From the Washington Post, we're learning how Trump's staff is trying to manage their supposed boss: They're doing everything they can to keep him away from the negotiating table because his staff is terrified Trump will strike a deal to reopen the government.
After the shutdown began, Trump rebuffed his instincts and did not call Schumer, advisers said, and was buoyed by aides doing a full television blitz — a public strategy partially prepared by West Wing officials worried Trump would be inclined to strike a deal quickly if the media coverage turned poor.
That Schumer call was instead handled by chief of staff John Kelly, who rebuffed completely the agreement Schumer and Trump had previously been trying to work out, instead making new, even more hardline demands.
It's not just his own staff that's trying hard to keep Trump away from any negotiations. House Republicans are in on it as well.
When House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) spoke with Trump Saturday, he told the president that Democrats had taken an “unreasonable” stance and were in an untenable situation, according to a person familiar with the call.
That "unreasonable" stance is that the government must not undertake mass deportations of child immigrants, which is the stance favored both by most Democratic voters and most Republican voters. Trump himself has long made noises about needing to accommodate those immigrants as well, and that is almost certainly why his staff is jingling all the keys they can find in an effort to keep him away from the phones and away from their negotiations. His staff is willing to keep the government shut down—but what they aren’t willing to do is soften their stance on child immigrants.
There's three positions, on DACA: The Democratic position, the Republican position, and the white nationalist position. Right now Trump's staff, led by John Kelly, and the House Freedom Caucus are pulling out all the stops in an effort to force the House and Senate to stand aside as their White House implements the beginnings of what will be, if DACA protections are reversed, a wave of mass deportations that is ragingly unpopular with voters but a central demand of white nationalist and anti-immigration leaders.
Since Trump might stand in the way of this plan, his staff is coordinating with hardliner House Republicans to keep him Trump away from the negotiations entirely. He's not in charge of his own White House. Whatever the White House position on the shutdown has morphed into, he's not in charge of that either.