trump says he as not moving forward with it, there s no point. the part of america holding donald trump s feet to the wall, either he gives up on trying to appease them or lets it go on for months or years. right before the holidays a source close to the president i called them after the mattis resignation and i said basically, wtf is going on with your friend? he said, he s scared. he s scared of mueller. he s terrified of his base. i don t see that happening. no, he is terrified of his base, and essentially ann coulter and rush limbaugh have veto power over this. he is in a fight with his own generals, which is a place he doesn t want to do. but i think donald trump likes this particular fight. he is talking about something he likes to talk about. he likes to talk about something that plays well in his rallies, he has a foil he can blame with nancy pelosi, but he has no exit strategy. at some point we have seen
trump s feet to the fire on the wall, either he gives up on trying to appease them or actually does let this go on for months. right before the holidays, a source close to the president, i called him after the mattis resignation, and i said basically wtf is going on with your friend. and he said he s scared. he s scared of mueller and terrified of his base. i don t see that happening. he is terrified of his base and ann coulter and rush limbaugh have a veto power over all of this. he s now in a fight with his own generals which, obviously, is some place he doesn t want to be. but at the moment, i think donald trump likes this particular fight. he s talking about something he likes to talk about. he likes to talk about something that plays well in his rallies. he now has a foil to blame with nancy pleas elosi, but no exit strategy. we ll declare victory in some way but has to do it in such a way he can save face. but there s two things more wreck ools. there won t be a wall. the
number one, the president said mexico will pay for this wall. number two, i m old enough to remember when republicans, if they were going to shut down the government, at least claimed to be fiscally responsible. donald trump is enjoying this. he is talking about something he s comfortable with. he hasn t given himself an on-ramp. as long as ann coulter and rush limbaugh are pushing for the wall, i don t see a way out of it. others have said it was a soft landing and the president said no, no, i m talking about the wall. why the wall? this was the line that he uses in the rallies. it is sim many. of course, it is ineffective and crude but it is a great talking point for the president. so i don t know what his exit strategy is here. the democrats are not going to be giving him any money for the wall. he insists the wall is not a
replace it they didn t have a replacement. have you heard anything about the white house or dhs coming up with plans for the wall to look like to be able to present it? not in a holistic way. they have pieces here and there. one way along the arizona/mexico border and elsewhere in texas. this is an important point that democrats feel the white house is vulnerable because they feel like they are winning on this point. that trump on the campaign trail said mexico would pay for the wall. why should u.s. taxpayers have to fund the thing? that s the point democrats are driving home. leland: to your point in terms of the spin we already heard president trump trying to turn it around saying the trade deal he renegotiated with mexico is also much better and that means that mexico is in some way paying for the wall even though the wall hasn t been built yet. do people buy that or not? we ll see how public opinion goes. that may be the exit strategy
both sides will start feeling it pretty soon. leland: this from the wall street journal. a way out of the shutdown from the editorial board it says here. with the partial government shutdown donald trump appears to have no good exit strategy. not surprising since he had no entry strategy. what is the exit strategy if the democrats are saying we won t give you money for the wall? what does he get and how does he spin it so that at some point if it reaches the inflection point you re talking about we can take the compromise? if we ve learned anything about president trump since he has been in office he is a master salesman to his own political base. he can call a loss a win and vice versa even if somehow a measure does get through. leland: i haven t heard him call a win a loss. i think that would be a new one for him. fair enough. he is very good with words. if somehow a bill became a law that did not include funding,