Spinning it hard... Forms a cave...

Mulvaney says Trump didn’t lose shutdown battle

The acting chief of staff strived to put the best face on the situation, even as others doubled down on the notion that it was a setback for Trump and his policies.

By BRENT D. GRIFFITHS

The oft-repeated saying in politics is that no one wins when the federal government shuts down. On Sunday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney did his best to make sure President Donald Trump wasn't branded the loser this time.

"Ultimately, he’ll be judged by what happens at the end of this process, not by what happened this week," Mulvaney told John Roberts, Fox News' chief White House correspondent, on "Fox News Sunday."

Mulvaney did his best to spin the wide perception, including among some conservatives, that Trump caved Friday by agreeing to reopen the federal government after the longest shutdown in American history without any money for his central campaign promise of a wall along the Mexican border. Instead, he stressed, the White House is ready to charge into three weeks of negotiations and test whether it can break rank-and-file Democrats from party leadership and garner support for the wall.

“I think the president saw a chance to try to take the Democrats at their word," Mulvaney said. "This gave it a chance for the Democrats to prove whether or not they really believe in border security and [are] willing to [go] against Nancy Pelosi or whether they are so beholden to their leadership that they will never vote for a barrier on the southern border.”

It is unclear how the next 21 days of negotiations could yield a broad immigration deal with money for a wall that has eluded everyone for the past 35 days, but like Trump, Mulvaney vowed that a wall would be built one way or another. During the shutdown, Trump and Republicans tried repeatedly to peel support from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democratic Party leadership through public invitations to the White House, but most of those invites were declined and there was no large exodus elsewhere.

What is clear is that Trump will get his wall, Mulvaney said, confirming that the White House is revisiting the idea of declaring a national emergency to fund construction.

"The president’s commitment is to protect the nation, and he’ll do it either with or without Congress," Mulvaney said.

A number of Democrats, including Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), have supported putting fences on the border in the past, but many have rejected any notion that they would support a border wall. Pelosi called such a structure an "immorality," and others have said it would be a medieval measure. Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro seconded Pelosi’s notion, adding Sunday on CNN‘s “State of the Union”: “I don't think it represents the best of what America stands for.“

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said "enhanced fencing" would be on the table, but added that he views a wall as a "fifth-century solution to a 21st-century problem" and a waste of money.

"Now, in the past, we have supported, as you know, enhanced fencing," Jeffries told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.“ "And I think that's something that's reasonable that should be on the table."

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said a new approach to the whole process was needed. “There's a lack of trust and a lack of belief on both sides,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding, “Right now we're just caught in between and betwixt.“ Manchin‘s recommendation to avoid another shutdown: pass legislation that would keep lawmakers from getting paid if the government closes.

Trump on Friday signed a three-week funding measure that reopened the federal government after a 35-day shutdown. Despite his repeated statements that he would not reopen the government without money for a wall or related barriers, Trump did exactly that.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) scoffed at the notion that the shutdown has empowered Pelosi, questioning how anything can be won if it is just a return to the status quo. Instead, the California Republican said Trump simply grew tired of the government shutdown.

“Well, I'm not celebrating getting something because what people are celebrating, saying, 'Speaker Pelosi is strong because she got status quo?'" McCarthy told Todd.

"It was Speaker Pelosi that wouldn't talk about anything. So when you think about 35 days, you got 35 days of Speaker Pelosi not negotiating, and the president finally said, 'This is too much. If you say you'll do something else, I'll open it up so the federal workers will be paid and let's see where you'll go in three weeks.'”

Before the government shutdown, Trump boasted he would be "proud to shut down the government.“ During the shutdown, Pelosi and Schumer said they would only negotiate once the government was reopened. If no deal is reached in the next three weeks, Trump said he would consider another shutdown. Mulvaney did not rule that out but said "it is not the desired end."

"No one wants a government shutdown, John, it is not a desired end," Mulvaney told Roberts on Fox News. "But when the president vetoes a spending package, sometimes that has the effect of shutting the government down. We don't go into this trying to shut the government down."

If there is no deal and Trump declares a national emergency, Democrats have vowed to fight such a move in court. Even some congressional Republicans have publicly expressed reservations about Trump's declaring a national emergency to fund a border wall. Speaking Sunday on “State of the Union,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said: “I think it'll be a terrible idea. I hope he doesn't do it. I don't think it's leverage.”

Saying he favors stronger security along the border, Rubio added: “I think it's important to separate the tactics from the goal and the policy aim.“

On Sunday morning, Trump kept up the drumbeat on Twitter with statistics of unclear origin: “We are not even into February and the cost of illegal immigration so far this year is $18,959,495,168. Cost Friday was $603,331,392. There are at least 25,772,342 illegal aliens, not the 11,000,000 that have been reported for years, in our Country. So ridiculous! DHS.”

Commentators on the Sunday morning news shows didn’t see Trump as having fared well in the shutdown.

In assessing what went wrong for Trump, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on ABC’s “This Week” that the president and his advisers had failed to develop an endgame for the shutdown battle.

“When you act on impulse and you don't have a plan sometimes, as I think what happened with the shutdown, it doesn't end well,“ Christie said.