A full transcript of the acrimonious Oval Office meeting that occurred Tuesday between President Trump, Vice-President Pence, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi is available here. It was an extraordinary humiliating experience for the president, and the fallout is already being felt on Capitol Hill.
Some Rs believe Trump was goaded by Schumer into saying he would be proud to shut the government down.
“I think Sen. Schumer was very shrewd in his efforts to make sure whatever blame exists with the shutdown doesn’t rest with the Democrats,” said Sen. Jerry Moran
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 11, 2018
Jerry Moran is a Republican senator from Kansas. He’s obviously not pleased with Trump’s performance. And it’s not just that Trump voluntarily offered to take “the mantle” of responsibility for a government shutdown. He had invited the Democratic leaders to the White House because he needs their help and then he proceeded to spew a fire hydrant level of lies about the border wall and related topics that Schumer and Pelosi shot down with mocking contempt.
On several occasions, Pelosi begged Trump to stop forcing them to contradict him in public in front of the press before the negotiations could even begin, but he insisted on pressing on, only to get owned over and over again.
Schumer laughed at him for attempting to say that he had gotten some kind of mandate out of the midterms: “When the president brags that he won North Dakota and Indiana, he’s in real trouble.” He pointed out that he had just repeated the same lies about the border wall that had inspired the new “Bottomless Pinocchio” rating from the Washington Post. He caught Trump in a contradiction, saying that our border security was terrible after having opening his remarks by touting its effectiveness. He pointed out that Trump hasn’t even spent the money for border security that he received last year. Then he told Trump that he had called for a government shutdown twenty separate times and got Trump to commit the mother of all blunders:
TRUMP: And I’ll tell you what, I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems, and drugs pouring into our country.So I will take the mantle. I will be the to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it. The last time you shut it down it didn’t work. I will take the mantle of shutting down, and I’m going to shut it down for border security.
Meanwhile, Pelosi correctly told the president that he could not even pass his wall spending through the Republican House and refused to back down on that point in the face of repeated assertions to the contrary. She challenged the president to prove her wrong and told him that his wall “is wasteful and doesn’t solve the problem.” When Trump suggested that she was weak and couldn’t negotiate, she used the opportunity to show her strength and solidify her support within her caucus.
PELOSI: Mr. President — Mr. President, please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats, who just won a big victory.
SCHUMER: Elections have consequences, Mr. President.
But probably the most important point Pelosi made was her most succinct statement of the entire meeting, “You will not win.”
Keep in mind that the entire reason that Schumer and Pelosi were invited to this meeting is because Trump needs their help to keep the government open. He cannot rely on only Republican votes in either the House or the Senate. He started out on the right foot by praising bipartisan cooperation on criminal justice reform and the Farm Bill, but then everything quickly fell apart because he decided to repeat lies in front of an audience that was simply not going to countenance his mendacity.
So, not only did Trump ruin any chance he had at getting anywhere in the negotiations, but he also completely lost the battle over who would be blamed if the negotiations broke down. And, in the process, he gave another example to Senate Republicans of why they do not want him in the White House one day longer than is necessary.
And then CNN decided that the perfect followup was an interview with a GOP congressman (Reed, I think) who repeated what seems to be the GOP talking point that when it comes to immigration the proper response is to wet your pants and hide under the bed. All he could talk about was the criminals and other undesirables who apparently are swarming our border.
Ah, but how long do GOP Congressmen have to have Trump in the White House? Like the Lady from Niger who rode on the back of a Tiger they rode Trump to victory in 2016 and now have no way off when things start to go very badly wrong for them.
Their base loves Trump. He’s well above 50% among Republican voters everywhere and that’s not going to change. The House GOP is terrified Trump is going to cost them even more seats in 2020, but they have no power. The GOP Senate majority depends on keeping the useful idiots of the base fired up in deep red states. Fox News is going to to go all out in defense of Trump, and they are locked in. They can’t divorce themselves from Trump without repudiating their base and their donor class.
So, they will just have to take their lumps and back Trump all the way. Orin Hatch has just signaled that craven nonsense in his exit comments to CNN. YOu ask why he did it? The GOP has surrendered totally and unconditionally to Trump. It’s entirely his party now. The “Never Trumpites” have all flipped and now are supporting him. Hatch and Mitt Romney are only the most craven opportunists now. The rest are all on board too.
So, they will swallow his idiot Christmas shut-down, which will be portrayed on Fox News as a titanic struggle for our nation’s future between the evil Democrats insistence on “open borders” and heroic Trump.
Why is Trump insisting on his idiot wall? He knows Democrats won’t support it, and he means to demagogue the issue of “border security” relentlessly between now and 2020. In fact that is going to be his ONLY campaign issue. He’s field tested every other theme – tax cuts, infrastructure promises, jobs, health care lies, all of it. And the Trumpite base is indifferent to it all. BUt, they stand up and cheer wildly when he says “Build the Wall!” (They’ve stopped arguing “Mexico will pay for it!”)
