House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Friday afternoon blamed Republicans for the potential federal government shutdown and took a swing at President Donald Trump’s leadership during the negotiations.
Pelosi said that Trump is “failing to lead,” noting that Trump blamed President Barack Obama for the shutdown in 2013. She also hit Trump for a tweet last year positing that a shutdown could be “good.”
“There’s no such thing as a good shutdown,” she told reporters in a press conference on Capitol Hill.
Democratic House leaders pledged to remain in Washington, D.C. while they wait for the Senate to act on a deal to keep the government open. Pelosi seemed pleased that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was headed to the White House to talk about a funding deal with Trump.
“I’m optimistic that that overture was made, hopefully to be constructive,” she said.
Trump, at the budget negotiations:
It’s impossible to lead when you don’t understand the issues at play and make no effort to get up to speed. Instead, you get led around by the nose by the likes of Kelly, Cotton, and Miller. People who have no interest in getting to yes on an immigration deal.
And yet Trump had no problem leading Democratic “Leadership” to vote to hand the criminal Trump “Administration” enhanced powers to spy on American citizens…
There’s an intense struggle going on to frame the narrative of the shutdown. I’m following it on Twitter. Ds are not clearly winning it, and senators in red country like Doug Jones are being left exposed. Messaging is all over the place, Pelosi in particular (tweeting about Davos, responding to R attacks with lists of things Ds have done/stand for). Just off the top of my head, alternatives could be fine:
Don’t get into the weeds on these points. Push them all day long. Stick to the fucking message.
Update: For example, here’s Pelosi’s latest. Not awful, but just not adding any PR value, which is what tweets are for. And minority leaders:
So, how’s that whole Art-of-the-Deal thingy going for you, Donald?
Coincidentally, I understand this matches Stormy Daniels’ account of him, too.