'Complete, total surrender': Why Trump waved the white flag

The sudden erosion of support from Senate Republicans ultimately forced Trump’s hand.

By BURGESS EVERETT and ANDREW RESTUCCIA 01/25/2019 09:42 PM EST

President Donald Trump touted GOP unity for 33 days of a partial government shutdown. But by the 34th day, it was clearly gone — and so was the shutdown by the end of the 35th.

Senate Republicans had finally had it and were struggling to continue to defend the president's position and heap blame on the Democrats. Perhaps no one illustrated that dynamic more than Sen. Rob Portman.

The Ohio Republican, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), had spent more than two weeks pushing to reopen the government and then negotiate on border security, only to face repeated rejection by the president and Vice President Mike Pence. So when two votes came before the Senate this week, one on Trump's plan, the other on a stopgap with no new guaranteed wall money, Portman nearly made a rare break with his party.

“I considered it, yes,” he said on Friday after the president finally caved on his position that the government would only reopen with a down payment on his wall.

Portman and most Republicans ultimately stuck with Trump after Pence's pleas for unity. A sustained rebellion against Trump on Thursday, Portman argued, would mean the government "would not be open right now,“ because Trump would simply veto a Democrat-backed bill. “It would have been a real problem.”

In fact, despite his public hard-line stance, Trump has been quietly looking for a way out of the shutdown for weeks, according to White House aides. In recent days, the president has expressed frustration to allies about how the crisis was being covered on cable news, worrying that Democrats had won the upper hand, even before Friday’s dramatic airport delays.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/25/trump-goverment-shutdown-over-1128594