No wall, yet. Photo: Hector Vivas/LatinContent/Getty Images

On August 22, as President Trump stood in front of a disappointingly small crowd in Phoenix, he addressed the possibility that money for his beloved border wall would not be included in the bill needed to fund the government past the end of September. “Believe me, if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall,” he said.

Now, he’s backed away from the the threat, telling Congressional Republican leaders that he’ll sign a bill to kept the government operating even if it lacks the $1.6 billion he wants to begin construction on 74 new miles of wall.

Trump’s failure to follow through on his threat doesn’t end this fight so much as delay it. The “continuing resolution” that Congress will use to fund the government will likely expire in December, when we’ll get to do this all over again.

But now that Trump has twice threatened government shutdown over funding of the wall and caved when his bluff was called, he will want to come up with a new threat by then.