Holding a press conference today at the White House, 72-year-old President Donald Trump showed total command of a mostly hostile press corps, essentially blaming him for the Dec. 22, 2018 partial government shutdown. Not one reporter asked Trump why he thought House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Majority Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were refusing to negotiate on the his request for $5.6 billion in border wall funding. Trump patiently answered all the press questions, taking exception to their analysis that the shutdown was his fault. Unlike most presidents facing the press, Trump had not one reporter who agreed with the president’s views on any subject. Asking questions about the government shutdown, the press couldn’t fathom that Trump had every right to expect Pelosi and Schumer to negotiate in good faith on the border wall to end the shutdown.
Still crowing about winning back the House Nov. 8, 2018 Pelosi and Schumer showed no mood to bargain with Trump for the good of the country, despite Trump insisting that spending on border security was a matter of U.S. national security. Trump was asked by ABC’s Terry Moran whether he considered declaring a national emergency on the border, allocating the resources needed to move ahead with his border wall. Trump said he had a right as commander-in-chief to do that but preferred old fashioned way pf negotiating with Congress. Anti-Trump headlines soon read that “Trump threatens to declare national emergency” to get border wall funding. Yet whatever the question posed to Trump, he showed complete control of all subjects, answering questions with detail, especially on the economy. Reporters tried to pin recent economic instability on Trump’s trade war with China.
Responding to yesterday’s report about Apple Inc.’s revenue shortfall, the press insinuated that Trump’s trade policies were driving down markets. While asking questions about yesterday’s 640-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Wall Street already roared back with today’s 740-point gain based on December’s positive jobs report and comments by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell that he would be more cautious about raising interest rates in 2019. Trump’s answers made reporters look ignorant about the economy or using Wall Street to score points against the White House. Meeting with Trump at the White House today, Pelosi and Schumer insisted that Trump reopen the government before discussing funding for his border wall. Trump told them both that he needed border wall funding before signing a continuing budget resolution to reopen the government.
At some point you’d think the press would ask Pelosi and Schumer why they’re refusing to negotiate with Trump to reopen the government. Whatever they think about Trump’s border wall, engaging in good faith negotiation is required of coequal branches of government. “We told the president we needed the government to open,” Schumer told reporters at the White House. “He resisted. In fact, he said he ‘d keep the government closed for a very long period of time, months or even years,” Schumer said, acting surprised but clueless about his good-faith role in negotiating with Trump. Pelosi and Schumer know that border security, building a more effective barrier, whether a wall or fence, is Trump’s top priority. He told the press conference repeatedly that the border barrier was a matter of urgent U.S. national security, not some arbitrary and capricious personal issue.
No one watching the nightly news about the crisis on the Mexican border can possibly think there’s no problem to address. Whether or not Pelosi or Schumer think Trump’s border wall is useless or “immoral,” all government agencies dealing with border security want better protection, including an improved barrier. Pretending it’s only for political purposes, Pelosi and Schumer haven’t come to grips with their constitutional duty to negotiate in good faith with Executive Branch. Apart for the 800,000 federal jobs currently in limbo, border security is not “immoral” as stated by Pelosi, it’s something both parties have worked on for decades. Only since Pelosi an Schumer made it political has border security been so trivialized by Democrats. Under former President Barack Obama billions of dollars were spent building out sections of U.S.-Mexico border fence that didn’t exist.
Playing with 800,000 government workers, Pelosi and Schumer need to stop the politics and get down to the hard scrabble of political deal-making. Trump’s already shown interest in making a deal, something Democrats should think seriously about when both sides meet privately over the weekend. When reporters reminded Trump that he promised Mexico would pay for the wall, the president explained that the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement [USCMA] brings billions in more revenue back to the U.S. treasury, more than paying for the wall. “But we recognize on the Democratic side that we really cannot resolve this until we open the government and we made that very clear to the president,” Pelosi said. No one in the press dared to ask her why she had to get her way, keeping 800,00 federal workers out of work. Over the weekend Pelosi and Schumer need to find a way to save face.
