Donald Trump meeting with Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders Credit:AP But in the meeting, Trump embraced a Democratic demand that the lights be kept on for three months, pushing a bruising brawl over spending cuts into the 2018 election year, and not the 18 month delay sought by the Republicans. That would have catapulted the next debt and spending showdown beyond the 2018 elections. The Republicans were ambushed. They thought they could win by tying politically sensitive hurricane relief to their 18-month proposal. The Democrats made the same strategic calculation, tying the relief funding to their three-month proposal – and Trump bought it. Before going to the Oval Office on Wednesday for what he reportedly believed would be little more than a photo-op, Ryan dismissed the Democrat's three-month proposal as "ridiculous and disgraceful". His humiliation was complete after the meeting, when he felt obliged to speak in praise of what had become the president's plan.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Credit:AP GOP conservatives went on the attack. Twisting the name of Trump's book Art of the Deal, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse declared: "Yesterday we saw Washington's swamp continue to rise: Chuck Schumer wrote the art of the steal by taking hurricane relief hostage to guarantee a December showdown that favours Democratic spending priorities." As analysed by The New York Times: "The legislative reality for the GOP's hard right is brutal: every Democratic entreaty the president accepts erodes the conservative bloc's power, which is rooted in its ability to push Republican-only initiatives — like this year's health-care effort and the coming tax overhaul effort — further to the right." Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer speak with Dreamers - migrants who came to the US as children and may be deported by the Trump administration. Credit:AP On Wednesday, Trump was focused on short-term political gains – getting urgently needed assistance for the victim of Hurricane Harvey through Congress and opening a window in which Congress might debate his overhaul of the American tax system.

By Thursday morning, Trump saw even greater opportunities to work with the Democrats, chewing the fat in follow-up phone calls with Schumer and Pelosi. Reports of this prompted even more gnashing of teeth in GOP ranks. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Credit:Bloomberg Later the president told reporters of his hopes for even greater bipartisanship: "I think we will have a different relationship than we've been watching over the last number of years. I hope so. I think that's a great thing for our country. "And I think that's what the people of the US want to see. They want to see some dialogue. They want to see coming together to an extent." Donald Trump talks with House Speaker Paul Ryan in May Credit:AP

Schumer hedged his bets, telling The New York Times: "Seeing is believing." But like his fellow New Yorker Trump, Schumer revelled in the possibilities, adding: "We'll see. I think it'd be much better for the country and much better for Donald Trump if he was much more in the middle and bipartisan, rather than siding with the hard right. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Credit:AP "I think he got a taste of it yesterday. We'll see if it continues. I hope it does." Schumer cheerfully sketched scenarios in which he envisaged Trump abandoning the conservative wing of the GOP, working instead with Democrats on issues like trade and infrastructure. And there were reports that he and Trump already were working up a plan to get rid of the debt ceiling altogether, thereby robbing Republican hardliners of a critical point of leverage in their relentless demands for cuts in government spending.

But Schumer drew a line. Having thrown young illegal immigrants, the so-called Dreamers, to the wolves this week, Schumer said the president would have to help rescue them, as he seemingly wants to do. And Schumber warned that any hope Democrats would vote to fund Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico was a bridge too far. Trump, in reality a politician without a party, sees a bit of himself in Schumer. And over the years he has shown more affection for Pelosi. In 2007, he used a felt marker to scrawl "Nancy – you're the best," on a news report of her appointment as the first female House Speaker, which he then framed and sent to her. By contrast he has mocked and ridiculed Ryan and McConnell, in part for their failure to strong-arm his legislative agenda through Congress, in particular the "repeal and replace" of the Obamacare health insurance scheme. Analysts parsed Trump's motivation in various ways. Perhaps it was frustration over the absence of any big legislative wins. Perhaps it was his friendship with Schumer (back in the day, he hosted a fundraiser for Schumer at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida); or revenge (just another opportunity to make Ryan and McConnell squirm); or thwarting critics who accuse him of abandoning his election promise to govern as a bipartisan, deal-cutting businessman. He may even have been motivated by daring – he has concluded that Republican voters will stick with him and it's time to go after Democratic voters.

The rationale on that last point is that in hewing to the right in most of his decision-making, Trump has kept his core support. But he has steadily lost the support of moderates, many of whom railed against him over Tuesday's decision on the Dreamers but who, he hopes, will be impressed by a quick and clean decision on funding for hurricane relief. Some thought the president had gone overboard. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal harrumphed: "Mr. Trump is sore that Republican leaders failed on health care, so he now undermines their fiscal strategy and all but hands the gavels to Democrats."