Democrats are trying not to gloat until after Trump signs the border and spending bill

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer meet the press
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spoke with President Trump on the phone at least three times Thursday as Trump balked over signing the bipartisan spending bill that includes $1.375 billion for border fencing, not $5.7 billion for the border wall he demanded, The Washington Post reports, citing more than two dozen sources. McConnell and other Senate Republicans had "spent recent days on the phone, soothing him" and telling him Democrats lost, and when Trump finally agreed to sign the bill, McConnell rushed to the Senate floor, The New York Times adds, "interrupting a colleague's speech to announce Mr. Trump's decision, in effect locking it in before he could change his mind."

With Trump pairing his decision with a legally dubious emergency declaration, "White House officials insisted Thursday that Trump was acting in a defiant and assertive way," the Post reports, but "few Republicans, including the president's closest allies, were pleased with the ending. ... Yet for Trump, the negotiations were never really about figuring out how to win. They were about figuring out how to lose — and how to cast his ultimate defeat as victory instead."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.