Nancy Pelosi just owned Mike Pence
Whatever Donald Trump was hoping to accomplish with his government shutdown, it hasn’t happened – and it’s not going to. He’s failed at convincing Americans that a border wall is a good idea, or that the Democrats are to blame for the shutdown, or that he’s a strong leader taking a stand. Now that he’s lost, Trump is unwilling and unable to negotiate the terms of his defeat, so he’s called in the cavalry. The trouble: it’s not much of one.
A defeated Donald Trump sent Mike Pence to try to negotiate his surrender on the shutdown today. Predictably, it didn’t go well. Even Trump is admitting as much, tweeting “V.P. Mike Pence and team just left the White House. Briefed me on their meeting with the Schumer/Pelosi representatives. Not much headway made today. Second meeting set for tomorrow. After so many decades, must finally and permanently fix the problems on the Southern Border!” So now what?
Mike Pence is many things, all of them extremely negative, but he’s not an idiot. He could easily negotiate the end of this shutdown simply by dropping the demand for border wall funding altogether, and accepting some other tiny symbolic token the Democrats might be willing to toss him in return. It would allow Trump to save a bit of face with his own base, if certainly not with anyone else – but it’s the best Trump is going to get at this point. Pence would have taken such a deal, so we have to assume that Trump told him not to.
What was the point of this meeting, then? We don’t have any idea, and presumably, neither does Trump or Pence. It’s telling that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer didn’t ever bother to attend the meeting themselves, merely sending their reps instead. They surely knew the meeting would be a waste of time, and it was. Trump is still losing the shutdown battle – and now he’s taken away Pence’s credibility on the issue, meaning Pence can’t fix it for him down the road.
