After cancelling a Nancy Pelosi-led congressional delegation to visit troops in Afghanistan with such little notice that some members of Congress were already on the soon-to-depart bus—in the process exposing a trip that was still being held secret for security concerns—Team Trump began to take heat for cancelling a Congressional trip to visit U.S. troops while multiple members of his own staff were still preparing to jet off to the famously posh surroundings of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
It didn't take too long for the White House geniuses to figure out that they had shot themselves in the foot with that one, and now the Davos trip is off too. "Out of consideration for the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay and to ensure his team can assist as needed," says theoretical press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump is nixing it.
It’s yet another smooth move from the White House: Attempt a punitive move against the House Speaker for delaying Donald Trump's televised speech, only to realize after publicizing it that the justification used is one that would obviously foul Team Trump's own planned trips.
And this is why we're still in a shutdown, America: Government by tantrum, paired with a complete inability for anyone in the White House to game out the consequences of their actions even in four-hour stretches.