Wall a ‘manhood thing’

WASHINGTON — Bickering in public with Democratic leaders, President Donald Trump threatened repeatedly on Tuesday to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t provide the money he says is needed to build a wall at the Mexican border.

Trump’s comments came as he opened a contentious meeting with Democratic Senate and House leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, with a partial shutdown looming on Dec. 21 when funding for some agencies will expire. The president and Pelosi tangled over whether the House or the Senate was holding up his proposal. Trump and Schumer jabbed at each other over the import of the midterm elections — and who will be blamed if a shutdown occurs.

“If we don’t get what we want, one way or the other, whether it’s through you, through military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government,” Trump ultimately declared. “I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down.”

Pelosi later called the confrontation with Trump “wild” and boasted that she and Schumer goaded the president to “fully own that the shutdown was his.”

“It’s like a manhood thing for him,” Pelosi told Democratic lawmakers back at the Capitol. “As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing.”

Trump is seeking far more for his long-stalled border wall than the $1.6 billion the Senate has agreed to for border security