It'll be interesting how the 3 week respite from the shut-down works out.
Pretty sure that the Dems are going to offer something like $12 Billion for border security with the stipulation that it is not to be used for the wall (although they might allow fencing and certainly maintenance of fencing).
Trump really screwed himself when he caved to Rush and Coulter. He may come up with some brilliant deflection strategy that I cannot foresee, but I have a hard time imagining anyway that he can reinstate the shutdown without taking a tremendous political hit ... and the hit if he caves on the wall and doesn't shut down the Gov will still be bad/hard.
That leaves declaring an emergency which may be his best way to not lose too much face (even if the legal system denies it, he can maintain his conviction to the wall and blame the judges). That probably leaves him damaged the least.
His whole position is weakened because he had already agreed to not getting funding for the wall before Rush Coulter changed his mind. It makes it clear he doesn't really have a personal commitment to the wall.
I don't see anyway that this can end to his advantage, but my crystal ball is not always right.
Wow! What a day. I've got a couple of observations:
Trump tried to face down Speaker of The House Pelosi and had to retreat. He tried to insult her and out bluff her and he failed. She denied him the opportunity to give a State of the Union address on national TV in the House of Representatives. She looked tough and Trump looked weak.
Apparently, behind the scenes, GOP senators rebelled. Six of them said outright that they could no longer support Trump's shut down. I believe all of them face re-election in 2020. It's easy to imagine that more than those 6 threatened to join them. Mitch McConnell, who had numerous phone calls with Trump on Thursday night & Friday morning, apparently said he couldn't guarantee GOP supporting votes in the Senate.
Trump had to learn the hard way that Washington politics is different than NYC real estate developing. In his old world, his deals always involved different people who hadn't worked with him before. He could lie & deceive and then face new people for the next deal. In politics, you face the same adversaries day in and day out. If no one trusts your word, you can't function.
Other factors played major roles today. One was the sick-out of air traffic controllers at New York LaGuardia. It delayed some 500 flights today. The other was the IRS employees who had been ordered to return to work without pay. Some 14,000 of them refused.
All in all, I can't see Trump trying another shut down in 3 weeks. He lost this one, he'd rather do anything but face failure again. If he hasn't learned to respect Speaker Pelosi, he may have learned to fear her. I can't see any GOP support from the Senate. So Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh can suck it.
Oh yeah – Roger Stone, that lying sack of sh!t, was arrested and perp-walked by the FBI today. I doubt if he'll talk, but if he does, I don't know who would believe him.
