BORDER/CHUCK SCHUMER/GOVERMENT/MITCH MCCONNELL/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The day before the 35-day government shutdown ended, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell huddled privately to figure out some way everyone could save face and end the biggest congressional crisis in years. The Senate majority leader first floated providing a pro-rated piece of wall money for President Donald Trump, which Schumer rejected. Then the minority leader tried to isolate the troubled Department of Homeland Security spending bill and fund the rest of the government, which McConnell spurned…When Trump first announced he was giving Congress three weeks to reach a border security deal, few in Washington thought bipartisan negotiations would achieve anything. But the story of how the conference committee and its leaders succeeded after so many brutal months fighting over Trump’s wall is a simple one, according to more than a dozen lawmakers and aides: Trump largely stayed out of it. And seasoned veterans were allowed to do what they’ve done their entire congressional careers — figure out diplomatic ways to spend hundreds of billions of dollars.”
–Burgess Everett and Heather Cayle, “How Schumer and McConnell kept Trump out of the shutdown talks,” Politico, February 15, 2019 10:11 am