Where Trump can make a deal with Chuck and Nancy

Funding for the wall is a lost cause. But there is another route to meaningful immigration legislation.

Trump in the oval office with Democratic leaders
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The White House showdown between President Trump, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and House Minority Leader (but soon-to-be House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made for great television. But theater is all it was, because there's no real deal to be had on the border wall.

Trump's border wall was perhaps his signature campaign promise. On Tuesday, he said he'd be willing to shut down the government if he doesn't get the $5 billion in funding he so desires in order to build the wall, and would gladly assume "the mantle" of such a shutdown. In doing so, he may have backed himself into a corner. To Democrats, the wall symbolizes everything they despise about Trump's immigration agenda, and they believe their incoming House majority constitutes a repudiation of the president's rhetoric about the border. So Democrats are unlikely to give in on the funding, and if Trump is willing to own the shutdown, they're even less likely to budge.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.