[…] Mulvaney inserted himself into the conversation and tried to negotiate a compromise sum of money, according to the sources in the room. Mulvaney said “that if Dems weren’t OK with $5.7 [billion] and the president wasn’t OK with $1.3 [the Democratic offer] … he was trying to say we should find a middle ground,” one of the sources said, paraphrasing Mulvaney’s remarks. […]
Trumps >5 billion $$ wall project is designed to be rejected by the Democrats. Trump and the GOP obviously don’t want a wall. Otherwise they would have built it before the midterms. Instead, they need an agenda to keep their supporters angry at the Democrats until 2020. I assume that therefore Trump didn’t like that Mulvaney (WH Chief of Staff) interfered with Trumps tactics. Trump does not really want the middle ground. Trump might want to use the shutdown to damage the Democrates. Trump still seems not to have recognized that in the public the majority holds Trump responsible for the shutdown.
"Trump cut him off … 'You just fucked it all up, Mick,'" the source recalled Trump saying. "It was kind of weird." https://t.co/IMwNfW8kED
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) January 13, 2019
more