If his lips move, he’s lying. Or trying to solicit a bribe. Or slandering Democrats. Or, today, taking hostages.

Most recently, he’s started lying about what congressional Democrats are demanding in exchange for giving the GOP the votes they need in the Senate to keep the government open past October 1.

And now, just this morning, they’ve announced that they’re taking hostages. Federal employees will be fired, rather than temporarily furloughed, if there is a government shutdown.

. . .

It’s a smash-and-grab of our constitutional order, a direct assault on Congress’s power of the purse, and an act of extortion against the American people: “Give us what we want, or we’ll torch the house.”

And here’s the bottom line: Democrats must never give in to hostage takers, because if you pay the ransom once, the next demand will be even bigger, the next threat even worse. Authoritarians don’t just bend the rules, they burn them down, and the only way to stop them is to refuse to play their game.