It is important that Nancy Pelosi declined to rule out funding for a physical barrier. We do not know what was said in the process of reaching an agreement to re-start the normal operations of the federal givenrment for the next 21 days. Democrats naturally are gloating, calling it a surrender and admonishing Trump to “learn his lesson†and acknowledge his defeat by the wise and all-knowing Nancy Pelosi. This certainly gives them a sugar high while providing evidence for future use that their priority is humiliating Trump rather than attending to the needs of border security.
Nonetheless, as President Trump correctly noted in the Rose Garden address, it was an “agreement.†The Dems agreed to procedural rules that can be used to make the case for border barrier construction. The deal will be hashed out in the conference committee, which will then submit the same legislation to both Houses of Congress, with the 21-day clock ticking. Either chamber can modify the legislation, but that happens under the gun of the ticking clock.
Trump’s stonewall on the shutdown had to end because a choke point had been discovered by the opposition (a group that includes Congressional Democrats and government employee unions along with the media): commercial aviation. It was obvious when the Air Traffic Controllers demonstrated their ability to stymie air travel at the nation’s busiest airports that President Trump, having declared ownership of the shutdown, would be blamed for strangling the economy, and was on the hook for any air traffic control disaster that might, God forbid, happen. The Executive VP of the Air Traffic Controllers Association went on CNN to blame Trump for delays and safety issues. With the Super Bowl next weekend in the city with the world’s busiest airport, not only would business and family travel be impaired, the functioning of the nation’s premier sporting event was in peril.
It may be coincidence, but this kill shot job action occurred in the wake of extraordinary signs that House Democrats were wavering in their support for Pelosi’s “not one dollar†opposition to a border wall – while the government is (partially) shut down. This gives Trump’s allies something to work with. Steny Hoyer, second-ranking House Democrat, already has conceded that a physical barrier is part of the solution – just not while the government is shut down. The Democrats now own the House majority because new members have been elected from historically GOP-leaning districts, and many of those freshmen fear facing voters in November next year and being painted as Pelosi’s pawns who prevented a border barrier desired by their constituents.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/why_trump_went_for_a_21day_suspension_of_the_partial_shutdown_and_what_happens_next.html
