Trump raises white flag as shutdown gambit fails gradually then suddenly

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/25/trump-raises-white-flag-government-shutdown

Trump raises white flag as shutdown gambit fails gradually then suddenly

David Smith in Washington

Fri 25 Jan 2019 22.26 GMT Last modified on Sat 26 Jan 2019 00.00 GMT

Richard Nixon once said there can be no whitewash at the White House. But it would be fair to say there is now a white flag. It was metaphorically waved by Donald Trump in a chilly yet sunny Rose Garden on Friday when he declared an end to the partial government shutdown after 35 tortuous days.

The US president did not get his wall. All those federal government workers missing pay cheques and queueing at food banks, also those long lines at airports and fears over passenger safety, all that rubbish piling up in national parks, all the political pain inflicted on Trump and Republicans was for nothing. He wanted $5.7bn and he got $0.

So why cave now? There are three likely reasons. First, there was the political pressure. Asked how he went bankrupt, a character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises answers: “Gradually and then suddenly.” The bad news built gradually over Christmas and the new year, then suddenly on Friday as a shortage of air traffic controllers caused significant flight delays and I-regret-voting-for-Trump interviews reached a crescendo.

Second, if Trump was going to cut his losses, he might as well do it now in the hope that he can deliver his State of the Union address as planned on Tuesday, or at least soon after. It is the sort of big televised moment that he no doubt fantasised about when he first ran for president. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told him it would be postponed until the government reopened. Friday’s surrender marked Pelosi 2, Trump 0.

(Jackie Alemany?, a Washington Post journalist, tweeted: “‘So I’m assuming Nancy Pelosi will be giving the State of the Union now, since she’s running the country,’ a former White House staffer texts.”)

Third, Trump is a master of distraction and throwing out shiny objects to divert attention. The day began with the potentially catastrophic arrest of his longtime adviser Roger Stone as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion with Russia. How better to knock Stone out of the headlines than by ending the longest government shutdown in American history.

The reality, however, is that Trump has exchanged one set of awful headlines for another. Already the narrative is that the self-proclaimed dealmaker capitulated, caved, gave in, surrendered and lost. He tried to dodge that perception by loading his Rose Garden speech with the usual graphic and gory claims about of drugs and violent criminals pouring over the US-Mexico border.
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