Unconditional Surrender

It was the first battle in the war between Donald Trump and the newly empowered Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. At stake were the fate of immigration reform, border security and government spending during the Trump presidency, and political clout with both the Republican and Democratic grassroots. And there was no doubt who won and who lost.

Speaking from the Rose Garden on Friday afternoon, Trump retreated from his demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall to reopen the government, endorsing a three-week stopgap measure that would immediately end the shutdown without any additional border security funding.

The retreat could have ripple effects far beyond the argument over a border wall, setting a template for future face-offs on everything from executive privilege to health care, immigration and infrastructure. Trump used every tactic he knows: a last-minute veto threat, aggressive tweets, a prime-time address from the Oval Office, a visit to the border, walking out of a high-stakes negotiation, and it didn’t work.

Trump couched his climbdown in the trappings of victory: A nationally broadcast speech from the Rose Garden, tough talk about border security, staffers clapping vigorously at the end.

Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer were careful not to taunt the President after his speech, instead framing their remarks into a victory for the federal workers. “It’s sad … that it has taken this long to come to an obvious conclusion,” said Pelosi. But it was clear to both Republicans and Democrats that, in Trump’s first big face-off against Democrats, the President had lost by every metric he himself set.

Before the shutdown, Trump said he would proudly own it; he ended it blaming Democrats. He argued that the public was on his side; polls showed a majority of Americans opposed the wall and the shutdown. He embraced a fight over the State of the Union; Pelosi won the argument. He argued Republicans were sticking together; a half-dozen GOP senators defected on a vote Thursday. He repeatedly vowed not to cave on wall funding; in the end, he did just that.

Outside the carefully managed Rose Garden appearance, even his supporters saw the reality of the situation.

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