.

The aftermath of President Trump’s “shithole” remark — or was it “shithouse”?— has derailed hopes of striking a DACA deal. “Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military,” Trump tweeted yesterday.

There’s new reporting from the Washington Post suggesting there are forces inside the Trump White House that don’t want a bipartisan DACA deal. “[S]ome White House officials, including conservative adviser Stephen Miller, feared that Graham and Durbin would try to trick Trump into signing a bill that was damaging to him and would hurt him with his political base,” the paper writes. “As word trickled