He knows his idiot base and how to keep their love. They hate “immigrants” which means black and brown people. So, Trump is going to play this black card over and over and over. He might lose in the polling, but that’s not what he cares about. He’s trying to shore up his support among white working class voters in the Midwest in order to win PA, WI, MI, FL and OH. That’s it. Nothing else matters to him.
I kind of got the feeling the same thing happened in Argentina, but behind closed doors. He just got owned over and over again, and laughed at.
These are dangerous times.
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They are dangerous times, especially bc Trump’s fanatical fans don’t truck in reality. They see every thing that he does as fantastic and a win and blow against the horrid Libtards.
When people are that delusional, it’s hard to see how things end in a way that’s good for all concerned. We’re dealing with some seriously delusional people in this country.
The Apprentice star, assuming that he would prevail on live TV, gambled and lost. Going off script with 2 experienced politicians was a mistake.
But as commented above, he won with his base. Maybe that was what he really wanted.
What struck me was that Schumer never made eye contact with Trump. It was clear from the outset that he hates him enormously and won’t even pretend otherwise.
Even among border state Republicans, the physical wall is very unpopular. They are well aware that it will cause many water supply, environmental and property seizure issues for their constituencies, will be hugely cause and divert funding from more effective border security solutions. The wall is a 12th century idea with which Madman Trump is obsessed. Walls have never worked.
But wow, WH event truly was a complete catastrophe for Idiot Trump. He once again showed what a bad debater and negotiator. He’s a spoiled brat and nothing more.
Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick. My daughter sent it to me for my birthday. A very good read.
What was that poem from High School English Lit about fences? The same thing applies. “I should think about who I was walling in and who I was walling out.” Short answer is David Frye makes the case that Walls are built from fear. The “barbarians” being walled out have no fear, only contempt for the sheep walling themselves in, and always win in the end.
P.S. I didn’t eve know their was a “Long wall” before the “Great Wall”. Also built by a fearful and paranoid monarch (he gives examples).
Just went and bought the book — thanks for the tip!
Walls are great for imposing taxes (i.e. tolls). That’s pretty much what the Romans used them for (and a whole host of people since then).
Pelosi and Schumer came prepared. Trump was ill prepared, as they knew he would be. They played his emotional weaknesses to the advantage of the Dems and demonstrated that the Dems know how to work well with each other. This morning solidified Nancy’s leadership role.
Pence’s face probably was the best tell of how Rep’s will react to Trump’s loss. His face turned ‘surrender’ white by the moment.
Schummer’s point that Trump/Rep’s haven’t even used 6% of last year’s wall allotment blasted a giant hole in any argument Trump or Rep’s will be able to muster now.
Yes, Trump will have to live by his own words of owning this shutdown.
Only 6% used. That is a hearing. One morning for a few hours. Someone is in charge and they should be able to explain the status and how the 6% was spent. It is time to hear the details of the wall building plans.
At an economics blog, there’s quite a few commenters in 7th Heaven at how Trump “owned/pwned” Chuck ‘n Nancy and how horrible of a job Pelosi and Schumer did. Trump apparently made them look like the idiotic scum bags they are, as Trump “played” them “masterfully” just like he did with the GOP field of contenders during the GOP primary.
Paraphrasing, but more or less what several commenters said, including: Trump is DEFINITELY getting “his” wall now, for sure, because of how “masterfully” he played this.
Apparently all such future meetings should take place in front of the media. Pelosi was “cowering” in the corner and “begging” Trump to hold the meeting off camera bc of how askeeert she was of masterful Trump. But NOW the nation can see just how worthless Pelosi and Schumer are.
Truly I had to go watch some of the clips, myself (busy day so hadn’t had a chance), just to make sure what was what.
Just reporting, apparently, how those in Trumpland are viewing this debacle. Their Lord & Master (I say that bc the fundagelicals are saying that’s who Trump is) has “masterfully” owned the Libtards; he showed them who was the Big Boss. And Schumer & Pelosi have been reduced to wimpering in the corner or some such.
Oy vey.
A good 40% of the country is crowing right now about how Trump really wiped the floor with Pelosi and Schumer, and how he’s now most def gonna get “his” WALL, which, I guess is only to be “gotten” bc it pisses off the Libtards… the only reason now needed for anything.
FYI.
As a famous Republican once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time …”
My word, how we’ve fallen through the looking glass. Now Trump either has to back down or cause a shutdown. In other words, he’s fucked.
Of course he’ll back down while declaring victory but his declaration will be so patently obviously false that no one but his core supporters will believe it. Where do Republicans hope to go with this guy? As others have said, he’s taken over the party. More accurately the party has been mortgaged to insanity and Trump’s calling the note due. They richly deserve everything they get.
Can someone explain again to me just how getting rid of Nancy Pelosi is a winning idea?
That “winning idea” already lost.
About that piece of furniture commonly referred to as Mike Pence: saying nothing at that meeting is probably the smartest thing he’s ever done.
Seeing evidence of some of Pelosi’s detractors changing their tunes today. She did plenty to solidify her leadership in that meeting. That gif that’s circulating of her walking out the front door of the White House putting on her sunglasses…yeah, she’s the boss.