Trump Pounces on Chuck & Nancy in the Oval Office

RUSH: It’s happening right now in the Oval Office. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer meeting with President Trump over the funding of the border wall. And I think I understand what’s going on here, and I’m gonna try to explain it to you.

— and Trump left the cameras in again, and you know what he does that, it’s always great. Apparently, he just took Pelosi and Schumer to school on the importance of securing the border and asking, “Doesn’t everybody want border security?” forcing them to say, “Yeah.” I mean, they couldn’t very well sit there and say “no.”

RUSH: So Schumer shows up, along with Pelosi, and he says to Trump, “Elections have consequences, Mr. President.” He thought Trump would be back on his heels. He thought Trump would be nervous and defensive and hoping for mercy, and Trump said, “That’s right, Chuck. And that’s why the country’s doing so well. Elections have consequences. Country’s doing so well, Chuck, because I won. And I’m gonna keep doing what I was elected to do, Chuck.”

Okay. So this really revolves around what does Trump have, as in leverage over Schumer and Pelosi? They don’t want a wall. They’ve offered a paltry $1.3 billion. Trump wants $5 billion. He wants $5 billion to build a wall. Schumer, Pelosi don’t want a wall, but they have offered $1.3 billion as a starting point.

They think they hold all the cards. I mean, if they deny Trump any of the federal budget to build a wall as the incoming king and queen of the — …, so that’s why they’re both up there.

Here’s what’s happened. The original budget request for the Department of Defense, Trump did not give the secretary of defense, Mad Dog Mattis, every dime that he asked for. Trump actually has submitted a budget, or will, that does not contain — this is before today — the precise amount of money that Mattis wants. Pelosi and Schumer offering 1.3. Trump say he wants $5 billion. All of a sudden Trump has changed his mind on the defense budget, and he has told Mattis to submit a defense budget for the Pentagon of $750 billion.

This will be the proposal for fiscal year 2020.

The $750 billion number came out of a meeting last week when Trump got the lay of the land and figured out that Pelosi and Schumer are probably not going to come close to the $5 billion or agreeing to it in the budget, because this is all gonna happen next year. And they’re trying to get some of this done before the budget expires at the end of this year, government shutdown on December 21st if they don’t come to any sort of an agreement on spending for the remainder of the year.

Now, the original defense budget was $733 billion. That’s what Trump had previously said that he would support. Now he’s asked Mattis to go back and resubmit 750. The upshot is that if Pelosi and Schumer do not join him and authorize and agree to $5 billion for the wall, Trump is gonna take it out of the military budget. That’s why the increase from $733 billion to $750 billion.

But as far as the Democrats are concerned, they now run the town again. And since they have the House of Representatives and run the Ways and Means Committee in the House, which is where all spending bills must, by law, originate, unless presidents try to play games with executive actions and executive orders. But all legislative funding bills must begin in the House in the Ways and Means Committee.

So it looks like Trump, in requesting an additional $34 billion for defense, could simply say I’m gonna build a wall out of defense money, and I’m gonna call it a national security project. This is one of the theories that is being bandied about. And this in effect would be an end run around Pelosi and Schumer and anybody else in Congress, either party, neither of whom want a wall, if we get down to brass tacks.

But it’s key for Trump, as you know. It’s the seminal primary campaign issue that got him elected. Getting a handle on border security, illegal immigration, and building a wall. And I think Trump knows that he’s got to get something done on that score.

So in the defense budget, if there’s $34 billion extra and Congress does not say that the money must be spent here, and if they do not earmark every dollar of the defense budget for certain projects, that means Trump’s theory is that, hey, that’s the money that’s not earmarked, it’s not specified, I can take it and do with it what I want since I’m commander-in-chief.

If the Democrats figure this out, figure out this is what’s going on, then they might try to earmark everything, or they might try to put something in legislation specifying that not a single penny of the defense budget or any other budget can be used to build a wall — or, as they might say, “Nothing over $1.3 billion.”

Why allow $1.3 billion?”

Well, it’s to allow them to say they care about border security. It’s to allow them to say that they’ve authorized $1.3 billion. It’s also not nearly enough to get the job done. It’s not nearly enough to build a serious wall in all of the places that a serious wall needs to be built. But it will allow them cover. It will allow them to be able to say (and for the media to say about them) that, “Hey, we care about border security. We worked with the president.

“But his demands were just over the top and unreal and unusual. We offered $1.3 billion, and he refused it and is now making an end run.”

He’s telling ’em, “I’ll be happy to shut this thing down like we did last time — and, Chuck, you got the blame for it. It was called the Schumer Shutdown, and I’ll be happy to do it again. I’ll be more than happy to do it again. We’re gonna have border security. Who doesn’t want border security?” You know, and this is what happens.

‘Cause Trump schooled them on how legislation happens and it’s gonna happen and that he knows how it happens, and that he’s more than willing to shut down the government!

Chuck and Nancy are doing a little press conference here outside the White House …

SCHUMER: Okay. One final point. The $1.3 billion that we gave him last year for border security — no wall, but border security — less than 6% of it has been spent. They haven’t even spent last year’s money, and now they’re demanding much, much more this year.

PELOSI: Well, I’ve told the president, as I’ve said over and over again: This new Congress will be something different from the Congress we have now. It will be a Congress of transparency so that the American people can see …

RUSH: All right. All right. That’s sufficient. What happened is that Schumer came out and started calling this “the Trump Shutdown,” started saying how eager Trump is to shut down the government. (paraphrased) “But that we — we, Pelosi and me, we — offered Trump two different ways out of this,” and both of them involve a continuing resolution. None of them involve actually doing a budget. Schumer made a point, “This is how we’ve been funding government for a long time now.

“We offered him two ways to do this, but he wants to shut down the government. He had a little temper tantrum in there,” Schumer said, “and these are getting little tiresome, but that’s the way the president is. We’ve given him two ways out of this.”

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