On Tuesday, right about at lunchtime, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer dropped down the street to the White House to have a chat with the president*. What followed was a piece of video that will live forever as a window into this sludgepot of a political moment. It is not that remarkable if you've ever watched Question Time from any of the various parliaments around the world. (I mean, holy Oliver Cromwell, somebody presented the mace in the House of Commons on Monday.) But, because the American government is greased by tawdry piety and transparently artificial civility, the meeting might as well have taken place in the Octogon.

The single most lasting impression of this altogether remarkable bit of reality-show theater was the look we got into what happens when people tell this particular president* that he can't have what he wants.

Watch as Pelosi tries, not altogether angrily, to explain to him that he doesn't have the votes for the big, beautiful, stupid wall for which, of course, Mexico is going to pay. She says the votes aren't there. He keeps saying he can get them instantly, but that the problem is that he can't get the votes in the Senate. They're both right. He doesn't have the votes in either place. But he runs down all the applause lines that get the rubes all ginned up at his rallies, and Pelosi keeps calmly telling him that, while he's as full of shit as the Christmas goose, nevertheless he and his big, beautiful, stupid wall should get further stuffed anyway.

Pelosi, Pence, Trump, and Schumer BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Getty Images

(You should also notice that, off to one side, Mike Pence clearly has been shot with the trank gun by the Secret Service.)

Even Schumer suddenly discovers a thin vein of iron in his spine and maneuvers El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago into bragging about shutting down the government unless he gets his way, thereby undercutting any political strategy the Republicans in Congress might have been developing to blame a prospective shutdown on the Democrats. That sound you hear is the Republican congressional leadership taking delivery of a barge-load of bourbon.

Welcome to the next two years, and thank nature's god for them.

Pelosi has the president in her pocket and she knows it. (It will dawn on him eventually, too. Maybe.) The House controls the budget and, in January, the Democratic Party will hold the House. Since any argument about Pelosi's being an Accommodating Liberal Sellout should die with the release of this video, she will be the Speaker—and, as such, she can shred his administration*. This is the most essential part.

PELOSI: You have the White House. You have the Senate. You have the House of Representatives. You have the votes. You should pass it.

TRUMP: No, we don't have the votes, Nancy, because in the Senate we need 60 votes, and we don't have it (ph).

The Art of the Deal BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Getty Images

PELOSI: No, no, but in the House, you could bring it up right now.

TRUMP: Yes, but I can't -- excuse me, but I can't get it passed in the House if it's not going to pass in the Senate; I don't want to waste time.

PELOSI: Well, the fact is, you can get it started that way.

TRUMP: The House we could get passed very easily, and we do.

PELOSI: OK, then do it. Then do it.

You can even do it now, in the last few weeks of the Republican majority, and it still might not pass. (Outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan is too exhausted from burnishing his own faded legend to whip votes for a measure that is DOA on the other side of the Capitol.) She knows he's a loser here, and she will patiently explain how he's a loser as many times as he wants to say he's not. Later:

TRUMP: If I needed the votes for the wall in the House, I would have them in one session; it would be done.

PELOSI: Well, then go do it. Go do it.

TRUMP: It doesn't help, because we need 10 Democrats in the Senate.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Getty Images

PELOSI: No, don't put it on the Senate; put it on -- put it on the negotiation.

TRUMP: OK, let me ask you this, just -- and we're doing this in a very friendly manner. It doesn't help for me to take a vote in the House where I will win easily with the Republicans.

PELOSI: You will not win.

Loser.

As I said, this was a notable exchange only in that it happened among American politicians. There are exchanges overseas that make this sound like a Sunday school chorale. But that's what makes it all the more compelling. It happened here, and in the White House, and in the president*'s face. Fundamentally, this was mockery, and eminently well-deserved. And, in case anyone, including the president*, missed the point, Pelosi was more than happy to sharpen it for him. From Politico:

“It’s like a manhood thing with him — as if manhood can be associated with him,” she deadpanned. “This wall thing.”

Deadpanned. Emphasis on "dead."

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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