BORDER/CHUCK SCHUMER/DEMS/IMMIGRATION/NANCY PELOSI/SPENDING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “It was Round 1: Nancy Pelosi vs. President Trump. The likely new House speaker arrived at the White House on Tuesday [12-11-18] afternoon, ready to take on the president. The subject was a potential government shutdown, and funding for Mr. Trump’s beloved wall. What followed was a remarkable televised exchange between a veteran congressional leader and a president who is far less experienced but rarely challenged to his face in public, especially by a woman. Right off the bat, Ms. Pelosi referred to a ‘Trump shutdown,’ knowing full well it would set off the president. (It did.) Then she called Mr. Trump’s bluff — ‘O.K., then do it, then do it,’ she taunted — when he suggested House Republicans could easily pass a spending bill that included wall funding. When he interrupted her, she interrupted him, her voice calm and steady, her ‘Mr. Presidents’ constant, even as he wagged his finger and called her ‘Nancy’.”
-Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Annie Karni, “Pelosi vs. Trump: ‘Don’t Characterize the Strength That I Bring,’ She Says,” The New York Times online, December 11, 2018