Not a single brick?
President Donald Trump never thinks things through. He claimed ownership of the shutdown in front of news cameras with no plan to end it. He capitulated after 35 days, signed another continuing resolution and staged an announcement in the Rose Garden telling his supporters how proud he was of his achievement. He still didn’t have any plan how to avoid a final defeat on funding for a wall.
A week from the Feb. 15 deadline for negotiators to reach a government and continue to fund the government, Trump finally faces defeat, complete and undisguisable defeat.
There are at least three signs that the White House understands it won’t get what Trump wants.
1. Trump on Thursday described the need for “border security” without reiterating his demand for a wall. (“We need border security. We have to have it. It’s not an option. Let’s see what happens.”) Sure, he brought it up at the State of the Union, but that’s hundreds of news cycles ago.
2. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, knowing that an emergency declaration lacks legal legitimacy and Republican support, is mumbling about some other solution. (“Mulvaney said the steps would come through some type of executive action. He didn’t specify whether that would require declaring a national emergency, which Trump has threatened for weeks, or if there was another mechanism that might prove less controversial.”—The Post. Or maybe the mechanism is simply nonexistent.) It’s noteworthy that Mulvaney doesn’t even raise the prospect of another shutdown.
3. Both Republicans and Democrats involved in the talks sound increasingly optimistic, suggesting the deal-makers without Trump’s interference have figured out how to end the standoff. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sounded unusually confident at her news conference that there would be a deal and no shutdown would occur.)
How Trump will spin this—or if he will choose to distract the country with some outrageous stunt—is anyone’s guess.
The lesson for both Democrats and Republicans is clear and goes well beyond this issue: There will be no partisan legislation through the end of Trump’s current term. A week from now, Pelosi most likely will be able to point to a Democratic victory on the single most important issue for Trump and his base. If he isn’t getting the wall, he’s not getting anything else on his wish list that requires legislative approval.
How will members of Trump’s base react to defeat on the wall? Trump might find a way to snow them, allowing them to rationalize the defeat. However, there will be some hard-liners who give it away—acknowledging that Trump folded.
Whether this realization will simply depress the GOP base or whether it will spark some mini-revolt remains to be seen. In any event, Pelosi will not tire of winning.