Donald Trump had shut the government down because Congress had not given him any money to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. He said he would not reopen the government until Congress gave him at least $5.7 billion to start building the wall -- and his shutdown lasted for 35 days, about two weeks longer than any previous shutdown in U.S. history.
But the shutdown didn't work out as Trump expected. He found he was unable to bully Speaker Pelosi into giving him wall money (and Minority Leader Schumer stood solidly with Pelosi). The public blamed Trump for the shutdown, and his poll numbers started going down.
In the end, Trump caved in to the Democrats for the second time this week. The first was when he tried to force Speaker Pelosi into letting him give a State of the Union speech in the House without opening the government. Pelosi shot him down, and he backed off (saying her position was "reasonable"). Yesterday, Trump held a news conference in the White House Rose Garden and again caved. He said he would sign a measure that would open the government until February 15th, while Republicans and Democrats negotiated "border security".
He then spent most of his speech telling a massive number of lies to try and justify that border security including a wall. It's not going to happen. Pelosi (and Schumer) are NOT going to give him any money for a wall. They will agree to more money for border security. Trump will have to be happy with that.
He said if he doesn't get wall money by February 15th, there could be another government shutdown. I don't think he will do that. he was hurt too bad by this shutdown. He might try to declare an emergency and steal military funds and soldiers to try and build his wall without congressional approval. But I think the courts would quickly stop that.
The best Trump can hope for is to try and claim the extra border money is a victory for him. It's not. It's a surrender -- the biggest political loss of his administration. It's now Pelosi-2 and Trump-0. Expect Her to now run up that score.
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