Day 691: Trump invites cameras to watch his political self-immolation

With a potential government shutdown less than two weeks away, Donald Trump invited Democratic House and Senate leaders, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) respectively, to the White House to discuss budget options.

While such negotiations typically occur off camera, Trump insisted that cameras capture the beginning of the meeting for posterity.

That turned out to be a massive mistake.

Trump is adamant that substantial funding for a border wall be included in the next spending bill, something that has little appetite on either side of the aisle in Congress. With Pelosi and Schumer telling Trump that it wasn’t going to happen, Trump began to anger.

Sensing weakness, Pelosi and Schumer started openly needling Trump in front of the cameras, laying the trap for Trump to fall into.

Eventually, the tag-teaming and goading — while Mike Pence sat idly on a piece of furniture like a piece of furniture — led Trump into suddenly announcing that if the government shuts down, everyone can personally blame him.

Pelosi and Schumer could hardly contain their smiles and soon thereafter left the Oval Office to reiterate to supporters what they told Trump: there will be no border wall and if Trump wants to shutdown the government over that, it’s on him and him alone.

Trump, meanwhile, was furious that the meeting backfired so spectacularly.

At the same time, Pelosi was hitting Trump in the masculinity.

The Democrats have put Trump between a very big rock and an awfully hard place: a) sign a spending bill that he doesn’t like and that doesn’t include a line-item for the border wall, taking yet another very big personal and public loss on the issue; or b) by his own admission be single-handedly responsible for a government shutdown that is wildly unpopular.

691 days in, 771 to go

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