BORDER/BUDGET/CHUCK SCHUMER/DEMS/NANCY PELOSI/SPENDING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “President Donald Trump just made it nearly impossible for Republicans to blame Democrats for an increasingly likely partial government shutdown. But they’re going to try anyway. House Republicans are considering passing a stopgap spending bill that provides $5 billion for Trump’s border wall, essentially daring Senate Democrats to accept it or face the fallout of any funding lapse next week, according to multiple GOP sources. But Democrats — and some Republicans — aren’t taking the gambit seriously after Trump boasted that he’d be ‘proud’ to shut down the government over his wall demands during an extraordinary televised Oval Office clash with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday…Coming off a remarkable exchange between Trump, Schumer and Pelosi, congressional Republicans were reeling as they tried to adjust to the president’s stunning willingness to own an impending partial shutdown over his wall demands. For weeks, the GOP had been attacking Democrats for their unwillingness to help Trump shore up the border.”
–Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan, “Trump jams Republicans with shutdown vow,” Politico, December 11, 2018 6:57 pm