I will shut down the government. I will take that mantle

You're probably right but Dems should stay out of the mud. That's where Trump thrives and he constantly drags them in. Seriously watch the video, when it gets down and dirty Trump looks comfortable and natural. Schumer looks like a sniveling weasel and Pelosi looks flustered and bewildered. They have to resist the urge to jump in the mud because that's what he wants.

 

Did Mike Pence talk at all?

 

He's not allowed to speak with another woman present unless he gets authorization from his wife.

 

He does these stupid reality tv fake negotiations staged things from time to time to try and make CNN pundits talk about “this is what the voters thought they were getting ... the art of the deal president”. Yes it’s to turn attention and get a bump in his poll numbers. Nothing about it from his angle in sincere.

However he did have other intentions imo beyond changing the subject. I seriously saw a guy trying to bully negotiate. He literally was dumb enough to think that he could butter up Pelosi at first to soften her up and then belittle her on camera to say something like “we think the wall is important, we are at 1 billion, you are at 5, why don’t we settle for 4?”

His style of negotiation, in my opinion as someone in sales for the past 15 years, is that this guy hasn’t sold a damn thing in 30 years at least with him talking lead on a opportunity. He’s really... really bad at sales. And the worst sales people are the ones who think they are great. Nobody bully negotiates anymore. When it gets tested by unsophisticated sales people, anyone with two seconds of experience can see it coming a mile away and squash it out in two seconds.

 

Trump brings notes and wins. Pelosi and Schumer bring “Pinocchios” and lose.

 

I don't think a shutdown will save him on that note. In fact, the only thing it will do is rally his loyalists around him but nothing else.

 

Ann Althouse praises the NY Times for its coverage of the Trump/Pelosi/Schumer meeting and adds the following:

"What I notice is that Trump played the media yesterday. He kept a negotiation going on in front of the cameras, even as Pelosi requested that the press go away. The media might like to take direction from Pelosi, but they're not going to turn away from the fantastic theater that Trump was putting on for them. Now, the video is out there, and the only thing the media can do is interpret and frame. The NYT idea is that Pelosi and Schumer were running the show. If they were, why were they the ones who wanted the cameras turned off?"​

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2018/12/this-might-be-most-positive.html

 

Pelosi told the press afterwards why she asked to speak in privacy. Her statement was that out of respect for the office, she didn’t want to have to fact check the president on live tv.

Which is what he was going for all along. He wanted her to loose her cool and have the headline tomorrow be “Pelosi goes tit for tat in mudslinging shouting match”. Nothing would make Trump happier. It’s his whole political game plan. Bring everyone else down in the mud and I win every time.

In what kind of sick political culture do we live in where people on the other side are taking shots at the speaker of the house actually trying to both show respect for the dignity of the office, and not wanting to engage in mud slinging for ratings?

 

an alternative, cynical interpretation might suggest the opposite: Pelosi wanted to be on tv to help boost support for her candidacy for the Speaker position.

She's apparently quite willing right now to try all sorts of things to achieve that goal:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-speakership-with-offer-to-term-limit-herself

 

You think Trump won? LOL!!!! The guy is shown to be lying and publicly busted. Pretty funny that you call that a win.

 

Dave Schuler opines that both sides won:

"I think that Trump and the Pelosi-Schumer combine both won to the extent that they got something they wanted. They got Trump to say he’d take the heat for any government shutdown which they think will work to their benefit. And Trump got Pelosi and Schumer to say they were satisfied with the status quo on the border which he thinks will work to his."​

http://theglitteringeye.com/sausage-making/

 

Trump will always win regarding his base. It doesn't matter if he gets shown up for lying, if he committed crimes, if he shames the U.S. on the national stage, etc. His base will always believe he won.

 

consistent with and demonstrating Schuler's second point: "Beyond that who you think won or lost the exchange depends on the views that you came into the discussion with."

 

I'd agree with this take. Big problem for Dems is they do an absolute horrid job when it comes to communicating any type of border security plan. It makes it easy for Trump to accuse them of wanting open borders.

 

Trump can't even do that LMAO.

 

No big deal. Just theater and some realism that they don’t like each other’s.

But really, you are going to shut down the gov for the trump wall? The people affected by this is not going to forget too easily. And last I check, the us gov is the largest employer.

The most entertaining part of it is the silence. Thumb up to the VP.

 

I'm certainly no fan of Pelosi, so it is tough to say that I am really with her. I guess compared to Trump usually I am on his opponents side, but I like to think that I can recognize both Schumer and Pelosi are capable of being wrong and losing.

 

Because they were the only adults in the conversation.