12/14/2018 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com
Contrary to liberal
media reporting, the Oval Office meeting with President Trump, Democratic House
leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was a win for
Trump, both in substance and in tone.
The meeting gave people
an opportunity to see who fears transparency, who's misrepresenting his/her
position and who is being the aggressor in the border debate, and it's not
Donald Trump.
Instead of listening to
the media's version, watch the video. President Trump set the tone of the
meeting, and it was decidedly cordial, saying it was a great honor to have
Pelosi and Schumer there and acknowledging that they've worked very hard on
various bipartisan initiatives, such as criminal justice reform and the farm
bill.
Trump then turned to
"the wall," saying Republicans support it and he would like to avoid
a government shutdown over the issue while acknowledging that it is a very difficult
issue because Republicans and Democrats are "on very opposite sides."
When Trump surrendered
the floor to Pelosi, she immediately invoked the subject of a government
shutdown, saying the American people recognize that we must keep the government
open -- as if that, and not border security, were the overriding issue -- and
warning, "You should not have a Trump shutdown."
Notice the blatantly
calculating way she spun this as a "Trump shutdown" rather than a
possible impasse that could lead to a government shutdown. Also note: Pelosi
drew first blood, and it was deliberate.
After a minor skirmish
over whether Trump should initiate a bill in the House that would be sure to
fail in the Senate, Pelosi, playing to the camera, said, "We're here to
have a conversation in a prayerful way, so I don't think we should have a
debate in front of the press." Pelosi knows that a House bill could not
survive a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, yet she continued to press Trump
to offer a bill.
Schumer began his remarks
by insulting Trump, saying The Washington Post gave him "a whole lot of
Pinocchios" on the wall and stressing that Democrats have "a
disagreement ... not on border security but on the wall." He chided Trump
for calling for a shutdown 20 times, ignoring that Trump had specifically said
in this meeting that he does not want that.
Then a frustrated
Pelosi said they needed to call a halt to the discussion because they had come
in to the meeting in good faith to discuss with Trump how they could keep the
government open. Again, Trump was not the one talking about a shutdown; he was
talking about the wall and border security, the former being indispensable to
the latter. Like Pelosi, Schumer said they should "debate in
private," while Pelosi was insultingly mumbling, "We have taken this
conversation to a place that is devoid, frankly, of fact." In other words,
"You're lying, President Trump, because you won't agree to our partisan
version of reality."
Schumer insisted that
border security is possible without a wall and that experts say a wall would be
wasteful -- implying, with a straight face, that the Democratic leadership can
get exercised over the expenditure of government money. Pelosi lamented again
that they were having the debate in public after having come in to the meeting
in good faith, and Trump rightly noted, "It's not bad, Nancy. It's called
transparency." So it was Nancy's "good-faith" expectation that
Trump would just sit back and take their insults and not discuss the issue that
could lead to the dreaded shutdown?
Pelosi responded,
"It's not transparency when we're not stipulating to a set of facts."
Are you kidding me? Unless you agree with Democrats on the facts, the
discussion can't be transparent? This is the same logic by which leftists ban expression
of opinions that don't agree with theirs. I hope people are paying attention.
Just as the mood was
beginning to soften, Schumer again turned to Trump and accused him of wanting
to shut the government down, and again Trump denied it. It was only after
repeated haranguing that Trump indicated he was tired of playing semantic games
and said that if they want to put the shutdown on him, fine, he would be
willing to shut down the government if he could not get the wall.
How can anyone believe
that the Democrats support border security -- wall or no wall -- when they have
repeatedly broken their promises to work with Republicans on it, when they
demonize all opponents of illegal immigration and amnesty as racists, when they
oppose all reasonable measures to guard the border, and when many of them
actually advocate the elimination of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
After the meeting,
Pelosi and Schumer continued vilifying Trump, with Schumer describing Trump's
behavior in the meeting as a "temper tantrum" and Pelosi telling
colleagues, "It goes to show you: You get into a tinkle contest with a
skunk, you get tinkle all over you. ... It's like a manhood thing for him -- as
if manhood could ever be associated with him."
It's undeniable that
Pelosi and Schumer initiated the aggressive exchanges, that they personally
insulted Trump and were rude and condescending to him, that they openly
objected to transparency, and that they misrepresented their own position on
border security.
Say what you want about
Trump, but he very honestly said that he was determined to get a border wall,
that he preferred to have this discussion in front of the entire world and that
he would be willing for the government to shut down over it. Pelosi and Schumer
are just as willing to shut down the government over it but unwilling to be
honest about it.
I applaud President
Trump for bringing this issue front and center and exposing the fraudulent and
reckless position of the Democratic leadership on border security.
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