All the Democrats have to do to persuade President Trump to sign a bill to end the partial government shutdown is agree to build a wall on the southern border.
Yesterday, at a meeting with the president that followed dueling national speeches the night before, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer refused again.
And so President Trump left the meeting.
And then they crafted their own “temper-tantrum” narrative again.
“Bye-Bye”
All Trump wants is $5.7 billion for a border wall that would protect the United States from the illegal invasion on its southern border.
So when the three met at the White House he got right down to business after he passed out candy — M&Ms, Baby Ruths, and Butterfingers, Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) recalled, the Washington Post reported — and popped the question.
Here’s what happened, as Trump described it:
Just left a meeting with Chuck and Nancy, a total waste of time. I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? Nancy said, NO. I said bye-bye, nothing else works!
But that isn’t how the two open-borders Democrats saw it.
Said Schumer, according to the Post, “Well unfortunately, the president just got up and walked out. He asked Speaker Pelosi, ‘Will you agree to my wall?’ She said no. And he just got up and said, ‘Then we have nothing to discuss’ and he just walked out.”
When the leftist from New York landed back at the Capitol, he repeated the tale. “It was an amazing meeting. The president threw another temper tantrum, slammed the table and walked out.”
Pelosi, the Post reported, backed the bogus narrative. “It wasn’t even a high-stakes negotiation. It was a petulant president of the United States.”
Trump tweeted that he knew Schumer would return to the “temper tantrum” meme that began when he met at the White House weeks ago before the shutdown. Schumer repeatedly accused of Trump of a temper tantrum then, just as he did yesterday, Trump tweeted:
Cryin Chuck told his favorite lie when he used his standard sound bite that I “slammed the table & walked out of the room. He had a temper tantrum.” Because I knew he would say that, and after Nancy said no to proper Border Security, I politely said bye-bye and left, no slamming!
Vice President Mike Pence backed Trump’s account.
Will Senate Bail on Trump?
Trump also met with GOP senators for lunch yesterday. “There was no discussion of anything other than solidarity,” Trump told reporters, but two key liberal Republican women, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, pleaded with the president to back down, The Hill reported.
Collins wants Trump to OK citizenship for illegal-alien children who became known as DREAMers in exchange for “border security money,” as The Hill put it.
Murkowski complained about the shutdown’s effect on her state, which apparently can’t function without federal regulators, who keep an eye on such things as fishing.
“It’s not just those who don’t receive a federal paycheck on Friday,” she told The Hill of her chat with Trump, “but there are other consequences for those of us who utilize [federal] services whether it’s those who are seeking to get a fish scale certified so you can deliver product.”
Other possible weak sisters are Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), who is worried about the “hardships faced by federal workers, according to a Republican source familiar with the meeting,” and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, whom Trump dubbed “Little Marco” during the Republican primaries in 2016, who is worried about federal bureaucrats, too.
Others, such as Thune of South Dakota and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, are open to compromise but won’t surrender on border security.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Republicans won’t give in: “We’re all behind the president.”
Trump said the same thing. Asked how long he’ll let the shutdown go on, Trump laid down the law: “Whatever it takes.”
This morning he tweeted likewise. “There is GREAT unity with the Republicans in the House and Senate, despite the Fake News Media working in overdrive to make the story look otherwise,” he wrote. “The Opposition Party & the Dems know we must have Strong Border Security, but don’t want to give ‘Trump’ another one of many wins!”
Photo: AP Images
