Donald Trump spirals out of control as Senate bill fails to reopen the government
Last night Donald Trump gave up on one of his key pieces of potential leverage in the government shutdown when he caved to Nancy Pelosi’s demand that the State of the Union address be delayed until after the shutdown is over. Today things didn’t go anyone’s way when both bills before the Senate ended up failing. Trump is spiraling out of control.
Everyone knew that the first Senate bill, to reopen the government with funding for Trump’s imaginary border wall, would fail. But there was some hope heading into today that the second Senate bill, to reopen the government without any wall funding, might pass. That failed to happen, meaning that Trump is still stuck with his shutdown and without his wall, and America is stuck without a government.
Before the vote took place, Donald Trump posted this whacked out tweet: “Nancy just said she “just doesn’t understand why?” Very simply, without a Wall it all doesn’t work. Our Country has a chance to greatly reduce Crime, Human Trafficking, Gangs and Drugs. Should have been done for decades. We will not Cave!” It seemed to be a signal to Senate Republicans that they’d better not vote to reopen the government without his wall, and sure enough, they caved accordingly.
But the true spiraling chaos came when Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted this after both votes failed: “Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Chuck Schumer are meeting now to see whether or not they can work out of the deadlock. As was made clear to Senator Lindsay Graham, the 3 week CR would only work if there is a large down payment on the wall.” In other words, Donald Trump is still insistent on riding his wall demands all the way to the bottom. This shutdown is harming Americans, but it’s finishing Trump off in real time.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report