Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are headed to the White House Tuesday to meet with Individual 1, who spent the early hours of the day preparing for that meeting rage-tweeting about the topic of that meeting: his great, glorious wall.
It's all a little confusing. On the one hand, Trump insists in these tweets that much of the "Wall" has "already been built." It has not. Then he insists, if Democrats don't agree to fund the Wall that is somehow being built anyway, "the Military" will build the rest of it. Never mind that that's not how government funding works and that the title of commander-in-chief does not give him the power to instruct where money appropriated by Congress goes.
The delusions don't stop there, as Trump continues to wind himself up to make the shutdown happen. He remains steadfast in his belief that shutting down government is really great politics. On Friday he said he was going to win this because "I actually think the politics of what they're doing is very bad for them. […] We're going to very soon find out. Maybe I'm not right. But usually I'm right."
A 40-seat Democratic wave election would argue otherwise.
Schumer and Pelosi released a joint statement Monday, saying that the country "cannot afford a Trump Shutdown," adding that Trump "knows full well that his wall proposal does not have the votes to pass the House and Senate and should not be an obstacle to a bipartisan agreement." He's still, apparently, insisting on $5 billion for the wall. The Democrats won't go higher than the $1.3 billion included in the already negotiated Department of Homeland Security funding bill "for fencing and other security measures at the border."
There's no reason they should go into the negotiations with that. Given Trump's delusions, they should offer $0. He says the wall is magically being built anyway, why does he need any money? They're clearly trying to negotiate with a madman, so they might as well approach this on his level. He gets nothing for a wall.