You may be worried about how our Large, Adult President is faring through this government shutdown. Granted, he caused the shutdown singlehandedly because Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh said mean things about him on the television. Granted, he is not suffering in the way that federal workers, who will be robbed of their paychecks tomorrow should this continue, are. Granted, he's not one of the federal contractors who will probably never get back pay, or the Coast Guard folks who've been encouraged to hold garage sales to make ends meet, or the Native Americans whose services have been slashed. And granted, he will not accept any resolution that does not include funding for his Big, Beautiful Middle Finger From White America Monument.

But according to Democrats who attended a meeting with him yesterday, via The New York Times, it seems the stress might be getting to our fearless leader:

President Trump stormed out of a White House meeting with congressional leaders on Wednesday after Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not fund a border wall even if he agreed to reopen the government, escalating a confrontation that has shuttered large portions of the government for 19 days and counting.

Stunned Democrats emerged from the meeting in the White House Situation Room declaring that the president had thrown a “temper tantrum” and slammed his hands on the table before leaving with an abrupt “bye-bye.” Republicans disputed the hand slam and blamed Democratic intransigence for prolonging the standoff.

Everything's going great! Who wouldn't want a president who shuts down the government on impulse—derailing the lives of millions—and then, despite being an Artful Dealmaker, repeatedly and completely fails to grasp the concept of leverage?

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After all, in polling, a majority of Americans oppose The Wall. Trump campaigned in 2018 on a supposed "invasion" at the southern border and building The Wall to stop it, only to get trounced in the midterms. Then he threatened to shut down the government live on television—and guaranteed he'd take the blame—if he didn't get his Wall money. Now, in polling, 47 percent blame Trump for the shutdown and a five percent blame Republicans in Congress. Just 33 percent blame Democrats. Privately, he tells people he thinks he can't win reelection unless he can sell The Base on the idea he's started building The Wall. And all this, he believes, makes Democrats more likely to fold to his demands. Artful Dealmaking, indeed.

Inevitably, this led to another entry in the encyclopedia of He Doth Protest Too Much:

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Cryin Chuck told his favorite lie when he used his standard sound bite that I “slammed the table & walked out of the room. He had a temper tantrum.” Because I knew he would say that, and after Nancy said no to proper Border Security, I politely said bye-bye and left, no slamming! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2019

It really should not feel so quotidian to see the President of the United States calling the Democratic leader in the United States Senate "Cryin' Chuck," but here we are. (This nickname is a reference to when Schumer showed empathy for his constituents who would be affected by the president's Definitely Not a Muslim Ban. He was roundly ridiculed by the right in a stunning measure of the moral decay of our politics.) It's not clear how this is Schumer's "standard soundbite," or why Trump would leave the meeting early if he "knew he would say that." That seems like a way of giving him ammo to say that.

What is common to every account is that the president said "bye-bye"—as one does—and stormed out early when Nancy Pelosi refused to change her negotiating position in response to...the president's position continually getting weaker. We can pretty safely assume he also slammed the table, if only because he says 15 false things a day and this is likely just one of them. In related news, this is the president's stance now on his core fucking promise during the campaign that Mexico would pay for The Wall:

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Trump: "When I said Mexico would pay for the wall in front of thousands and thousands of people .... obviously I never meant Mexico would write a check." — Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) January 10, 2019

No wonder we were subjected to nonsense about drug money and trade deals paying for The Wall in the Oval Office speech. In another bit of rampant gaslighting, Republicans have now suggested it's Democrats who are fixated on the idea Trump wants a literal wall—as if the last three years did not happen, and Trump did not always say it would be concrete and 30 feet high, and as if Trump did not call it a "wall" in the meeting with Democrats yesterday.

In a remarkable study of how straight-news anchors have adopted the tropes of the Jon Stewart-era Daily Show to deal with a political moment that is more absurd than the satire, Chris Hayes of MSNBC put together a segment mocking all of this this week.

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Speaking of deception, the president gave the game away Wednesday on his threat to declare a national emergency at the border. While there is a humanitarian crisis for the people who have come to our land seeking asylum—many of whom are women and children and families, and who have a legal right to a hearing under domestic and international law—there is no "invasion" or huge influx of illegal border-crossings. (Trump head-faked towards the humanitarian issues in his Oval Office speech Tuesday, but his administration's border policies have only exacerbated them.) In fact, illegal border crossings are down significantly in recent years, and net flow into the United States is around zero or negative.

Still, Trump felt the need to say the quiet parts out loud about his national-emergency idea:

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TRUMP: I have the absolute right to do national emergency if I want.



REPORTER: What’s your threshold for when you might make that decision?



TRUMP: My threshold will be if I can’t make a deal with people that are unreasonable.pic.twitter.com/8LwEQIIwji — JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) January 9, 2019

If something is a legitimate emergency, how could you possibly wait to see the outcome of some weeks-long negotiation process to act? We've got to do something right now! Oh, you're just threatening to abuse the powers vested in you as a way to get leverage in the negotiations, and your plan to declare an emergency is totally detached from the actual reality on the ground at the border? You want to hock a loogie on the Constitution by seizing funds not appropriated by Congress to build a Wall a majority don't want in order to appease right-wing talking heads on the teevee?

This seems like abuse of power, and abuse of the public trust. Why does that sound so familiar?

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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