Wednesday, January 2, marked the twelfth day of a government shutdown with no end in sight. In that time, federal workers have gone without pay; Native Americans have been trapped in their homes without water, groceries, and medicine; and actual human shit has piled up in national parks. According to Donald Trump, all of this is necessary, and will go on indefinitely, in order to obtain $5 billion in taxpayer funds to build a “desperately needed” wall on the southern border, where the situation, the president claims, is increasingly dire. Also, according to Trump, the wall is already mostly built and paid for.

Yes, that sound you hear is a deafening record scratch courtesy of D.J. Donny Trump. But let’s back up for a moment. On December 22, the federal government shut down because, instead of signing a must-pass spending bill, the president decided to demand ransom money for a structure he knew Democrats would never go for—and haven’t gone for in the nearly two-week period since. But because Trump is not just an asshole, but also a compulsive liar with little-to-no grasp on reality, the situation is not as straightforward as him simply keeping the government closed until he gets his money. Instead, we’ve been treated to a daily barrage of contradictory lies about the wall, with the president’s story changing from one tweet to the next. For instance: on Wednesday, Trump insisted that the structure that’s resulted in federal workers being advised to barter for rent is, in fact, mostly already complete, and financed by a trade agreement that hasn’t yet been ratified and won’t result in you-know-who paying for it, even when it is:

That’s an interesting turn of events, given that Trump has insisted the government will remain closed until he gets the vital funds for his wall, though at this point his ever-changing story line should not come as a shock. Roughly two weeks before the shutdown, he claimed, in the space of an hour, that the southern border is totally fortified thanks to his policies:

. . . and also that the situation there is so urgent that he would violate the Constitution to get his desperately necessary wall in place (y’know, the parts that haven’t been built and paid for by Mexico already):

Presumably, both of these points are designed to appeal to Trump’s base, which was somewhat spooked by the hint that Trump might back down on his costly and ineffective campaign promise, not to mention by outgoing chief of staff John Kelly’s claim that the wall was abandoned as a plan “early on in the administration.” That they cannot simultaneously be true seems to be of no concern to the president, who has kept up a steady flow of tweets reinforcing both claims. So, where does all this end? After a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday in which the president claimed, without evidence, that he’s “heard” the U.S. loses up to $275 billion a year on illegal immigration, and that “we’re in the process of giving out large contracts for 115 miles of border wall in an important area,” as well as a cornucopia of other stats he pulled directly from his ass, Trump rejected proposals from both congressional leaders and his own vice president to end the shutdown. Eventually the standoff will end, presumably without money for a wall a minor detail that is unlikely to stop President It’s Already Built and Mexico Paid for It from declaring victory.

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