Donald Trump’s propensity for self-sabotage has played out over the course of his presidency in increasingly remarkable ways, crippling an already dysfunctional administration and, at its most severe, leading to an investigation that could jeopardize his seat in the White House. So far, among other things, the president has fired F.B.I. Director James Comey; undermined his aides as they tried to justify his decision; blabbed to Russian officials about classified intelligence; and repeatedly given his opponents ammunition for legal arguments against him. And on Tuesday, yet another of Trump’s unwitting tweets put the kibosh on a bipartisan meeting to avoid a fast-approaching government shutdown, an event that would call his competency even further into question.

Trump had been scheduled to meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, along with their Republican counterparts, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, on Tuesday afternoon. Hours before said meeting, he tweeted, “Meeting with ‘Chuck and Nancy’ today about keeping government open and working. Problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on Crime and want to substantially RAISE Taxes. I don’t see a deal!”

Such aspersions did not sit well with Schumer and Pelosi, who made an on-the-spot decision to pull out of the “show meeting.” “Given that the president doesn’t see a deal between Democrats and the White House, we believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress instead,” they said in a joint statement. “If the president . . . isn’t interested in addressing the difficult year-end agenda, we’ll work with those Republicans who are,” they continued. “We look forward to continuing to work in good faith, as we have been for the last month, with our Republican colleagues in Congress to do just that.”

Ryan and McConnell, however, declined to meet separately with Democratic leadership. “We have important work to do, and Democratic leaders have continually found new excuses not to meet with the administration to discuss these issues,” they said in their own joint statement. “There is a meeting at the White House this afternoon, and if Democrats want to reach an agreement, they will be there.” The White House responded in kind. “The president’s invitation to the Democrat leaders still stands, and he encourages them to put aside their pettiness, stop the political grandstanding, show up and get to work,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “These issues are too important.”

Schumer and Pelosi’s withdrawal is less scathing comeuppance than roadblock for Democrats, who are hoping to include a number of provisions in the year-end spending bill, among them protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, a stabilization measure for the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets, and the reauthorization of the lapsed Children’s Health Insurance Program. The last time Trump tried his hand at budget negotiations he unexpectedly sided with Schumer and Pelosi over members of his own party, agreeing to a short-term debt-ceiling increase of three months, which funded the government through December 8. With just eight business days remaining before the money runs out, Democrats expected (and needed) to forge ahead in negotiations with the Republican leadership and the White House, but Trump’s unprompted jab at their immigration policy made it all but impossible for Pelosi and Schumer to be seen joining Trump at the table. Now they’ll be forced to put their legislative goals on hold until such time as the president sees fit to still his itchy Twitter fingers. Trump, for his part, seems blissfully unconcerned by the prospect of the U.S. government turning off the lights. “Our country needs a good shutdown . . . to fix this mess,” he declared in May.