Trump surrendered to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in astonishing fashion yesterday after insisting for 35 straight days that he would never reopen the government without winning on his central 2016 campaign promise: "a big, beautiful border wall" between the United States and Mexico.
Even in his moment of defeat Trump did not let up on his demands for a southern border wall that he had repeatedly said Mexico would finance. Renewing his threats, the president still insists Congress must give him wall funding or risk another government shutdown in three weeks -- or a declaration of a national emergency that would allow him to circumvent Congress and use the military to build the wall.
Pelosi waited Trump out until he couldn't take the heat anymore. Amid a wave of news stories on furloughed federal workers showing up at food banks or in unemployment lines, airports across the country facing slowdowns, thousands of IRS employees who weren't returning to the job when ordered back without pay -- or, perhaps more so, the public blaming him for the chaos -- Trump wilted Pelosi held firm
Lesson Learned -- Chuck Schumer: "Shutting down the government over a policy difference is self-defeating. It accomplishes nothing but pain and suffering for the country and incurs an enormous political cost to the party shutting it down. We cannot ever hold American workers hostage again."
"Our diversity is our strength," Pelosi told reporters after the agreement was reached. "But our unity is our power. And that is what maybe the president underestimated."
Democrats expressed willingness to negotiate with the president on border security issues they agree on -- such as the need for improved technology -- but said, as they have from the start, that there will be no money for Trump's wall.
I think the caption best represents this whole fiasco: Deal is same one Trump could've had 34 days ago.
Friday evening Trump tweeted:
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